GameCube Hardware In Depth on Anandtech

plootid submitted linkage to a fairly technical look at the GameCube running over at AnandTech. You can learn about the hardware that makes the new Smash Bros. possible. Something about seeing Samus doing battle with Pikachu makes me want to know more about the PowerPC chip that powers the system ;)

Comments

Get it on one page

[DarkNova]

Get the whole thing on one page, much less annoying.

A new domain for Nintendo?

[Gogl]

It seems to me like the Gamecube is an attempt by Nintendo to get at a new domain of customers that they traditionally don't aim at.

Nintendo has been a console of the children. I would say ballpark 6 to 15 years of age is Nintendo time. After that, Playstation and the now-defunct Sega take over for the most part. N64 was still a very much "little kiddy" console, compared with the Playstation and Dreamcast. X-Box I'm not even going to factor in at this point, as I don't expect them to meet with tremendous success this go-around. Likely Microsoft wouldn't mind having the whole console gaming market, but that's not the issue.

Essentially it seems to me like Gamecube not only aims at the kids who are now 6-15 years old, but at those who were 6-15 years old and played on NES or SNES. Nintendo seems to be broadening their market.

This will play out pretty interestingly. I'd like to see a nice comparison of the Gamecube and the PS2. Sony is no lightweight and will not let go of their market easily.

In fact, I just had a revelation, albeit an obvious one. This is capitalism at work. Three strong companies duking it out. And since for once the sides are relatively balanced this might actually be at the benefit of the consumer. Who'd of thunk it?

Re:A new domain for Nintendo?

[Dark Paladin]

When I was down at E3, the differences were pretty evident, and as time goes on, I expect those differences to tone down a bit, but never really change.

Sony's main market is 16-25 year olds, which is the same as Microsoft's. Nintendo's is a little odder - they hit 9-16, and 25 and older. Aka, more of a "family" demographic. Granted, there is bleed over from one to the other (Nintendo's getting the Resident Evil remakes, while Sony's getting Kingdom Hearts from Square, a Disney/Square collaboration).

What's going to be interesting is to watch how all 3 use their powers. Sony's got shares into some very powerful game making company (Square, Enix, Verant (who has the Star Wars Galaxies game under their belt), as well as quite a bit of cash. Microsoft has cash, and the ability to swing PC game makers to the Xbox (since the Xbox uses DirectX 8, and it's easier to design a game for one system than for the 40 billion different kind of PC's out there).

Nintendo has two ace in the holes. First, they just make some great, fun games. Super Smash Brothers Melee, more Pokemon games (and I don't care what folks say - I enjoy it), and other licenses that aren't going away. And they're GameBoy Advance has no practical challengers out there, which gives them the ability to look at developers who want to make a GameBoy Advance game and say "Sure, you can make a game for the GBA - if you promise to make a game for the GameCube".

Either way, I don't see any of the three vanishing for some time. Nintendo will hold their position as a provider of fun games, Sony will probably stay on top (and the upcoming 40 Gig hard drive addition to the PS2 won't hurt), and the Xbox will continue to fight with Sony for whatever they can get, and push the other two guys to keep innovating.

Either way, the consumer wins from competition, and I'm eager to see what happens.

Re:A new domain for Nintendo?

[mystery_bowler]

IMHO, I think it's good that Nintendo has an almost fluffy, cartoon feeling to their current crop of games (Super Monkey Ball, Smash Bros., and Luigi's Castle in particular). It carries forth the stylings of other hit games of theirs, such as great SNES games like Zelda: A Link To The Past and Super Mario World and the Mario game for the N64. I've seen so many dark, grim, gloomy, "edgy" games that I'm sick of them. Give me vivid colors, bouncy music, and a huge dose of good ol' arcade fun.

Don't get me wrong, I've played plenty of dark, thoughtful and grim games. I enjoy many of them. But my game time is limited (what, with work, family, blah blah blah), so give me an ejoyable, light-hearted game where I can sit down, game on and let my brain go into "smile and drool" mode.

These are games, for cryin' out loud. Maybe they were targeted for little kids, maybe they weren't. Maybe we can all just hush up, quit worrying about the targeted market and enjoy them. ;)

comparisons

[SirSlud]

The Xbox looks like it can crunch any other console, but you know, so many of the developers they grabbed will be porting to the PC. I wonder if they havn't underestimated the overlap of PC gamers and potential Xbox owner demographics.

I got my Gamecube 3 days ago, and holy crap, it's amazing. The Xbox might look good, but I'll take a the Cube anyday. Better controllers, best 1st party games (Halo might be coming out for PC, isn't that right?), seriously WIKED ASS form factor .. and no harddrive (thank god). It's a console. The Xbox is a PC, to the extent the MS is trying VERY hard to keep developers from wanting to port their MS-sponsered Xbox titles back to the PC (where many of them probably started, in terms of development). I have a PC. :)

I think the one arena Nintendo may have screwed up is with going with no onboard ethernet card. They are dirt cheap, why didn't they just throw one on?

Gameboy Advance

[addaon]

I remember when first reading about the gameboy advance, I saw something about being able to use it as a controller for the GameCube. The example of when this would be a 'good thing' was a football game. Gameplay goes on on the main screen, but you can make your play selection, privately, on your own little screen.

Although the cost is currently prohibitive (to me, at least), this seemed like an absurdly cool idea. I haven't heard anything about it since. What happened?

Re:Gameboy Advance

[SirSlud]

Its still happening. They demoed this functionality recently with a new Kirby game, although I dont remember if the game is going to make it to the production state. Basically, you plug the GBA into a controller port for the gamecube, and if the game is GBA-aware, the developers can choose to do whatever they want with it. One VERY cool thing is that the Kirby demo included an empty 'gamepak' in the GBA that was en empty cartridge with a Tilt-Sensor in it. So you could use the GBA as a controller which could tell the Cube what angle it was being held at. Imagine the possibilities.

But to answer your original question, the functionality is there; the only question is, can Game Cube developers find the 'killer app' for this configuration? I think the most useful implementation will be to share saved game data between GBA and Gamecube versions of the same game, but thats my limited imagination talking (and I dont know what typical savegame sizes are on GBA titles.) The football example you provided was good .. also consider that you could have one friend control the gun of a ship and use the GBA screen as a radar, and you control the flying of that ship. I don't know, there are lost of possible cool ways to use the GBA link, but we'll have to see if anyone stumbles across the aforementionned 'killer app'. Then again, who knows, maybe it'll just be Pokeman again. :)

Check cube.ign.com and gamespot.com, and do searches for "Game Boy Advance Link Game Cube" or something similar.