Dolphin Depot: GameCube “Homebrew Channel

Developer Webhdx has just launched “Dolphin Depot”, which is essentially an app store / homebrew channel for the GameCube. Your GC would require internet access, but luckily there’s now affordable homebrew NIC’s available. The main site lets you browse all the apps available right from a browser, which is also handy. Also, your GameCube would (obviously) need the ability to launch homebrew software, but doing so has never been easier: Something like a Pico Loader lets you run homebrew from something like an SD2SP2, while also retaining full functionality of the original optical drive. Then you can just launch Swiss and run this app. There’s also clear criteria for how to get your app on the channel as well. Check out the main page for more info:

Main Page: https://dolphindepot.org/
Homebrew NIC: https://retrorgb.com/usb-dolphin-usb-adapter-for-gamecube.html

I personally love the convenience of community-made app stores, with tons of software all easily accessible in one place. I just extracted it to my MicroSD card, then booted my HD CRT cart, that’s connected to my network. I then just launched Dolphin Depot via Swiss, just like any other app. It connected to the network, then showed a list of software to download. Downloading and installing was all as easy as you’d expect, which came in handy, as Robert Dale Smith’s joypad tester was one of the apps available and I needed it to test a faulty controller anyway!

One thing to note, is even if you launch Dolphin Depot from your network via the File Service Protocol, apps will still download to the MicroSD. I think this is the right solution for 99% of users, but maybe that’ll be an option in a future release.

And of course, you no longer need to hunt down expensive original Broadband Adapters to get your GC online, making this something anyone with a GC can easily upgrade to – Although here’s an eBay paid affiliate link if you’re interested in the original: https://ebay.us/PShCc2

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