Nintendo allegedly worked on a console that offered both portable and docked play long before the Switch.

A recently unearthed Nintendo proposal shows a version of the GameCube that came with its own display as well as ability to connect to a TV.

The GameCube Portable, as it is being called, appears in a schematic diagram believed to have been part of the much-publicised "gigaleak" of Nintendo data, that also contained design notes, artwork and source code for games - including some that were never released.

Posted by Twitter user @LuigiBlood, it shows that the dock could even have come with its own TV tuner.

Sadly, the Nintendo GameCube was one of the company's least successful consoles, even though it had a loyal, dedicated fanbase. Many of its exclusive games were much revered too - including Super Mario Sunshine which will soon be available for Nintendo Switch as part of the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection.

We don't exactly know when the GameCube Portable plans were drawn up, but considering the console was discontinued in 2007 and the Switch was first released in 2017, it took at least a decade before Nintendo decided to revisit the idea.