By September 2005, the Xbox 360 was two months away. The GameCube was effectively dead in the water—Nintendo had already shifted focus to the Nintendo DS and the upcoming Wii. Midway probably crunched the numbers and realized that porting a violent M-rated game to a platform with a smaller user base (and one dominated by first-party Nintendo titles) wasn't worth the cost.

The feature that ultimately broke the GameCube port’s back was the inclusion of a fully playable, hidden version of Mortal Kombat II . Acting as a bonus mode for completing five secret missions in the main campaign, this feature was a massive hit with fans on the PS2 and Xbox.

This was arguably the best two-player co-op game of 2005. IGN gushed that the cooperative gameplay was “some of, if not the best, co-op play around”. There was no friendly fire, and players could perform devastating team throws, pass enemies back and forth, and access specific areas and items that were locked in single-player mode.

: Less muddy environments in the Netherrealm and Outworld.

However, one major question has lingered among Nintendo fans for over two decades:

: Midway initially supported the GameCube with Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002), which sold respectably.

The PS2 version had a secret playable character (Johnny Cage via a cheat code). The Xbox version ran in 720p. The GameCube version? It offers Progressive Scan mode (480p) if you have the component cables, but no extra fatalities or unlockables unique to the platform.

The confusion often stems from the fact that other Mortal Kombat games from the same era were available on the system:

Players could attack enemies from all sides. The system allowed for fluid combos, juggles, and quick target switching. Ko-Op Mode

Actually, was never officially released for the Nintendo GameCube . While other contemporary titles like Mortal Kombat: Deception eventually received GameCube ports , Shaolin Monks remained exclusive to the PlayStation 2 and Xbox . The Missing GameCube Port

The most significant technical hurdle for any multi-platform GameCube developer was Nintendo’s proprietary optical disc format. While the PS2 and Xbox utilized standard DVDs capable of holding up to 4.7 GB (and dual-layer DVDs holding up to 8.5 GB), the GameCube miniDVD maxed out at 1.46 GB.