Did you know that back in 2002, SEGA, Namco, and Nintendo worked together to develop an arcade system? Well they did, and it was very appropriately called the Triforce which served as a representation of the three companies partnership as well as a nod to the very well known Nintendo franchise, Zelda.
Probably one of the most interesting things about this arcade system, is that is it based on the Nintendo Gamecube’s hardware to the point were the system utilizes a nearly stock Gamecube motherboard.
This arcade platform had games developed for it over a roughly 5 year period, with its last game being published in 2007 (Mario Kart Arcade GP 2). Now compared to some of the other arcade platforms of the time, such as Sega’s Naomi and Naomi 2, the Triforce didn’t have very many games produced for it. Only twelve games were released for the platform with the more popular ones being the Mario Kart Arcade GP series developed by Namco as well as F-Zero AX (which was a port of F-Zero GX for the Gamecube).
So what was the rationale for using Gamecube hardware? Well, this drastically reduced development costs since the Triforce primarily utilized existing hardware. Additionally, it was easier to port over games from the Nintendo Gamecube library and adapted them for use in an arcade environment.
While the legacy of the Triforce may not be totally groundbreaking, I think it is a very cool piece of gaming history and an interesting story where two once bitter rivals came together to deliver novel gaming hardware.
Check out the video for more details on the system as well as a partial disassembly of the Triforce arcade platform.
