In 2003 Nintendo released the highly anticipated follow up to their futuristic racing series with F-Zero GX. Upon release, the game also sped into the arcades with F-Zero AX, an adapted version of the game. Although it was assumed these were different games, the arcade game has been found sat dormant within F-Zero GX and is very much accessible.
If you've managed to play F-Zero AX in the arcades, you're quite the lucky one - very few of these machines still seem to be in use today. F-Zero AX utilised the Triforce arcade system board which was a joint creation between by Namco, Sega, and Nintendo, which was effectively hardware based upon the Nintendo Gamecube.
This similarity between hardware enabled Nintendo to develop both F-Zero GX and AX at the same time. During development, AX was given a selection of exclusive tracks which could be obtained on GX by inserting your Gamecube memory card into the arcade machine. Upon downloading this additional data, the Gamecube version of the game would then grant access to the hidden AX cup.
