I guess I could research but I thought I’d ask. I had a silver GC back in 2002-2004 and around 2009, my dork-ass brother mailed my GameCube to a friend across the country because he wanted to play an online game with him. Obviously I’m never getting it back, but I still have all the games and it would be cool to play them.
Getting a GC is not always cheap these days. My recommendation is to look on local sites. It may take a while, but you could get lucky one day. It’s probably still not gonna be cheap.
Like others have already said, the better solution is to get a Wii. Most models can play gamecube games, and they are incredibly easy to mod. I use my Wii to play tons of different games from multiple console generations. A modded Wii is an incredibly versatile device.
If you play digital copies of your GC games through Nintendont, games even perform a bit better.
And the there are of course the video cables. Getting component cables for your Wii is gonna be pretty damn cheap compared to the ones for gamecube.
I guess in the end you just have to choose: do you want the original, authentic experience from back in the day? Get a GC. Do you just want to play your games and get a better deal + many many extra features? Get a Wii.
There’s no wrong choice.