The GameCube[h][i] is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on 14 September 2001, in North America on 18 November 2001, in Europe on 3 May 2002, and in Australia on 22 April 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64. As a sixth-generation console, the GameCube primarily competed with the PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Nintendo began developing the GameCube in 1998 after entering a partnership with ArtX to design a graphics processing unit. The console was formally announced under the codename "Dolphin" the following year, and was released in 2001 as the GameCube. It is Nintendo's first console to use optical discs instead of ROM cartridges, supplemented by writable memory cards for saved games. Unlike its competitors, it is solely focused on gaming and does not play mass media like DVD or CD. The console supports limited online gaming for a few games via a GameCube broadband or modem adapter and can connect to a Game Boy Advance with a link cable for exclusive in-game features using the handheld as a second screen and controller. The GameCube supports e-Reader cards to unlock special features in a few games. The Game Boy Player add-on runs Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance cartridge games. Reception of the GameCube was mixed. It was praised for its controller and high quality games library, but was criticized for its lack of multimedia features. Premier games include Super Mario Sunshine, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Star Fox Adventures, Metroid Prime, Mario Kart: Double Dash, Pikmin, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Animal Crossing, and Luigi's Mansion. Nintendo sold 21.74 million GameCube units worldwide,[j] much fewer than anticipated, and discontinued it in 2007. It was succeeded by the Wii in 2006.
Near the end of the second tournament, Kei Ikushima, after defeating Regulus in the finals, discovers that the underground laboratory's self-destruct mechanism has been activated. As she was about to make her escape, she would end up crossing paths with Eileen A. once again. Kei tried to escape the lab with Eileen, but she hesitated, instead telling Kei the answer she was looking: Kei was actually the daughter of none other than the CEO of Orion Corporation, Ranzou Kihara. She then gives Kei a letter before telling her to go on and leave the building without her. Kei hesitates at first but soon obliges as the lab eventually explodes, leaving Eileen behind, her fate unknown. Three years after the explosion at the Orion labs, Kei finds out more about her past from the letter Eileen gave her before the incident. She also found out that her DNA was taken for usage in Orion's Perfect Fighter Project, the very same set of experiments that orphaned her adoptive father Shin and ruined the lives of many others. Fast forward to several weeks before Kei’s 20th birthday, several attacks on various martial artists have been reported. All of them perpetrated by people who bore a striking semblance to Kei. As a result, Kei has been blamed for all the attacks, despite having no hand on them. Kei then began to suspect that it had something to do with the Perfect Fighter Project that Eileen had mentioned. Then, on the day of Kei’s 20th birthday, Orion announces the third Sentoki: Global Martial Arts tournament. Kei joins the tournament in order to cleanse her name and find out the truth of it all.
