Game Boy Advance games too small to see? GameCube has a solution for that...
One of my all-time favorite GameCube peripherals was the Game Boy Player adapter. It was an adapter that would connect to the bottom of the GameCube using some of its ports, then, using a special GB Player disc, the adapter would run the Game Boy Advance game that was inserted into it, presenting it in glorious fullscreen.
The basic idea behind the Game Boy Player was one that Nintendo had already worked upon back in the days of the Super NES. The Super Game Boy was a special catridge that would be inserted onto the console, then it would have a separate slot where the Game Boy game could be inserted. The system would first read the Super Game Boy catridge, then load the Game Boy game. The idea was simple, but one that worked tremendously well. The GameCube's Game Boy Player did just that, but went above and beyond the call of duty when preserving the appeal of the Game Boy Advance line.

As simple as that may sound, it did wonders for many great GBA games. Early GBA adopters should remember that at launch the system lacked a backlit screen, making the games extremely hard to play. Nintendo would remedy this by releasing the GBA SP, a redesigned version of the GBA that was slicker and, most importantly, featured a backlit screen. Even with this advancement in the development of the handheld, some games were still hard to play through. Some players, on the other hand, just wanted to play their games on a bigger display screen and do justice to some of the console-worthy games available on the handheld. The Game Boy Player allowed them to do just that.
Some might feel that this defeats the purpose of the handheld line—to let players take high-quality games on the go. But let's be honest, we aren't always on the road and sometimes we just want a bigger screen than what the GBA offered at the time. Nintendo gave us the option to play our favorite games on a better screen while still promoting the accessibility of the system as a portable gaming device. In other words, everyone wins.

The Game Boy Player was a wonderful little device in terms of compatibility. Not only could you play nearly all of the GBA games available in the market, you could also play your classic Game Boy/Game Boy Color games with the GB Player! In addition, if you preferred to play your GBA games with that handheld's control scheme you could do so by connecting the GBA to the GameCube with the link cable, yet another use for the fabled connectivity of systems that was so prominent during the GameCube era.
As a whole, the Game Boy Player was a magnificent little device that further fused console gaming and handheld gaming. It is such a shame that Nintendo didn't further experiment with this with the Wii and DS. Likely, the complex nature of the two systems made it hard for Nintendo create an effective emulation program where the Wii could display DS games. Hopefully, Nintendo will implement a better concept on the Wii U with the 3DS, as this is an idea that must get revisited and improved upon.
GameCube pictures courtesy of Andrew Brown