Nintendo GameCube Preview

ravedaddy writes: "We've all seen the hype over the Sony PS2 and Microsoft X-box but things have been fairly quiet on Nintendo's front. So will Nintendo's GameCube pack a punch powerful enough to pound its competitors in overall sales and immersing game play? We won't know for another six months, but the authors of this preview piece were able to sit down with one of Nintendo's partners, ATI Technologies, to discuss some of the specifications of the GameCube and how its architecture is designed to compete. There is quite a bit of info on the 'flipper' 3D chip from ATI in there."

Comments

Re:No DVD?

[schechter]

Nintendo has a deal with Panasonic to release a version of GameCube that has DVD playback, so if you wnat it, you can always pay the extra money to get it. But it's smart on Nintendo's part to not force it on consumers, but rather give us a choice.

Re:Hopefully

[dark_panda]

The whole reason they didn't work with the N64 was mostly because of the lack of a decent storage medium. The N64 carts are tiny and seriously compared to, say, the Playstation's CDs, hence the switch.

It also had something to do with a sort of falling out with Nintendo themselves. I remember reading about the production troubles with the Nintendo/Square team up on Super Mario RPG, and I guess the tension it created, combined with Nintendo's adherence to the cartridge medium, solidified Square's move to the PSX. The fact that Sony shoved money down their pants didn't hurt.

There's been talk of Square developing for the Xbox, so anything is possible. If the system is solid, why wouldn't they want to make games for it? The storage question is practically a non-issue (unless Nintendo still insists on using its crazy licensing and production practices, as the Gamecube does use a proprietary format for the games).

I can see them making Gamecube games. But that's just my take.

J

Please, no 3D games

[Frijoles]

I for one was really disappointed with the N64. The best console games I have played to date are Zelda on the SNES, the first Zelda, and Metroid on the SNES. Why? These games were not 3D.

Why is it that every new game coming out has to have some sort of funky camera that follows the character around? They are hard to use, they make seeing the character difficult, and for some reason, they always get screwed up in the middle of an action scene. Not to mention the whole 3D world in itself. 3D is great for flight sims and racing games, but if all the new games for the Gamecube are into the latest 3D fad, then I will not be purchasing it. I'd rather have ease of use than these lame-ass 3D views.

Power...

[Daemosthenes]

Is it just me, or are the consoles out now or coming out in the near future ridiculously overpowered?

With the meager game offerings we've seen from PS2 thus far, and some of the other previews, it really seems that these GPU's (3d cards-I believe Nvidia has GPU patented) are far too powerful. It makes sense to me that companies should take a more modular approach, perhaps similar to indrema's upgradeable GPU. Right now all these super-powered graphics cards are doing is raising the price of the console,which doesn't go too well with the consumer.


47.5% Slashdot Pure(52.5% Corrupt)

Re:Power...

[Janthkin]

Wait until the Dolphin or whatever Nintendo is calling their new system comes out and you will see that the PS2 games at that time will kick the shit out of it.

I almost agree with you. However, there are 2 things I'd have you look at first: Mario and Zelda. These 2 names alone pack a LOT of punch w/gamers (at least w/me), and they are Nintendo's own brands. The release of the SNES was accompanied by Super Mario World (STILL an awesome game) and Zelda 3. The release of the N64 was accompanied by Mario 64 (not exactly shabby) and Zelda: Ocarina (odd instrument, great cart). If they stick to their (profit-enhancing) trend, the launch of the Gamecube will be worth watching, even for just those 2 games. Now after that, yes, I'd expect the quality to trickle off a bit.

But then again, Nintendo is a little stricter about control over their games (as other posters have noted), so I don't expect to see anything TOO ugly.

The real question, for me, is if they'll give in to (continue?) the evil trend of selling their console sans game at launch time.

Re:Power...

[atrowe]

It's not that the GPU's are too powerful, it's just that no one has had enough time to learn to write code well for the PS2. Whenever any system is first introduced, the games suck. The software designers who are coding these games need to learn an ENTIRELY new set of hardware and an entirely new set of instructions for each console that is released. That learning process takes time. Wait until the Dolphin or whatever Nintendo is calling their new system comes out and you will see that the PS2 games at that time will kick the shit out of it.

This is why the X-box is such a good idea. You Linux zealots can bash Microsoft all you want, but a lot of programmers are already familiar with writing games for the PC using Direct X. There is almost no learning curve, and thus, you will begin to see a lot of very nice games available shortly after the X-boxes release

Companies like Sega, Sony, and Nintendo are not in the market to make money off their hardware anyway. They will sell the consoles for as little as they need to, often taking a loss on the initial investment of the console. Their profit comes in the form of liscensing and selling dev kits to software developers.

Re:Power...

[rapett0]

There is a slight flaw to your arugment here. I agree with you, but you omit the fact developing on a new system does not mean writing to the metal. In fact, very rarely (contrary to what every game development article would have you believe) do people write games in assembly or machine code, but maybe tweak the occassional function. The problem is the support from the hardware/system manuacturers. They essentially force the developer to make many incorrect guesses as to how to optimize code, making their lives difficult. And of course, the development tools (if you use theirs, which I am sure to an extent you do) are not mature enough initially to handle what the average consumer assumes the system can do at launch time. Anyway, again you have a good point, but the tools to be more mature, and the system developers need to get the information out in an orderly fashion to facilitate 3rd party development.

Specs don't matter?

[Lyrrad]

I mean, the thing that really matters for new gaming systems are the games. The way to get good games is an easy way to make them. If developpers can't use the full capabilities of the system (Sega Saturn) because of bad planning, the games will suck and/or companies will refuse to make games for them. If Nintendo wants to make money, all they need to do is come out with another Mario, Zelda, or Pokémon game.

Re:Specs don't matter?

[jfrisby]

A couple points:

1) Pretty much all recent 3D chips have hardware anti-aliasing, and lighting. PS2 included. The problem with anti-aliasing and the PS2 is that it's VERY slow. The performance hit is unacceptable, so programmers turn it off.

2) PS2 isn't confusing to developers because it was "rushed to market" -- developer confusion always stems from fundamental design choices. In this case, the multi-chip architecture where each chip serves a different, or somewhat overlapping purpose results in a very different and complex programming model.

3) While old-school gamers will remember fondly more Nintendo franchises, the younger crowd tends to know non-Nintendo franchises more. FF is just one such franchise and I wouldn't count on a GC version.

-JF

Re:Specs don't matter?

[jfrisby]

The interesting thing to note is that while the PlayStation 2, like the Sega Saturn is suffering from developer confusion (I.E. developers have a whole lot to learn before they can take advantage of its capabilities) the GameCube is designed from the ground up to be a developer-friendly platform.

I read an interview with someone -- maybe Shigeru Miyamoto? -- about how when the N64 launched with Mario 64 showing off what it could do, developers were blindsided by the difficulty of programming for the system. They assumed a Mario-like game would be easy when in fact the platform had a number of bottlenecks and quirks that made development difficult. GameCube is apparently meant to address such difficulties.

-JF

Not really.

[Midnight Ryder]

Of course one reason to buy a console this time around is the fact Microsoft is trying to buy up a number of game companies. The PC games market could be awfully thin on the ground next holiday season.

Pretty unlikely. While MS could buy out tons of game developers, the publishers are hungry enough for game titles they will start supporting new developers. The vacuum that occurs when a developer leaves the PC game market is filled pretty damned fast - there are too many companies like me who want those positions. Personally, I'd like to see MS buy out some of those developers and make them X-Box only developers - the bigger the vacuum, the better. Plus, well, maybe we can finally get some innovative titles out there, instead of so many "Me Too!" products (unluckly, it's not developer initutive that causes that, rather, it's publisher marketing that forces us to put up with so damned many FPS titles right now - they see it as being where the money is, so it's where they put thier money!)

No DVD?

[Decado]

It cant even play DVDs. Talk about shooting themselves in the foot. How will the average 10 year old convince daddy to fork out 300 quid on a console without the old "but you can watch your DVDs on it" excuse. I think this will really backfire on Nintendo in the long run. And besides, dolphins are a popular icon in japan (the japanese version of Office 2000 here has a dolphin as an office assistant) but they dont really cut the mustard in the west where we need initials to get us going. Unless they remarked it as the ND256+ or something like that no one in the west will want one.

Re:No DVD?

[stump]

What if the 8-bit NES came played VHS tapes? What if my microwave oven played VHS tapes? How many fucking VCR's do I need? Same with DVD players. I've got a DVD player, I don't need everything I own to play DVDs. Nintendo's aiming this as a gaming console and nothing more. Excluding DVD playback cuts the cost significantly.

Re:No DVD?

[Xenex]

The thing is, they DO have a DVD option, a 3rd party is developing it I believe.

Yeah Matsudkdhdkjsdhj is planing to release a DVD version in Japan, however, even if it even sees the light of day there, I doubt a Panasonic branded version would ever see the light of day outside the land of the rising sun (bad pun intended).

Even Sega has done a 180 and has developed a DVD addon for the Dreamcast.

Really? That seems odd, and a waste, considering that the Dreamcast's games are only on Sega's GD-ROM format. Sega are really going to re-release a console that was dead-in-the-water from the beginning and dying now to add an expencive add-on? Even if they do, it won't save the dead Dreamcast. Personally, I've been saying for years they'd make more money focusing on the arcade and porting to Nintendo and Sony consoles (and then there are the constant rumours that Microsoft will buy them....)

Anyway, Nintedo hasn't been doing so well in the console scene lately, except for the gameboy.

Lately? In the last 2 generations of console preceding the current 'next generation' consoles (N64, PSX, Saturn), Nintendo was more sucessful with their NES over the SMS and the SNES over the Mega Drive/Genesis (sales of the SNES were massive towards the end of it's life cycle, with a low price and Donkey Kong Country storming the entire video game market in late 1994). So Nintendo were not number one this generation? So what. They've still profited quite well from the N64 and it's software, they are hardly going broke off it. I personally see the next set of consoles being closer, back like the 16-bit days. but a 3 way split instead of 2 ways, with Nintendo's Gamecube, Sony's PS2 and Microsoft's Xbox. Nintendo have the franchises and the 'traditional' gamers, Sony have the 'cool' gamers and the Playstation 2 hype (though under supplying hardware was a very bad idea), and Microsoft have the money to get any 3rd party they want, and to push into any established market they want.

They aren't the console guru's you seem to think they are.

If talking hardware, they are this generation, with the Gamecube being much easier to develop for over the PS2. Nintendo also are willing to change things with their controller... such as a new button style layout, that if studied looks like it will be excellent. And then we could look into the last generation's hardware. Nintendo managed to make Sony redesign their controls twice, 1st with their anologue release, and then a 2nd time to add their 'dual shock' to copy the rumble pak's effect (which isn't all that wonderful anyway).

If you mean the market, I think otherwise. Nintendo do know what they did wrong in the last generation with the Nintendo 64, and they have taken steps to rectify it. People, including Nintendo themselves, have come out calling the Gamecube the 'anti-Nintendo 64'. Any company that can come out insulting their last console like that can see things realistically.

If you mean software, Nintendo are the console guru's. Who else is? Sony and their 3rd Party drones spinning out crappy mass produced software, oh-so rarely making something half decent?. Sega and their constant console failing (apart from the Mega Drive/Genesis that managed a 50/50 split)? Or Microsoft, a company that has yet to release definate specs and a fucking console design, much less an actual piece of console hardware before, that will be relying TOTALLY on 3rd Party and companies it has assimilated?

Nintendo are the only company that constantly innovates in both hardware and software. With their Miyamoto-lead in-house development constantly creating classic games in the Mario, Zelda, and other francises, to the ideas that spawn total new types of games (Super Mario Kart single handly created the 'cartoon karting game genre'), to 'idea' games such as the prototype Catroots (look on IGN64 somewhere, Nintendo are the console gaming gods. And with a 2nd Party like Rare, and creating a new Rare-like company called Retro Studios, Nintendo will be the company making the quality games for some time to come.

Oh, of course, there could be a maturity rant now, but is someone that really thinks that maturity = blood and violence, then perhaps they need to rethink their maturity. Wave Race was a 'mature' game. Excite Bike 64 was a 'mature' game (and a great flashback). Just because a game isn't violent does not mean it's not entertaining, it's just some sad people tend to think otherwise.

Nintendo ARE the console gurus. This is not measured by sales, or by the fact that their last console didn't sell as well as their competition's. This is measured in what it is that they do. And the constant quality of the products they have produced over the past 15 years all says that Nintendo are the gurus.

Re:No DVD?

[Xenex]

Daddy forked out the money for the NES, the Game Boy, the SNES, the N64; they didn't playback DVD or any other media of the time. I don't think Nintendo were shot in the foot then, and this will be no different. Nintendo is marketing a GAMING PLATFORM, not a 'Home entertainment and internet connected central electronic hub'.

Nintendo have, and will always be, primarily a company that makes games, that's what they want, and that is what has constantly made them money. The company has profited well enough on the N64, and is making an absolute killing with the Game Boy at the moment.

And, why the HELL are you ranting about Dolphins. It a CODENAME that is GONE. Like it says in the title of this story, and in the story posted in August, the name is 'Gamecube' (lowercase c, alot of people get that wrong). What was the PS2's codename? What was the Dreamcast's codename? Most people don't know/remember them, so why the hell do you think Nintendo's will be any different?

I think you've made an uneducated post, and next time you should make an attempt to know the topic you are posting on.

DVD Version WILL be released

[TheSacrificialFly]

Matsushita has confirmed a DVD version of the gamecube will be released shortly after Nintendo's version.

This article was released yesterday on cube.ign.com.

I'll be waiting for this one for sure!

tsf.

Re:Can Nintendo Survive Sony?

[dark_panda]

Let's not forget that Nintendo isn't exactly strapped for cash or expertise. They might be a bit impoverished compared to the entire Sony corperation, but they're by no means poor. Last I heard, they had something like $15 billion in the bank, so they can afford some major marketing and absorb a few hits before they need to really make money back.

Besides, they still have Shigeru Miyamoto and a truckload of mascots. Mario, Zelda and (ugh) Pokemon aren't going to be seen on the PS2 any time soon, and they can all sell machines like crazy.

According to the interviews I've read with some of the Nintendo head honchos, they've learned their lessons from the N64's lack of a decent storage medium and its kiddie focus. The Gamecube should fare well.

J

Not all gamers can afford to move house

[yerricde]

you would think that by now all console manufacturers would notice that just about all gamers want BROADBAND

And there will be broadband adapters for both the Sony PS2 and GAMECUBE consoles. They're just not ready right now because broadband reaches very few homes in the target markets. Not all gamers can afford to pack up and move to a location where decent non-AOL non-Windows-only-in-TOS DSL/cable service is available.

Why not just add in an ethernet port?

And force players to buy a network hub, four GAMECUBE consoles, four copies of each game, four monitors, and four speaker systems? I'd rather

The NES console is still being milked

[yerricde]

Remember back when consoles were milked of all their power before abandoning the system.

Fifteen years, and the NES console is still being milked. Download an emulator and head over to NESdev and get some of Chris Covell's NES software, or try my GNOME vs. KDE: Battle of the Desktops for the NES.

Uhm, AOL-only cable monopolies and big cities

[yerricde]

The ethernet isn't for local multi-player, its for the cable modem

Cable is often limited to 80 kilobits upstream or worse. Besides, what if you live in an area where the city has contracted Time Warner as your local cable monopoly? After the merger, you will have to have an Intel architecture x86 box running a Microsoft brand Windows 98/ME brand operating system and the AOL client to be able to use your cable modem. Unless Nintendo licenses the AOL protocols for the GAMECUBE console, you won't have cable access.

DSL modem

Until the fiber-to-the-curb infrastructure is complete, DSL is available only within 12,000 feet of the central switch. In a large city such as Houston, there are huge gaps in DSL coverage, meaning essentially that a fellow has to pack up and move next to the telco's central switch to get a DSL connection.

N64 games were innovative

[yerricde]

If you want 100 clones of mario kart but from nintendo.

Bull schmidt, Nintendo pioneered several genres on N64:

• cartoon go-kart racing (Nintendo/EAD's Mario Kart 64; Nintendo/Rare's Diddy Kong Racing) although I admit Sony did a good job of cloning MK64 in CTR
• multiplayer board game with minigames (Nintendo/Hudson Soft's Mario Party)
• multiplayer cartoon fighting game (Nintendo/'s )
• multiplayer puzzle games (Nintendo/H2O's Tetrisphere and The New Tetris; Nintendo/Intelligent's )
• photography games (Pokemon Snap; Rare's Perfect Dark supports Nintendo's Game Boy Camera)

Re:Can't wait for 3d game boy :)

[atrowe]

Well enjoy the 10 games that were made for it.

Whores in boxes

[Graymalkin]

Sega and Nintendo have two things that Sony and Microsoft don't have. Icons. Microsoft technically has Icons but they are typically 32x32@8-bit. When I was a kid Mario was the biggest thing since picking your nose. To my younger brother Sonic has more of a pervading presence. The SNES and Genesis popped out more iterations of their mainline characters than crackwhores in the projects. Walkt Disney did the same fucking thing in the fifties, he made a bunch of icons kids wet their pants over with an encircled R on the bottom meaning someone somewhere got a dollar for every penny it costs to make the product. Also, console makers do not sell their fucking hardware at a fucking loss. They don't build these things one at a time, they order tens of thousands of them (in Sony's case a million). The cost of a million of these is much less per console than a small handful of them. Nintendo, Sony, Sega, and Microsoft aren't going to take a loss on their consoles, the profit is almost entirely flat. The consoles are needed in order to sell the real cash cow, the games. Good console games will sell heavily (sometimes 1 per console) which means the licensing fees for those games is stupendous; the console makers shoot their wad of NRE into developing the boxes but then the sales of extremely popular games like Zelda or Gran Tourismo make all of that back and more.
On the technical side, Nintendo has gone back to their unique innards architecture that served them well with the NES and SNES. The N64 was impressive for its time but didn't really stand head and shoulders of the technology for long enough. Up until a year or two ago the PSX still had better graphics than your average PC and it came out before the N64. The Gamecube might get a lukewarm acceptance from the media unlike the PS2 but I think customers will really eat it up. Icons are what sell shit to little kids and parents. Nintendo's got Mario and Donkey Kong and can easily market the shit out of them to prepubescents.

Re:Can Nintendo Survive Sony?

[SuiteSisterMary]

Also, I propose that the reason the PS is much bigger than the 64 is not because of the cartridge vs cd issue at all, but rather one of marketing.

Wrong, and for one reason: time. With the NES/SNES (not sure if the same system held for the n64), a company would create a game, then order X amount of carts from Nintendo; there was no other source. They had to order a load; three months later, they'd get them. This presented two real possibilities: order too few, and miss the wave, or order too many, and take a bath. Sony, on the other hand, with the PSX, went with fully standard CDs, other than the bad sector copy protection. This means a) once you write a game, you can get it pressed anywhere, and b) you can order a small run, and if it takes off, you can have your stocks completely refilled in three days. This meant you could take a chance on lesser titles. There were, of course, other factors, like Nintendo requiring final veto power over any title, blah blah blah, and lets not forget: The N64 was a flop *compared to the NES and SNES*. By any other standard, it was a success. Nintendo is like Microsoft; they can blow millions on a project, decide they don't like the colour of it, throw it out, and never notice. They'll put out a good product this time around.

Console gaming not dead yet

[yerricde]

console games used to have a 6 year lifespan. That's shrinking to 3 years.

Try 5 years:

• PSX (1994); PS2 (2000).
• Genesis (1989); Saturn (1994); Dreamcast (1999) but Sega realized Saturn was a lost cause anyway.
• SNES (1991); N64 (1996); GAMECUBE (2001).

The PC cycle is twice as fast anyway, and PCs cost $1000 instead of $250.

The PS2 is quite advanced but hard to code for.

The PSX had a decent libc (C runtime library) when it was first released. Sony PS2 was rushed too fast to get a libc developed.

Since nintendo's PowerPC comes from IBM it probably doesn't have altivec and that leaves it depending on the (for a risc chip) weak FPU powerpc's are known for.

Which is more than overcome by the hardware everything on the chipset. (This is how Sony overcame the lack of an FPU in PSX.) Besides, how do you know that the FPU hasn't been enhanced in PowerPC Gekko (not to be confused with Mozilla Gecko or Geico Direct auto insurance)?

and I don't see how Microsoft (with the best outlook)

Helix Code has a better outlook, and it's called Evolution.

Can Nintendo Survive Sony?

[atomic pixie]

I have to admit, I'm more than a little worried about Nintendo.

It will be difficult for them to recover from the mistake of not using CD's in the N64. I just hope they've learned their lessons, and there aren't any more technical 'surprises' in the Game Cube. They've lost a lot of ground to Sony, and now Sony has launched the PS2 months before Nintendo's next-generation system will be ready.

If Nintendo goes down for good, the days of the console price wars are over, and I for one will miss that. Also, I suspect that having two heavyweights keeps game prices down. As much as I love Sony's consoles, I hope the Game Cube to kicks ass and really raise the bar on home entertainment.

Microsoft, though, can go to hell :)

Re:Can Nintendo Survive Sony?

[Xenex]

Nintendo have in fact profited from the Nintendo 64, with incredibly strong first party software sales, and strong second party (eg Rare) sales. When you have a console that doesn't have a huge selection of software, but a a few truly excellent games released each year from the 1st and 2nd parties, a fair chunk of the user base buys them. That is why Nintendo 64 software can hit the top of Sales and Rental charts - because a greater percentage of a smaller user base buying software in better then a small percentage of a huge user base.

Also, Nintendo have one huge advantage over Sony- piracy. Piracy is every bit as bad for the PSX as it is for the PC. However, with their cartrage, and soon proprietory (but inexpencive) optical discs, Nintendo have been alot safer then Sony from the pirating scene (I'm not trying to say Nintendo products aren't pirated, quite the opposite, but compared to Sony with common household equiptment able to burn their CDs, Nintendo's problem is practically zero.)

And one final thing to keep Nintendo afloat: you know how well the Game Boy is doing now? Very fucking well. Even before the Pokemon craze the things were starting to sell more again, and with the Game Boy Advance upcoming and fully backwards compatible (fully = it has the Gameboy Color chipset onboard AS WELL as it's new 32-bit processor), and no real competition in the foreseeable future, this is one market Nintendo has 100% penatration in it. Cracking into the handheld game market is like trying to crack into Microsoft's x86 OS market (except Nintendo isn't breaking the law [please, don't paste me any of the crap about stuff Nintendo have done in the past that could be seen as anti-competitive, I know, I know]).

Nintendo have, and are, making money. If they manage a userbase equal to the N64's with the Gamecube, they'll survive fine. But, the Gamecube will get a bigger market then the N64, just read about the advantages of the thing here to see why.

Re:Can't wait for 3d game boy :)

[atrowe]

"Can't wait for 3d game boy"

I'll bite. That's already been done. Check here

It was quite possibly the worst selling gaming system of all time.

Cosmic Power!

[2nd Post!]

Itty-bitty living space...

Why is it ridiculous? These machines are expected to have a lifespan of 5-8 years... In 3 or 4 years, I'd think the average PC would match their performance, and in only 2 years a top of the line PC would theoretically blow them away...

This is just 'futureproofing' their products.

Geek dating!

my thoughts on it :)

[garcia]

you would think that by now all console manufacturers would notice that just about all gamers want BROADBAND and not modems. The Playstation2 comes w/USB ports out the ass. Why not just add in an ethernet port? Why include a modem and not ethernet. That is my idea at least.

In the article they mention that they finally went to an optical medium for the data storage. I personally prefered the quick load times on the N64 to the slow constant loading on the PS1. That is just personal opinion though.

Just my worthless .02

Re:Console gaming will die (Byte me!)

[Kris_J]

Console gaming isn't going away. Having to keep your PC rigged for games and real work is a pain in the arse. I gave up on that years ago. I now have two consoles astride my entertainment center. On one speaker is a PS1. On the other is a SNES with a SuperGameboy adapter. Good games are good games regardless of the platform they're on. In fact, just to prove a point I'm going to buy a SNES game today.

Dedicated games machines are not going anywhere, and consoles -- regardless of vintage -- are the best of breed...

Re:Cube loses to X-Box

[Chris Johnson]

*ROFL*

You do that.

'Comrade'. ;)

Re:Console gaming will die

[Capt Dan]

2 years ago, the licensing fees for Tekken 3 on playstation was *the*largest* single source of income for Sony corportion. A third party wrote the game.

Let me paraphrase this:

A single third party game made more money than any of sony's other products.

This easially makes up for money lost on console production, launches, and failing game companies.

For every game company that fails, there are two people out there that want to start one. Shortage of companies should not be an issue for a long time.

Sig:

The platform is important as part of the strategy.

[2nd Post!]

Nintendo, if they only wanted to make money, would have made Pokemon card games for Dreamcast, with online play, or Pokemon racing games, for the PSX...

Me, I can't fathom their strategy. Well, actually, I can guess.

By releasing a atomic box, the GameCube and the GameBoyA, they can lure and entice developers.

"We have a fixed platform. It'll be easy to develop for, without future driver or incompatibility issues."
"We use PPC and ATI. It's as easy as buying a G4^2 box and our development kit."

Still, they should probably have separate software and hardware divisions, for maximum profitability, with reduced or zero licensing costs for internal development.

That way we can get the games we want on the platforms we want... Nintendo could get more money by selling more games... and then they could compete, platform for platform, technologically, with the increased funds.

Though I guess there is still the fear that releasing games on competing hardware is suicidal...

Geek dating!

Re:Nintendo's problem:

[Xenex]

Oh, you mean like Spiro the Dragon, and Crash Team Racing?

Oh, no, wait, they are Playstaion clones of Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64....

There is not a game on the Playstation that I want. I'm a hell of alot happier with the 15 or so incredibly high quality games I have on my Nintendo 64. If I wanted lame sport games or mass produced crap, I'd get a PSX. But I'm happy with quality thanks anyway.

Give me Nintendo and Rare over the shit that comes from Sony and their 3rd parties.

Console gaming will die

[Shoeboy]

Here's the deal - console games used to have a 6 year lifespan. That's shrinking to 3 years. This basically halves return on investment for new console systems.

There are 4 major players in the console war now.
Sega, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony - all are trying to get exclusive development deals so that hot games only come out on their platforms. There's not that many good titles, some platforms are going to get screwed and all will have to pay for exclusive development.

A lot of the major game houses are struggling - see fatbabies for the industry gossip. This means even fewer titles and thus less profit for the console makers.

Consoles don't turn a profit - as ESR likes to remind us, they sell below cost and make it up on game sales. The current shortage of parts will exacerbate this problem.

Console launches are expensive - it takes a lot of investment capital to launch a new platform. Microsoft is avoiding this by using off the shelf technologies, and it looks like nintendo is doing the same, but that leaves sony and sega in the cold.

PC's are top of the line technologically speaking - a 1.2ghz athlon with a gf2 ultra packs a lot of horsepower combined with a lot of excellent libraries and developer know-how. The PS2 is quite advanced but hard to code for. Since nintendo's PowerPC comes from IBM it probably doesn't have altivec and that leaves it depending on the (for a risc chip) weak FPU powerpc's are known for. The dreamcast uses PowerVR - a tech that was way to shitty for the PC platform - oops. The X-Box is sound here since it basically is just a PC with parts removed.

I don't see room for 4 companies in this market, and I don't see how Microsoft (with the best outlook) can sell a stripped down pc that is limited by TV set resolutions.

Consoles are in trouble.

--Shoeboy