Before it was released, a tech demo for the Gamecube was developed which featured an explorable version of Princess Peach's castle. This demo was later leaked online.

The working title for the GameCube was the Dolphin. As a result, many games from the GameCube era reference this, such as Super Mario Sunshine's setting being in the shape of a dolphin (the island is also named Isle Delfino; "Delfino" is Italian for "Dolphin") and Captain Olimar's ship in Pikmin being named the S.S. Dolphin. The GPU of the machine is named "Flipper", another reference to the console's codename.

The soft reflections used for the GameCube's startup animation and menu are the same texture file that Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask use for shiny items.

By holding "z" on either one or all four controllers, you will hear alternate startup music.

There is a microscopic image of a Dolphin within a computer chip inside the GameCube, referencing the GameCube's codename during development.

The GameCube's BIOS menu has slow, seemingly random ambient background music.

This background music, when sped up to sixteen times its normal speed, is actually the intro jingle for the Famicom Disk System, a Famicom add-on released by Nintendo in 1986.