USB-C PD Power Cable

Description

This USB-C PD Power Cable replaces the bulky GameCube power brick with a much more modern (and smaller) USB-PD (power delivery) power supply. The cable has the proprietary GameCube DC power connector on one side and a male USB-C connector on the other. The power draw of the GameCube makes it ideal to replace with a mid-tier ~60W PD source.

Notably, the GameCube (and Wii) uses 12V, which is an optional output for PD chargers to support. So one needs to carefully pair this with a sufficiently powerful adaptor that will output the required voltage. By design, given the cable’s internal electronics would be ‘requested’ 12V, if that were unavailable it can fall back to 9V, which will probably see the console not boot but not do any permanent damage.

An alternative to this cable is a small PCB and 3D printed housing that fits within the console itself. The daughterboard that provided the power input port was removable (great for repairing since kids break stuff), making it a quick swap out for an internal USB-C port that in similar fashion requests 12 V from any source.

Similar cables exist for other consoles, particularly the Wii and Wii U, which have similar but intentionally mechanically incompatible connectors. In general these provide a great convenience over the existing (now quite bulky) power supplies, allowing you to have one single high quality power supply that provides all necessary voltages and can even power multiple consoles simultaneously.