Luigi's Mansion is a 2001 action-adventure game developed and published by Nintendo. The game was a launch title for the GameCube and was the first game in the Mario franchise to be released for the console; it was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, in Europe on May 3, 2002, and in Australia on May 17, 2002. It is the second video game in which Luigi is the main character instead of Mario, after Mario Is Missing!. Players control him as he explores a haunted mansion, searches for Mario and deals with ghosts by capturing them through a vacuum cleaner supplied by Professor E. Gadd.