Yuji Naka, famed Sega designer behind the Sonic and Nights games recently made some interesting comments on the Sonic Team webpage. Translated By N-Sider.com here's what he had to say:

"It was at that instant that the name "Gamecube" was revealed, but the moment I heard it I thought "Huh? I think I've heard that somewhere before". It was true - three years ago when we were deciding the name of the Dreamcast, the name Sonic Team offered as a candidate was "G-Cube". The "G" stood for "game", of course, so I was a little surprised. At the time, the DC's external shape wasn't finalized yet; there were flat and box-shaped designs. I remember that Sonic Team liked the box shape more so they offered G-Cube as their choice. Oh, and there were four places to stick controllers in, too, so the unit looked a lot like the Gamecube. That DC used a front-loading mechanism for inserting disks, but I definitely felt some affinity between the two."

Did Sega make the right choice? Did Nintendo make the wrong choice? Nintendo certainly made a bold decision in the name and design of the Gamecube and time will tell if it pays off.