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THE HISTORY OF GAMECUBE
It was mid- 1998.With six months to go until the launch of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the Nintendo 64 w as having the time of its life. But the N64 couldn’t last forever, and whispers of a next generation Nintendo console began. The team behind 1080° Snowboarding was diverted to “research new hardware”. Nintendo dumped MIPS, the chip maker who’d designed the N64’s graphic chip, and recruited the newly-formed ArtX to build them…something. Before long, the term ‘N2000’ was coined to describe the next-generation console that was now The Big N’s worst-kept secret. In December, Nintendo of America’s president Mr Arakawa confirmed that ‘N2000’ was indeed a reality. The good news was that Nintendo were ready to move away from costly carts to inexpensive game discs. The bad news? Gamers were going to have to wait and shouldn’t expect the console much before 2000 or 2001. “It’s going to take some time for us to produce,” Arakawa chuckled. That was a painful confession. But a few days later, when Shigeru Miyamoto decided that maybe he’d make the long-rumoured Super Mario 64 2 for “a completely different system” to the N64, the wait for N2000 suddenly seemed even longer.
DOLPHIN MAKES A SPLASH
On the 1st March 1999, Sony Computer Entertainment announced the PlayStation 2. With visual demos of cars screaming around racetracks and faces contorting with astonishing realism. The future of videogames had arrived. Meanwhile, a sulky Nintendo offered a simple statement. “We are developing a more advanced videogame system. We are not providing any specifics at this time.” Two months later, the specifics began to be provided. The day before the E3 games expo in the US, NoA chairman Howard Lincoln informed a rapt audience that Nintendo had managed to secure industry-shaking deals with some of the world’s biggest electronics companies – IBM, Panasonic, NEC - to create what they codenamed ‘Project Dolphin’. 400MHz Gekko processor, 0.18 micron technology, high-speed DRAM – plenty of statistics were thrown around by Lincoln, but the message was clear. Dolphin would be fast, powerful and cheap enough to run PS2 into the ground. “I think Nintendo is very well positioned to take on Sony,” a bullish Lincoln said. “In fact, we can hardly wait.”
THE GAMES BEGIN
Why Dolphin? No-one was quite sure, but the name stuck, despite official attempts to change it to the clumsy ‘Next-Generation Nintendo Console.” And with the lid officially lifted on Nintendo’s plans, magazines and web sites scrambled to land details on the console’s insides, the launch date (tentatively pencilled in for Christmas 2000) and – more importantly – what games were being planned for Dolphin. Echoing the ‘Dream Team’ philosophy of the N64, Nintendo were busy signing up talented developers as ‘second parties’. NBA Courtside coders Left Field were already on board; Texas-based start-up Retro Studios was reported to be working on Dolphin sports games; Canada’s Silicon Knights would abruptly stop work on PlayStation game Too Human after joining The Big N’s clan; the folk like Acclaim, EA and Rare already had their dev kits. The all-important Japanese powerhouses might have been cautious – Namco felt unable to commit, and Capcom were impatiently awaiting their dev kit. But who cared when the almighty Sqauresoft, who’d fallen out with Nintendo after they decided to stick with carts for the N64, were reportedly “excited” about the machine? And what of Mario? “He has to play the leading part as the console’s ‘top batter’,” said Miyamoto. “Right now, he’s getting in shape for the Dolphin.” Still, Shigsy had his hands full – literally – co-designing Dolphin’s controller, and in September ’99 revealed that all Dolphin games were still in the planning stages. Could Dolphin really make that Christmas 2000 launch?
N2000 or N2001?
Minoru Arakawa, 2nd February 2000: “We still have a plan for the end of the year.” This was important. The PlayStation 2 would hit Japan in less than a month, and Microsoft were rumoured to be ready to announce their own next-generation competitor, the X-Box. Nintendo had to be ready with Dolphin to stay alive. One month later, the bombshell. “Nintendo’s Project Dolphin [will launch] in the first half of 2001” ran the US and European line. Worse, Nintendo of Japan’s Hiroshi Imanishi couldn’t even guarantee the Japanese a Dolphin before 2001. It was clear, too, that despite interest from countless developers – Ubisoft, THQ, Titus, 3DO, Eidos, Crave, Midway, Climax, proper dev kits weren’t even near completion. Online plans were not revealed and Dolphin’s inner workings were a secret. So what if, as Nintendo of Europe’s Axel Herr claimed, Dolphin was apparently 33% more powerful than PS2? With Sony off to a flyer and Microsoft ready to play catch-up, Nintendo’s stubborn secrecy wasn’t doing them any favours.
BOX CLEVER
Nintendo remained utterly silent about Dolphin for much of 2000. Rumours flew about stunning visuals, tiny 3” discs, bizarre double-analogue joypads, games such as Ridge Racer V, Resident Evil Zero, and Perfect Dark 2 – but The Big N were confirming and denying nothing. Even the rumoured name – Starcube – was blanked. “Internally, Gamecube is ready,” moaned Imanishi. “But, as always, Miyamoto says, ‘Oh, we’re not ready yet.’” Whatever the delay, they couldn’t stave off the media much longer – financial analysts agreed that unless Nintendo pulled something special out of their cap come August 2000’s Spaceworld show, it’d be curtains. On 23rd August Nintendo delivered. The Gamecube was officially unveiled – a sexy, super-small cube with a pleasing chunky joypad and cute 3” discs. And with it came footage of Gamecube’s potential – gobsmacking demos of Nintendo icons – Mario, Luigi, Link, Samus Aran, Pokémon – dancing around in eye-popping detail. As Shigeru Miyamoto made 128 Marios run, roll, and yell their way around the screen in the world’s first real-time Gamecube demo, Sony’s humdrum rubber duckies and old men’s faces were instantly forgotten. The one fly in the ointment? Another delay, this time to March 2001 in Japan, and July in the US and Europe. This time few cared – at last they had proof that The Big N were back in a big way.
THE PATH TO E3
“It’s obvious from the sales of PlayStation 2 that consumers are leaving games behind,” muttered Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. Gamecube had arrived to save videogaming. The way it would do so was made clear by reaction outside of Nintendo. Engineers were amazed by Gamecube’s powerful, elegant, efficient (and therefore cheap) innards – coders were enraptured by the machine’s developer-friendliness; gamers appreciated Nintendo targeting games, rather than DVDs, Multimedia or online play. And everyone’s eyes glazed over at the thought of a new wave of Nintendo brilliance, courtesy of Miyamoto and friends. But until March 2001’s E3 show, when playable Gamecube titles were promised, Nintendo could only talk about the delights to come. Capcom, Konami, Namco, Enix, Acclaim, EA, THQ, and scores of others queued up to commit their biggest franchises to the machine, and by early 2001 – when Nintendo had admitted they’d be revising their lauch dates yet again – the world was impatient for a glimpse of the games that would see Nintendo grabbing back the gaming crown from Sony. As promised, E3 saw Nintendo leave incredible-looking games such as Luigi’s Mansion and Super Smash Bros Melee to demonstrate the sheer power of Gamecube, the comfort of the controller, and the brilliance of what could be fashioned with the diddy purple box. Microsoft also chose E3 to officially unveil their machine – the bulky Xbox – but their stand seemed barren and lifeless compared to Nintendo’s, which heaved with folk anxious to get their hands on Gamecube’s games. It was a testament to Nintendo’s sheer talent. Yamuachi was right – Gamecube was here to shape the future of gaming.
It was mid- 1998.With six months to go until the launch of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the Nintendo 64 w as having the time of its life. But the N64 couldn’t last forever, and whispers of a next generation Nintendo console began. The team behind 1080° Snowboarding was diverted to “research new hardware”. Nintendo dumped MIPS, the chip maker who’d designed the N64’s graphic chip, and recruited the newly-formed ArtX to build them…something. Before long, the term ‘N2000’ was coined to describe the next-generation console that was now The Big N’s worst-kept secret. In December, Nintendo of America’s president Mr Arakawa confirmed that ‘N2000’ was indeed a reality. The good news was that Nintendo were ready to move away from costly carts to inexpensive game discs. The bad news? Gamers were going to have to wait and shouldn’t expect the console much before 2000 or 2001. “It’s going to take some time for us to produce,” Arakawa chuckled. That was a painful confession. But a few days later, when Shigeru Miyamoto decided that maybe he’d make the long-rumoured Super Mario 64 2 for “a completely different system” to the N64, the wait for N2000 suddenly seemed even longer.
DOLPHIN MAKES A SPLASH
On the 1st March 1999, Sony Computer Entertainment announced the PlayStation 2. With visual demos of cars screaming around racetracks and faces contorting with astonishing realism. The future of videogames had arrived. Meanwhile, a sulky Nintendo offered a simple statement. “We are developing a more advanced videogame system. We are not providing any specifics at this time.” Two months later, the specifics began to be provided. The day before the E3 games expo in the US, NoA chairman Howard Lincoln informed a rapt audience that Nintendo had managed to secure industry-shaking deals with some of the world’s biggest electronics companies – IBM, Panasonic, NEC - to create what they codenamed ‘Project Dolphin’. 400MHz Gekko processor, 0.18 micron technology, high-speed DRAM – plenty of statistics were thrown around by Lincoln, but the message was clear. Dolphin would be fast, powerful and cheap enough to run PS2 into the ground. “I think Nintendo is very well positioned to take on Sony,” a bullish Lincoln said. “In fact, we can hardly wait.”
THE GAMES BEGIN
Why Dolphin? No-one was quite sure, but the name stuck, despite official attempts to change it to the clumsy ‘Next-Generation Nintendo Console.” And with the lid officially lifted on Nintendo’s plans, magazines and web sites scrambled to land details on the console’s insides, the launch date (tentatively pencilled in for Christmas 2000) and – more importantly – what games were being planned for Dolphin. Echoing the ‘Dream Team’ philosophy of the N64, Nintendo were busy signing up talented developers as ‘second parties’. NBA Courtside coders Left Field were already on board; Texas-based start-up Retro Studios was reported to be working on Dolphin sports games; Canada’s Silicon Knights would abruptly stop work on PlayStation game Too Human after joining The Big N’s clan; the folk like Acclaim, EA and Rare already had their dev kits. The all-important Japanese powerhouses might have been cautious – Namco felt unable to commit, and Capcom were impatiently awaiting their dev kit. But who cared when the almighty Sqauresoft, who’d fallen out with Nintendo after they decided to stick with carts for the N64, were reportedly “excited” about the machine? And what of Mario? “He has to play the leading part as the console’s ‘top batter’,” said Miyamoto. “Right now, he’s getting in shape for the Dolphin.” Still, Shigsy had his hands full – literally – co-designing Dolphin’s controller, and in September ’99 revealed that all Dolphin games were still in the planning stages. Could Dolphin really make that Christmas 2000 launch?
N2000 or N2001?
Minoru Arakawa, 2nd February 2000: “We still have a plan for the end of the year.” This was important. The PlayStation 2 would hit Japan in less than a month, and Microsoft were rumoured to be ready to announce their own next-generation competitor, the X-Box. Nintendo had to be ready with Dolphin to stay alive. One month later, the bombshell. “Nintendo’s Project Dolphin [will launch] in the first half of 2001” ran the US and European line. Worse, Nintendo of Japan’s Hiroshi Imanishi couldn’t even guarantee the Japanese a Dolphin before 2001. It was clear, too, that despite interest from countless developers – Ubisoft, THQ, Titus, 3DO, Eidos, Crave, Midway, Climax, proper dev kits weren’t even near completion. Online plans were not revealed and Dolphin’s inner workings were a secret. So what if, as Nintendo of Europe’s Axel Herr claimed, Dolphin was apparently 33% more powerful than PS2? With Sony off to a flyer and Microsoft ready to play catch-up, Nintendo’s stubborn secrecy wasn’t doing them any favours.
BOX CLEVER
Nintendo remained utterly silent about Dolphin for much of 2000. Rumours flew about stunning visuals, tiny 3” discs, bizarre double-analogue joypads, games such as Ridge Racer V, Resident Evil Zero, and Perfect Dark 2 – but The Big N were confirming and denying nothing. Even the rumoured name – Starcube – was blanked. “Internally, Gamecube is ready,” moaned Imanishi. “But, as always, Miyamoto says, ‘Oh, we’re not ready yet.’” Whatever the delay, they couldn’t stave off the media much longer – financial analysts agreed that unless Nintendo pulled something special out of their cap come August 2000’s Spaceworld show, it’d be curtains. On 23rd August Nintendo delivered. The Gamecube was officially unveiled – a sexy, super-small cube with a pleasing chunky joypad and cute 3” discs. And with it came footage of Gamecube’s potential – gobsmacking demos of Nintendo icons – Mario, Luigi, Link, Samus Aran, Pokémon – dancing around in eye-popping detail. As Shigeru Miyamoto made 128 Marios run, roll, and yell their way around the screen in the world’s first real-time Gamecube demo, Sony’s humdrum rubber duckies and old men’s faces were instantly forgotten. The one fly in the ointment? Another delay, this time to March 2001 in Japan, and July in the US and Europe. This time few cared – at last they had proof that The Big N were back in a big way.
THE PATH TO E3
“It’s obvious from the sales of PlayStation 2 that consumers are leaving games behind,” muttered Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. Gamecube had arrived to save videogaming. The way it would do so was made clear by reaction outside of Nintendo. Engineers were amazed by Gamecube’s powerful, elegant, efficient (and therefore cheap) innards – coders were enraptured by the machine’s developer-friendliness; gamers appreciated Nintendo targeting games, rather than DVDs, Multimedia or online play. And everyone’s eyes glazed over at the thought of a new wave of Nintendo brilliance, courtesy of Miyamoto and friends. But until March 2001’s E3 show, when playable Gamecube titles were promised, Nintendo could only talk about the delights to come. Capcom, Konami, Namco, Enix, Acclaim, EA, THQ, and scores of others queued up to commit their biggest franchises to the machine, and by early 2001 – when Nintendo had admitted they’d be revising their lauch dates yet again – the world was impatient for a glimpse of the games that would see Nintendo grabbing back the gaming crown from Sony. As promised, E3 saw Nintendo leave incredible-looking games such as Luigi’s Mansion and Super Smash Bros Melee to demonstrate the sheer power of Gamecube, the comfort of the controller, and the brilliance of what could be fashioned with the diddy purple box. Microsoft also chose E3 to officially unveil their machine – the bulky Xbox – but their stand seemed barren and lifeless compared to Nintendo’s, which heaved with folk anxious to get their hands on Gamecube’s games. It was a testament to Nintendo’s sheer talent. Yamuachi was right – Gamecube was here to shape the future of gaming.
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seeing as it was from another website and you wanted to 'share' it around why didn't you put the link in your post so we could see it for ourselves (all seems rather fishy to me).
That one where NGC talk about all the new games coming to the GC, the old one though, not the one that came with the latest issue.
You know, copying it from anywhere is cheating...
You know, copying it from anywhere is cheating...
what booklet was it from
Pringle28 wrote:
> Yeah i had that booklet! HEy lads ley off him hes only joined to try
> and win gAD! the purpose of the forum is to talk about nintendo and
> not to try and win GAD but there are so many people that just join to
> try and win! it really annoys me!
I think thats true of everyone though!
I won after 4 days which was pretty good, though that was in the reviews section not the forums.
:o)
> Yeah i had that booklet! HEy lads ley off him hes only joined to try
> and win gAD! the purpose of the forum is to talk about nintendo and
> not to try and win GAD but there are so many people that just join to
> try and win! it really annoys me!
I think thats true of everyone though!
I won after 4 days which was pretty good, though that was in the reviews section not the forums.
:o)
Yeah i had that booklet! HEy lads ley off him hes only joined to try and win gAD! the purpose of the forum is to talk about nintendo and not to try and win GAD but there are so many people that just join to try and win! it really annoys me!
true
eskimo-bob wrote:
> you took that post from a booklet NGC magazine gave away.
Booklet????? I never got that from a booklet, I found it on the net and though I'd share it around. Maybe it would help people decide what is the best console. It proves that Nintendo have not lost their touch and that previous Nintendo fans should not lose faith in the best Game Company ever
> you took that post from a booklet NGC magazine gave away.
Booklet????? I never got that from a booklet, I found it on the net and though I'd share it around. Maybe it would help people decide what is the best console. It proves that Nintendo have not lost their touch and that previous Nintendo fans should not lose faith in the best Game Company ever
eskimo-bob wrote:
> you took that post from a booklet NGC magazine gave away.
even if you did i never read it before and it was a gr8 read
so even if it was blatant plageurism nice post
> you took that post from a booklet NGC magazine gave away.
even if you did i never read it before and it was a gr8 read
so even if it was blatant plageurism nice post
HaHa... busted!!
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