Inside The Nintendo GameCube

Mortin writes "Icrontic.com has ripped apart a Nintendo GameCube. They document the entire procedure with a myriad of pictures. It's neat to see how clearly the Xbox and GameCube differ in respect to physical hardware." Luigi's mansion looks cool. The Star Wars game wasn't very fun. But the cube is so tiny, it's cute!

Comments

Re:Gamecube outselling xbox 2:1

[Anonymous Coward]

The console industry makes little sense. Dreamcast was a huge leap forware from the Playstation and the N64 yet it sold so poorly. It is sad that Sony and their uur system can do 60-70 million polygons per second hype killed Dreamcast. Too bad the public is soo gullible. Just lie from now and say your system is capable of the impossible and run over the competition, it does not matter if it is true or not as long as the media covers it.

Dreamcast was and still is a nice system. PS 2 can only produce slightly better graphics. RIP Dreamcast.

Re:This is on topic. Honest!

[alpinist]

I agree the video game market has always been a dyad. However, I think the XBOX is not in direct opposition to the GameCube and PS2, but rather directly against the PS2, with the GC aiming for a slightly different market.

XBOX shoots for the PS2 demographic of people willing to drop large bills on a console, who want the latest, greatest performance and features. Hard core, serious gamers in essence. GC appears to be aiming for the more casual gamer and/or a younger audience. This of course could change in the future. The price point alone reflects this difference, as does XBOX's hardware spec. People buying an XBOX get a gaming PC replacement with titles optimized for that exact hardware config, instead of spending twice as much on a PC and hoping their hardware will work with the games they'll want to buy for the next two years.

So if I had to prognosticate, I'd say we may be looking at a future with a triad of consoles on the market, each with it's own pros and cons. And as far as M$ failing in this market, does anyone really think that will happen? While Gates and company may be snakes in the grass, they aren't fools, and I don't think they'd get into the market if they weren't damn sure they could dominate it.

Re:Gamecube has better games and marketing

[skoda]

???

I'm a big-N fan, but the XBox ads work much better for me.

The XBox commericals show me the gameplay. They show me incredible graphics, cinematic scenes, and compelling gameplay.

GCN ads show me glass cubes with men squished in them.

Further, the XBox ads are exactly *unlike* the PS & PS2 ads. They'd show 25 seconds of random stuff (man in Crash Bandicoot costume. WTF?) and then 5 seconds of game footage. Sorry, but show me the game -- man in freak-suit doesn't make me want to buy the game.

Re:Gamecube outselling xbox 2:1

[Anonymous Coward]

The Sony EmotionEngine Docs say that it can achieve 60 mil tris per second. This is for untextured/unlit polys of the proper vertex/pixel ratio. I didn't believe it, so I tried it and its TRUE.

The XBox docs say that it can do 120+ tris per sec. This is for untexture/unlit polys of the proper vertex/pixel ratio. I didn't believe it, so I tried it on my co-workers dev station and I did get 100+ million.

Console manufacturers need to gain the trust of developers before they can gain the trust of the consumer. As a console developer I have never seen specs (no matter how outrageous) that were unbelievable.

Please make a "consoles" category.

[corky6921]

Slightly OT, but please read before moderating.

I would like to see a "consoles" category on Slashdot. That way, all of these articles about the Gamecube and Xbox could go in their own category, which users could then remove from the front page. Right now, they are in the generic "technology" category, which contains many other articles that might be interesting to those of us who couldn't care less about the latest console hack.

Thanks--

Re:Gee, you don't say.

[DarkEdgeX]

What, exactly, is your point with this statement? Let's think, just for a little bit, about whether what you said changes anything-- [thinks, thinks some more, comes to a conclusion]. NOPE! It's still an entirely accurate statement.

Just because Company A doesn't produce as much as Company B doesn't mean you ignore that Company B sold FAR more units at retail than Company A did (even if both sold out). While the numbers don't show all sides of the issue, it does show that Nintendo indeed sold twice as many units as Microsoft did. No FUD in there. I'm not afraid. I'm quite certain. And there's no doubt.

Re:My personal GameCube notes

[wheany]

One problem with most CD or DVD based games is the long load times, or the wait to load or save games to memory cards. The opposite is true with the GameCube. Somehow, maybe because the mini-DVD's are so small the seek time is less, games load up very [clipped]

I don't believe short loading times are somehow inherent to GC, I think it's all about the developer. And I've heard Nintendo is pretty strict about the games developed for the GameCube, so it could just be that Nintendo doesn't give the publisher permission to publish the game if the loading times are too long.

OTOH I could be full of shit...

Re:My personal GameCube notes

[Namarrgon]

I've heard people say the Xbox loading times are enormously long - I'd have to disagree. I own an Xbox, and I've also played on a Cube, and to me they seem pretty similar.

I did notice that some Xbox games (e.g. DOA3, Project Gotham) have a really long intro before the menu pops up. Perhaps that made people think they had to sit through all of it? I personally hit the Start button imnmediately, and I get the game menu straight away, within seconds of putting in the game.

With the Cube (looking at Wave Race and Rogue Leader), the intro was certainly shorter, but not interruptible. Total time taken before you could get to the menu was more or less equivalent.

I doubt the mini-DVDs will seek any faster than a full-size DVD. Perhaps average seek time would be less for a full 1.3 GB mini-DVD than for a full 9.4 GB disk, but if you stored 1 GB of data on each type of disc, it'd actually seek quicker on a full-size disc (since on the Xbox all data is stored at the outside rim, where it spins faster and you can fit more data per track, thus resulting in higher transfer rates, fewer seeks required, and a smaller average seek distance).

Are the Cube's mini-DVDs dual-layer, like the Xbox? A dual-layer disc would have twice as much data in the same area. Though I don't know what the refocussing delay is to switch layers, or whether an Xbox game always uses both layers or only when one layer is full.