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Nintendo's Dolphin Becomes The N-Cube
Xenex writes "Nintendo's next next-generation console, formerly know as 'Project Dolphin' now has an official name - the 'Nintendo Game Cube', or 'N-Cube' for short. Info about the name can be found on IGN's new N-Cube site here. Also a N-Cube FAQ is here, specs here (400mhz PowerPC based), and there is a quick editorial about why the N-Cube will succeed here."
In accordance with Microsoft's "X-Box", and Nintendo's newly renamed "N-Cube", Sony has announced that the Playstation 2 will now be called the "P-Right-Cylindrical-Solid". Sony could not be reached for further comment.
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Per usual, the Slashdot editors forgot to verify the details.
The site states in several places that 'N-Cube' is just a best guess for the system name. The official name will not likely be announced until Spaceworld (Aug 24). For now, the official name still has yet to be released.
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perhaps that is exactly the meaning that is meant to be portrayed! Seeing as though it would require about $20 of patent payments to allow the machine decode and play a full on content scrambled DVD perhaps instead they are simply going to let the machine playback non-CSS streams. Some manufacturers have already released non CSS DVDs so perhaps this is Nintendo's way of telling the MPAA and its cohorts that it can go fuck itself if it thinks they are going to hand it any real amount of money to release a player for the titles THEY sell. Console manufacturers (and never forget that Sony is not a console manufacturer but a giant comglomerate who has every interest in making a cheap box that can play their games aswell as thier cds and dvds) make their money from selling cheap hardware and recouping the costs through licensing for game creators, do you think they are going to add more cost to the machine for a feature which will not help them sell a single extra game but will provide someone else with an improved revenue stream.
I hope Nintendo release a prototype (or the inital Japanese release) with no media support or just mpeg support (pay them some licensing, they are the not-"open" standard video format) and make a big stink over why they will not pay HOLLYWOOD. The average punter will listen if Nintendo says their console would be $20 more to play the HOLLYWOOD DVDs without any change in hardware AND that the people collecting the money are also collecting it on every DVD created (etc. etc.).
I would not assume that this announcement vis-a-vis DVDs has anything to do with hardwre or software or any other technical or marketing decision......it is simply the start of a negotiation for "substantially reduced" royalty charges (i.e. none), and perhaps the thought of an extra few tens of millions of cheap DVD players out there will tempt the MPAA etc. into accepting the royalty payments from the DVD producers. Perhaps Nintendo will simply buy a special license (then what odds on the Nintendo DVDPlayer for every platform under the Sun).
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What's up with consoles these days? I had more fun playing 2600 games than most of the things out there today. The last game I bought with re-playability was Perfect Dark, which is basically a revamped Goldeneye. Everything else has been spotty at best.
What happened to those 80's game designers, anyway?
I might buy a PSX2, but that might be my last game console. I'm just not seeing a reason to continue to sink money into pointless hardware. The Internet is more interesting.
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The very same ArtX as this?
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Because it's made by Nintendo. Ever since the SuperNintendo, Nintendo has been release under-powered, under-featured consoles that nevertheless sell like crazy. The reason? Marketing and Mario.
This things going to have a DVD that doesn't play DVD's (how...useful), no built in harddrive like the x-box (though, how necessary this is is certainly up to debate), and from the look of the specs, no built in modem/ethernet card for on-line play. And it won't matter a bit, because MarioWorld 128, DonkeyKong Word 2, or whatever they'll call all those titles will be available, and half the country will want one anyway.
Not that the Dolphin will necessarily be a bad thing, however. SuperNintendo and N64 certainly had their share of good games, and there's no reason to think Dolphin won't either. Still, you have to wonder what the console gaming field would be like had Nintendo simply put more power into their gaming consoles. Coming of the NES, Nintendo literally ruled the console market, with Sega shooting themselves in the foot and others like Atari not really a threat. Had Nintendo beefed up the hardware for the SNES and N64, you might not even be hearing about Dreamcast, PS2 or XBox.
One of my biggest gripes with the N64 is that every damn game seems to be using the 3D landscape, run-around-as-mario-or-link camera view. I hate that. It looked cool for about two seconds.
I really enjoyed the old Zelda games. They were great. I still play them. But when it hit the N64, they lost something they once had. It was now a question of trying to jump through hoops and it was no longer fun.
I hope this new system returns to the old camera views, ease of use, and great storyline.
-Frijoles-
Because it's made by Nintendo. Ever since the SuperNintendo, Nintendo has been release under-powered, under-featured consoles that nevertheless sell like crazy.
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Had Nintendo beefed up the hardware for the SNES and N64, you might not even be hearing about Dreamcast, PS2 or XBox.
I question these comparisons, as the N64 was released _years_ earlier than the systems you list above.
In my experience, Nintendo has usually waited six months to a year after Sega released a platform and then released a platform with superior hardware that blew them out of the water.
Rememeber the Sega Genesis? It made the NES look very shabby, until Nintendo rolled out the Super NES as *their* entry into the 16-bit arena.
The N-64 was Nintendo's first-generation 3D console, designed to compete with the Playstation (Sony's first-generation 3D console) and Sega's Saturn.
Now we're seeing Nintendo's next-generation 3D console, designed to blow away the Dreamcast and the Playstation 2 - and it just might do it. 16 megs of _embedded_ _SRAM_ means no memory bottlenecks in the graphics subsystem, and T&L at 0.18 copper (migrating to 0.13) should take care of geometry.
Again, it looks like Nintendo is releasing _superior_ hardware about 6-12 months after the competition.
Nintendo's achilles heel has always been game quality, as opposed to platform capability. There are good games for Nintendo machines, but there are also many mediocre ones, and my gaming-nut friends tell me that the signal to noise ratio is substantially better with other platforms.
I see a number of posts putting down Nintendo for being a kiddie machine. Let's stop and think about this for a minute. Nintendo started out in the console business by targeting kids. They were right on target, IMO. They did things like "little tiny guy defeats huge, mean boss." They had long, repetitive segments in games like the original Zelda. Cartoony graphics aside, those kinds of things are perfect for kids, and more, often than not, annoying to adults.
As the Nintendo kids grew up, they eschewed Nintendo-style games as being for children. It was a weird teenage backlash, though, as the perceived requirements for "adult" games were superficial: gore, more techie stylings, dark graphics, plots involving evil corporations that kidnap princesses instead of goofy cartoon guys who kidnap princesses. So when someone puts down the N64 as being for kids, it's hard to take them seriously. Most games on other systems with more of a pseudo-adult feel have the same type of gameplay, but they have what I suppose are viewed as edgier graphics. It's not like there are many video games that really do target a more intelligent market, in the same way that a good many novels (written by people other than Danielle Steele) do.
I think nCUBE might have a slight problem with the name.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
...will develop, manufacture and supply to Nintendo a proprietary DVD disk drive for incorporation into the Cube. Note that a DVD disk drive does not guarantee that Cube will be able to play Hollywood DVD movies.
will it play independant films? or how about french movies? note to journalists: not all movies are hollywood movies...
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