The "General Games Chat" forum, which includes Retro Game Reviews, has been archived and is now read-only. You cannot post here or create a new thread or review on this forum.
So your not excited yet about the new forthcoming Wonder console? Im talking about 'Nintendo Gamecube' and boy does it look promising. Just recently I have been browsing the web and came across new batches of screenshots from the Super Smash Brothers melee game, which inspired me to write this. Wow!, dont they just look wonderful?
It is especially refreshing seeing Mario in his new guise, equipped with Denim Dungarees and looking a little more meaner! and seeing scenes of Link from the Zelda series battling re-dead's, plus Captain Falcon of F-Zero racing along a track from spruced up version of a scene from the series.
All of these cut-scenes should give us all an indication of what the Gamecube version of the title stars would be like with them, in their own environments that we have all come to love. Absolutely wonderful.
For those that hide from the media or just dont know, here is a recap of the innards of the Console which makes games like this believable (In most cases for techno geezers only):
MPU ("Micro Processing Unit")
Custom IBM Power PC "Gekko"
Manufacturing Process
0.18 micron IBM Copper Wire Technology
Clock Frequency
485 MHz
CPU Capacity
1125 Dmips (Dhrystone 2.1)
Internal Data Precision
32-bit Integer & 64-bit Floating-point
External Bus
1.3 GB/second peak bandwidth
32-bit address space
64-bit data bus
162 MHz clock
Internal Cache
L1: Instruction 32KB, Data 32KB (8 way)
L2: 256KB (2 way)
System LSI
Custom ATI/Nintendo "Flipper"
Manufacturing Process
0.18 micron NEC Embedded DRAM Process
Clock Frequency
162 MHz
Embedded Frame Buffer
Approx. 2 MB
Sustainable Latency: 6.2ns (1T-SRAM)
Embedded Texture Cache
Approx. 1 MB
Sustainable Latency: 6.2 ns (1T-SRAM)
Texture Read Bandwidth
10.4 GB/second (Peak)
Main Memory Bandwidth
2.6 GB/second (Peak)
Pixel Depth
24-bit Color, 24-bit Z Buffer
Image Processing Functions
Fog, Subpixel Anti-aliasing, 8 Hardware Lights, Alpha Blending, Virtual Texture Design, Multi-texturing, Bump Mapping, Environment Mapping, MIP Mapping, Bilinear Filtering, Trilinear Filtering, Ansitropic Filtering, Real-time Hardware Texture Decompression (S3TC)
Real-time Decompression of Display List, HW 3-line Deflickering filter
Audio Processing
(Incorporated into the System LSI)
Sound Processor
Custom Macronix 16-bit DSP
Instruction Memory
8KB RAM + 8KB ROM
Data Memory
8KB RAM + 4KB ROM
Clock Frequency
81 MHz
Performance
64 simultaneous channels, ADPCM & PCM encoding
Sampling Frequency
48KHz
Microsoft X-Box is not to be ignored either and especially its mammoth stats, Nintendos cunning compression techniques and general wizardry should see the two consoles running neck and neck in terms of performance power. It has recently been known too that some developers find the performance of the GC actually superior to that of the X-Box.
I am actually looking forward to the exclusives for that console. But really in the long run I just cant see the system pulling through the looming war of the giants. And PS2, well its user base is just about settling so it is basically safe in terms of keeping people buying games, for the near future anyway. Im looking forward to PS2 Titles such as Metal Gear 2 and FF10. But for the long run?....who knows?
Throughout my life I've run into basically two kinds of console people, especially here on these forums: Sony people and Nintendo people. Both of these people are basically indifferent to the Sega people of the past, yet for the most part are polar opposites of each other.
Nintendo will fight for the next generation console market with style that we have never seen before, iam confident of that, with the form of the Gamecube. What's their strategy? Well, first off they don't want this system to be welded to one set place and to be a Computer console with Linux operating systems. Rather, they want to give you what you pay for, a powerful gaming machine. Hence they'll probably be able to get it to you at one-half the price of the PS2.
Nintendo's main focus is portability. They don't really want you to sit the Gamecube in one place and for it to permanently stay there. They want it to be small and highly mobile. This is clearly represented when you take a look at the dimensions of Nintendo's Cube: 150mm(W) x 110mm(H) x 161mm(D). Now for those of us not functioning in the metric system this comes out to roughly 6 inches wide, 4 inches tall, and 6 inches deep. Clearly this is a compact little unit.
Nintendo has realized mishaps from the past and focused on how to make the Gamecube more developer friendly and cheaper to design for, something the N64 and previous systems had difficulties with (due to the expensive cartridge format). This is why the PS1 had so many more games for it. It was much cheaper to develop for.
From what reports are to go by, especially from Rogue Leader developers Factor 5, Gamecube is very developer friendly. Instead of doing what the PS2 is doing (dividing graphical tasks onto the CPU and two Vector Units) the Gamecube has a single "Flipper Chip" that handles these tasks, and has built in 6.1 hardware texture compression. The PS2 has no texture compression thus the developer must do this in software putting a lot of strain on something the Emotion Engine would rather not do.
The specification battle goes on and on, and it seems that the Gamecube wins in most sheer hardware power categories. The faster Gekko CPU, much, much, more L2 cache, S3 texture compression, extremely fast 1T-SRAM, the list goes on.
And dont forget the added Nintendo Wizardy.
And as for a home Movie system, such as DVD,There is no reason for Nintendo to have incorporated this into their system. If the people want a game console, Nintendo will deliver a game console 'Its their argument'. Nintendo isn't forcing the extra cost on you but there will be a Matsushita-branded version of the Gamecube that will play commercial DVD's in Japan at least.
And as for the Discs themselves they will come on a proprietary DVD format that holds 1.5GB of data. These discs are very small, 8cm or around 3in. in diameter. They should be very cheap for developers and thus much cheaper then any N64 cartridge and most likely cheaper than a PS2 game on DVD (which there are currently few of).
In conclusion I believe that Nintendo is setting themselves up for a very successful spring 2002 and all eyes at the moment are focused on Japan and the looming Gamecube release forthcoming there. I suspect the Gamecube to easily deliver what all the Developers are saying it can, plus some. With games like StarFox Adventures,Smash Brothers, Sega Exclusives, Mario, Zelda, Perfect Dark, and Metroid currently in development the Gamecube's launch should be highly acclaimed.
Now who along with me cant wait for spring 2002?. Heres hoping its earlier than we all thought.
And the colour of the relesed console? Lets hope we have a choice in that matter.
It is especially refreshing seeing Mario in his new guise, equipped with Denim Dungarees and looking a little more meaner! and seeing scenes of Link from the Zelda series battling re-dead's, plus Captain Falcon of F-Zero racing along a track from spruced up version of a scene from the series.
All of these cut-scenes should give us all an indication of what the Gamecube version of the title stars would be like with them, in their own environments that we have all come to love. Absolutely wonderful.
For those that hide from the media or just dont know, here is a recap of the innards of the Console which makes games like this believable (In most cases for techno geezers only):
MPU ("Micro Processing Unit")
Custom IBM Power PC "Gekko"
Manufacturing Process
0.18 micron IBM Copper Wire Technology
Clock Frequency
485 MHz
CPU Capacity
1125 Dmips (Dhrystone 2.1)
Internal Data Precision
32-bit Integer & 64-bit Floating-point
External Bus
1.3 GB/second peak bandwidth
32-bit address space
64-bit data bus
162 MHz clock
Internal Cache
L1: Instruction 32KB, Data 32KB (8 way)
L2: 256KB (2 way)
System LSI
Custom ATI/Nintendo "Flipper"
Manufacturing Process
0.18 micron NEC Embedded DRAM Process
Clock Frequency
162 MHz
Embedded Frame Buffer
Approx. 2 MB
Sustainable Latency: 6.2ns (1T-SRAM)
Embedded Texture Cache
Approx. 1 MB
Sustainable Latency: 6.2 ns (1T-SRAM)
Texture Read Bandwidth
10.4 GB/second (Peak)
Main Memory Bandwidth
2.6 GB/second (Peak)
Pixel Depth
24-bit Color, 24-bit Z Buffer
Image Processing Functions
Fog, Subpixel Anti-aliasing, 8 Hardware Lights, Alpha Blending, Virtual Texture Design, Multi-texturing, Bump Mapping, Environment Mapping, MIP Mapping, Bilinear Filtering, Trilinear Filtering, Ansitropic Filtering, Real-time Hardware Texture Decompression (S3TC)
Real-time Decompression of Display List, HW 3-line Deflickering filter
Audio Processing
(Incorporated into the System LSI)
Sound Processor
Custom Macronix 16-bit DSP
Instruction Memory
8KB RAM + 8KB ROM
Data Memory
8KB RAM + 4KB ROM
Clock Frequency
81 MHz
Performance
64 simultaneous channels, ADPCM & PCM encoding
Sampling Frequency
48KHz
Microsoft X-Box is not to be ignored either and especially its mammoth stats, Nintendos cunning compression techniques and general wizardry should see the two consoles running neck and neck in terms of performance power. It has recently been known too that some developers find the performance of the GC actually superior to that of the X-Box.
I am actually looking forward to the exclusives for that console. But really in the long run I just cant see the system pulling through the looming war of the giants. And PS2, well its user base is just about settling so it is basically safe in terms of keeping people buying games, for the near future anyway. Im looking forward to PS2 Titles such as Metal Gear 2 and FF10. But for the long run?....who knows?
Throughout my life I've run into basically two kinds of console people, especially here on these forums: Sony people and Nintendo people. Both of these people are basically indifferent to the Sega people of the past, yet for the most part are polar opposites of each other.
Nintendo will fight for the next generation console market with style that we have never seen before, iam confident of that, with the form of the Gamecube. What's their strategy? Well, first off they don't want this system to be welded to one set place and to be a Computer console with Linux operating systems. Rather, they want to give you what you pay for, a powerful gaming machine. Hence they'll probably be able to get it to you at one-half the price of the PS2.
Nintendo's main focus is portability. They don't really want you to sit the Gamecube in one place and for it to permanently stay there. They want it to be small and highly mobile. This is clearly represented when you take a look at the dimensions of Nintendo's Cube: 150mm(W) x 110mm(H) x 161mm(D). Now for those of us not functioning in the metric system this comes out to roughly 6 inches wide, 4 inches tall, and 6 inches deep. Clearly this is a compact little unit.
Nintendo has realized mishaps from the past and focused on how to make the Gamecube more developer friendly and cheaper to design for, something the N64 and previous systems had difficulties with (due to the expensive cartridge format). This is why the PS1 had so many more games for it. It was much cheaper to develop for.
From what reports are to go by, especially from Rogue Leader developers Factor 5, Gamecube is very developer friendly. Instead of doing what the PS2 is doing (dividing graphical tasks onto the CPU and two Vector Units) the Gamecube has a single "Flipper Chip" that handles these tasks, and has built in 6.1 hardware texture compression. The PS2 has no texture compression thus the developer must do this in software putting a lot of strain on something the Emotion Engine would rather not do.
The specification battle goes on and on, and it seems that the Gamecube wins in most sheer hardware power categories. The faster Gekko CPU, much, much, more L2 cache, S3 texture compression, extremely fast 1T-SRAM, the list goes on.
And dont forget the added Nintendo Wizardy.
And as for a home Movie system, such as DVD,There is no reason for Nintendo to have incorporated this into their system. If the people want a game console, Nintendo will deliver a game console 'Its their argument'. Nintendo isn't forcing the extra cost on you but there will be a Matsushita-branded version of the Gamecube that will play commercial DVD's in Japan at least.
And as for the Discs themselves they will come on a proprietary DVD format that holds 1.5GB of data. These discs are very small, 8cm or around 3in. in diameter. They should be very cheap for developers and thus much cheaper then any N64 cartridge and most likely cheaper than a PS2 game on DVD (which there are currently few of).
In conclusion I believe that Nintendo is setting themselves up for a very successful spring 2002 and all eyes at the moment are focused on Japan and the looming Gamecube release forthcoming there. I suspect the Gamecube to easily deliver what all the Developers are saying it can, plus some. With games like StarFox Adventures,Smash Brothers, Sega Exclusives, Mario, Zelda, Perfect Dark, and Metroid currently in development the Gamecube's launch should be highly acclaimed.
Now who along with me cant wait for spring 2002?. Heres hoping its earlier than we all thought.
And the colour of the relesed console? Lets hope we have a choice in that matter.
Very True
People can use the Java programming language to make a game without getting a devkit.
You can certainly saay...but you are wrong.
Im stating Facts not some contrived zealot behaviour.
Playstation is the Number one system behind GBA to play games on now.
Playstation rules the roost not PS2.
Sorry to dissapoint you.
Im stating Facts not some contrived zealot behaviour.
Playstation is the Number one system behind GBA to play games on now.
Playstation rules the roost not PS2.
Sorry to dissapoint you.
Zealot? I could definitely say the same about you!
And the Linux operating system? That's so people can make PS2 games without needing a devkit idiot.
And the Linux operating system? That's so people can make PS2 games without needing a devkit idiot.
I think I read on CVG Website that a developer has stated that the GC is actually superior to the X-Box.
Sorry for no link but you could try-
www.c omputerandvideogames.com
www.p lanetgamecube.com
And TurboNutter I had an argument with you before about a similiar topic. You are a PS2 Zealot and I couldnt be annoyed wasting time with ya, sorry.
BTW ....Sony has been in contact with a few in Actually including a "Linux operating system" in PS2.
And (Im actually sniggering here) what ever happened to Gran Turismo 3? The Back lash is bad man! Many are saying that MSR is visually better and more enjoyable to play!
(I can just see it now, Turbonuttt quoting every single letter, ahhhh the days of Zealotism)
Not to worry though.
Sorry for no link but you could try-
www.c omputerandvideogames.com
www.p lanetgamecube.com
And TurboNutter I had an argument with you before about a similiar topic. You are a PS2 Zealot and I couldnt be annoyed wasting time with ya, sorry.
BTW ....Sony has been in contact with a few in Actually including a "Linux operating system" in PS2.
And (Im actually sniggering here) what ever happened to Gran Turismo 3? The Back lash is bad man! Many are saying that MSR is visually better and more enjoyable to play!
(I can just see it now, Turbonuttt quoting every single letter, ahhhh the days of Zealotism)
Not to worry though.
There are a few interviews knocking about on the web on various sites where developers are citing examples of where the Gamecube was a lot easier to develop for than the X-Box.
This was before they actually got their sleeves rolled up and actually got to grips with the X-Box architecture. For the last 2 or 3 months they've all been rather quiet about it though.
This was before they actually got their sleeves rolled up and actually got to grips with the X-Box architecture. For the last 2 or 3 months they've all been rather quiet about it though.
And the colour of the relesed console? Lets hope we have a
> choice in that matter.
You won't.
> choice in that matter.
You won't.
So your not excited yet about the new forthcoming Wonder console? Im talking about 'Nintendo Gamecube' and boy does it look promising. Just recently I have been browsing the web and came across new batches of screenshots from the Super Smash Brothers melee game, which inspired me to write this. Wow!, dont they just look wonderful?
It is especially refreshing seeing Mario in his new guise, equipped with Denim Dungarees and looking a little more meaner! and seeing scenes of Link from the Zelda series battling re-dead's, plus Captain Falcon of F-Zero racing along a track from spruced up version of a scene from the series.
All of these cut-scenes should give us all an indication of what the Gamecube version of the title stars would be like with them, in their own environments that we have all come to love. Absolutely wonderful.
For those that hide from the media or just dont know, here is a recap of the innards of the Console which makes games like this believable (In most cases for techno geezers only):
MPU ("Micro Processing Unit")
Custom IBM Power PC "Gekko"
Manufacturing Process
0.18 micron IBM Copper Wire Technology
Clock Frequency
485 MHz
CPU Capacity
1125 Dmips (Dhrystone 2.1)
Internal Data Precision
32-bit Integer & 64-bit Floating-point
External Bus
1.3 GB/second peak bandwidth
32-bit address space
64-bit data bus
162 MHz clock
Internal Cache
L1: Instruction 32KB, Data 32KB (8 way)
L2: 256KB (2 way)
System LSI
Custom ATI/Nintendo "Flipper"
Manufacturing Process
0.18 micron NEC Embedded DRAM Process
Clock Frequency
162 MHz
Embedded Frame Buffer
Approx. 2 MB
Sustainable Latency: 6.2ns (1T-SRAM)
Embedded Texture Cache
Approx. 1 MB
Sustainable Latency: 6.2 ns (1T-SRAM)
Texture Read Bandwidth
10.4 GB/second (Peak)
Main Memory Bandwidth
2.6 GB/second (Peak)
Pixel Depth
24-bit Color, 24-bit Z Buffer
Image Processing Functions
Fog, Subpixel Anti-aliasing, 8 Hardware Lights, Alpha Blending, Virtual Texture Design, Multi-texturing, Bump Mapping, Environment Mapping, MIP Mapping, Bilinear Filtering, Trilinear Filtering, Ansitropic Filtering, Real-time Hardware Texture Decompression (S3TC)
Real-time Decompression of Display List, HW 3-line Deflickering filter
Audio Processing
(Incorporated into the System LSI)
Sound Processor
Custom Macronix 16-bit DSP
Instruction Memory
8KB RAM + 8KB ROM
Data Memory
8KB RAM + 4KB ROM
Clock Frequency
81 MHz
Performance
64 simultaneous channels, ADPCM & PCM encoding
Sampling Frequency
48KHz
Microsoft X-Box is not to be ignored either and especially its mammoth stats, Nintendos cunning compression techniques and general wizardry should see the two consoles running neck and neck in terms of performance power. It has recently been known too that some developers find the performance of the GC actually superior to that of the X-Box.
I am actually looking forward to the exclusives for that console. But really in the long run I just cant see the system pulling through the looming war of the giants. And PS2, well its user base is just about settling so it is basically safe in terms of keeping people buying games, for the near future anyway. Im looking forward to PS2 Titles such as Metal Gear 2 and FF10. But for the long run?....who knows?
Throughout my life I've run into basically two kinds of console people, especially here on these forums: Sony people and Nintendo people. Both of these people are basically indifferent to the Sega people of the past, yet for the most part are polar opposites of each other.
Nintendo will fight for the next generation console market with style that we have never seen before, iam confident of that, with the form of the Gamecube. What's their strategy? Well, first off they don't want this system to be welded to one set place and to be a Computer console with Linux operating systems. Rather, they want to give you what you pay for, a powerful gaming machine. Hence they'll probably be able to get it to you at one-half the price of the PS2.
Nintendo's main focus is portability. They don't really want you to sit the Gamecube in one place and for it to permanently stay there. They want it to be small and highly mobile. This is clearly represented when you take a look at the dimensions of Nintendo's Cube: 150mm(W) x 110mm(H) x 161mm(D). Now for those of us not functioning in the metric system this comes out to roughly 6 inches wide, 4 inches tall, and 6 inches deep. Clearly this is a compact little unit.
Nintendo has realized mishaps from the past and focused on how to make the Gamecube more developer friendly and cheaper to design for, something the N64 and previous systems had difficulties with (due to the expensive cartridge format). This is why the PS1 had so many more games for it. It was much cheaper to develop for.
From what reports are to go by, especially from Rogue Leader developers Factor 5, Gamecube is very developer friendly. Instead of doing what the PS2 is doing (dividing graphical tasks onto the CPU and two Vector Units) the Gamecube has a single "Flipper Chip" that handles these tasks, and has built in 6.1 hardware texture compression. The PS2 has no texture compression thus the developer must do this in software putting a lot of strain on something the Emotion Engine would rather not do.
The specification battle goes on and on, and it seems that the Gamecube wins in most sheer hardware power categories. The faster Gekko CPU, much, much, more L2 cache, S3 texture compression, extremely fast 1T-SRAM, the list goes on.
And dont forget the added Nintendo Wizardy.
And as for a home Movie system, such as DVD,There is no reason for Nintendo to have incorporated this into their system. If the people want a game console, Nintendo will deliver a game console 'Its their argument'. Nintendo isn't forcing the extra cost on you but there will be a Matsushita-branded version of the Gamecube that will play commercial DVD's in Japan at least.
And as for the Discs themselves they will come on a proprietary DVD format that holds 1.5GB of data. These discs are very small, 8cm or around 3in. in diameter. They should be very cheap for developers and thus much cheaper then any N64 cartridge and most likely cheaper than a PS2 game on DVD (which there are currently few of).
In conclusion I believe that Nintendo is setting themselves up for a very successful spring 2002 and all eyes at the moment are focused on Japan and the looming Gamecube release forthcoming there. I suspect the Gamecube to easily deliver what all the Developers are saying it can, plus some. With games like StarFox Adventures,Smash Brothers, Sega Exclusives, Mario, Zelda, Perfect Dark, and Metroid currently in development the Gamecube's launch should be highly acclaimed.
Now who along with me cant wait for spring 2002?. Heres hoping its earlier than we all thought.
And the colour of the relesed console? Lets hope we have a choice in that matter.
It is especially refreshing seeing Mario in his new guise, equipped with Denim Dungarees and looking a little more meaner! and seeing scenes of Link from the Zelda series battling re-dead's, plus Captain Falcon of F-Zero racing along a track from spruced up version of a scene from the series.
All of these cut-scenes should give us all an indication of what the Gamecube version of the title stars would be like with them, in their own environments that we have all come to love. Absolutely wonderful.
For those that hide from the media or just dont know, here is a recap of the innards of the Console which makes games like this believable (In most cases for techno geezers only):
MPU ("Micro Processing Unit")
Custom IBM Power PC "Gekko"
Manufacturing Process
0.18 micron IBM Copper Wire Technology
Clock Frequency
485 MHz
CPU Capacity
1125 Dmips (Dhrystone 2.1)
Internal Data Precision
32-bit Integer & 64-bit Floating-point
External Bus
1.3 GB/second peak bandwidth
32-bit address space
64-bit data bus
162 MHz clock
Internal Cache
L1: Instruction 32KB, Data 32KB (8 way)
L2: 256KB (2 way)
System LSI
Custom ATI/Nintendo "Flipper"
Manufacturing Process
0.18 micron NEC Embedded DRAM Process
Clock Frequency
162 MHz
Embedded Frame Buffer
Approx. 2 MB
Sustainable Latency: 6.2ns (1T-SRAM)
Embedded Texture Cache
Approx. 1 MB
Sustainable Latency: 6.2 ns (1T-SRAM)
Texture Read Bandwidth
10.4 GB/second (Peak)
Main Memory Bandwidth
2.6 GB/second (Peak)
Pixel Depth
24-bit Color, 24-bit Z Buffer
Image Processing Functions
Fog, Subpixel Anti-aliasing, 8 Hardware Lights, Alpha Blending, Virtual Texture Design, Multi-texturing, Bump Mapping, Environment Mapping, MIP Mapping, Bilinear Filtering, Trilinear Filtering, Ansitropic Filtering, Real-time Hardware Texture Decompression (S3TC)
Real-time Decompression of Display List, HW 3-line Deflickering filter
Audio Processing
(Incorporated into the System LSI)
Sound Processor
Custom Macronix 16-bit DSP
Instruction Memory
8KB RAM + 8KB ROM
Data Memory
8KB RAM + 4KB ROM
Clock Frequency
81 MHz
Performance
64 simultaneous channels, ADPCM & PCM encoding
Sampling Frequency
48KHz
Microsoft X-Box is not to be ignored either and especially its mammoth stats, Nintendos cunning compression techniques and general wizardry should see the two consoles running neck and neck in terms of performance power. It has recently been known too that some developers find the performance of the GC actually superior to that of the X-Box.
I am actually looking forward to the exclusives for that console. But really in the long run I just cant see the system pulling through the looming war of the giants. And PS2, well its user base is just about settling so it is basically safe in terms of keeping people buying games, for the near future anyway. Im looking forward to PS2 Titles such as Metal Gear 2 and FF10. But for the long run?....who knows?
Throughout my life I've run into basically two kinds of console people, especially here on these forums: Sony people and Nintendo people. Both of these people are basically indifferent to the Sega people of the past, yet for the most part are polar opposites of each other.
Nintendo will fight for the next generation console market with style that we have never seen before, iam confident of that, with the form of the Gamecube. What's their strategy? Well, first off they don't want this system to be welded to one set place and to be a Computer console with Linux operating systems. Rather, they want to give you what you pay for, a powerful gaming machine. Hence they'll probably be able to get it to you at one-half the price of the PS2.
Nintendo's main focus is portability. They don't really want you to sit the Gamecube in one place and for it to permanently stay there. They want it to be small and highly mobile. This is clearly represented when you take a look at the dimensions of Nintendo's Cube: 150mm(W) x 110mm(H) x 161mm(D). Now for those of us not functioning in the metric system this comes out to roughly 6 inches wide, 4 inches tall, and 6 inches deep. Clearly this is a compact little unit.
Nintendo has realized mishaps from the past and focused on how to make the Gamecube more developer friendly and cheaper to design for, something the N64 and previous systems had difficulties with (due to the expensive cartridge format). This is why the PS1 had so many more games for it. It was much cheaper to develop for.
From what reports are to go by, especially from Rogue Leader developers Factor 5, Gamecube is very developer friendly. Instead of doing what the PS2 is doing (dividing graphical tasks onto the CPU and two Vector Units) the Gamecube has a single "Flipper Chip" that handles these tasks, and has built in 6.1 hardware texture compression. The PS2 has no texture compression thus the developer must do this in software putting a lot of strain on something the Emotion Engine would rather not do.
The specification battle goes on and on, and it seems that the Gamecube wins in most sheer hardware power categories. The faster Gekko CPU, much, much, more L2 cache, S3 texture compression, extremely fast 1T-SRAM, the list goes on.
And dont forget the added Nintendo Wizardy.
And as for a home Movie system, such as DVD,There is no reason for Nintendo to have incorporated this into their system. If the people want a game console, Nintendo will deliver a game console 'Its their argument'. Nintendo isn't forcing the extra cost on you but there will be a Matsushita-branded version of the Gamecube that will play commercial DVD's in Japan at least.
And as for the Discs themselves they will come on a proprietary DVD format that holds 1.5GB of data. These discs are very small, 8cm or around 3in. in diameter. They should be very cheap for developers and thus much cheaper then any N64 cartridge and most likely cheaper than a PS2 game on DVD (which there are currently few of).
In conclusion I believe that Nintendo is setting themselves up for a very successful spring 2002 and all eyes at the moment are focused on Japan and the looming Gamecube release forthcoming there. I suspect the Gamecube to easily deliver what all the Developers are saying it can, plus some. With games like StarFox Adventures,Smash Brothers, Sega Exclusives, Mario, Zelda, Perfect Dark, and Metroid currently in development the Gamecube's launch should be highly acclaimed.
Now who along with me cant wait for spring 2002?. Heres hoping its earlier than we all thought.
And the colour of the relesed console? Lets hope we have a choice in that matter.