Rumor has it that an intrepid hacker has found the entire arcade game of F-Zero AX hidden inside F-Zero GX, its GameCube counterpart, and it doesn’t take any hardware manipulations to access it either. According to Retro Collect, the site that reported this finding, all it takes is an old Action Replay or GameShark for the GameCube, a copy of F-Zero GX, and the right code.
Although the thought of a game harboring a whole other game from a different system sounds far fetched, F-Zero AX and F-Zero GX have certain connections that makes this finding plausible. First of all, AX allowed GX players to unlock content on GX if they inserted a GameCube memory card with GX data on it into an AX cabinet. Second, AX ran on the Triforce arcade system board. This arcade board was created out of a joint collaboration between Namco, Sega, and Nintendo and, as it turns out, is very similar to the architecture of the GameCube.
Given the close ties between the two, it’s not inconceivable that F-Zero AX could run on a GameCube. The big question here is why. Why would Nintendo put the entirety of F-Zero AX in F-Zero GX? Game developers have been known to occasionally leave in unused code on the game disc. But those are just snippets of code. Not a whole other game. Or is this all just a hoax by a homebrewer looking for some fame?
