Nintendo GameCube Overview Approach To Third party Developers

The GameCube was first introduced in volume #145 of Nintendo PowerMario from Super Mario Bros. As Nintendo admitted later, the colors red and blue were accidentally reversed. Nintendo Power magazine is a monthly news and strategy magazine from Nintendo. The first issue published was July/August of 1988 spotlighting the magazine. Super Smash Bros. MeleeSuper Smash Bros. Melee (DX Nintendo All-Star Dairantou Smash Brothers Deluxe in Japan) is a colorful fighting game for the Nintendo GameCube with many modes of play. It stars many Nintendo characters, including Mario, Link, Samus Aran, Pikachu, Yoshi, an was the first cover game (volume #151).

1 Overview

The GameCube was widely anticipated by many who were shocked by Nintendo's decision to design the Nintendo 64Super Smash Bros. Nintendo 64 or simply N64 is Nintendo's third home video game console, released on June 23, 1996 in Japan, September 29, 1996 in North America, and finally March 1, 1997 in Europe. The Nintendo 64 was released with only two launch games as a cartridgeIn a variety of electronic equipments, a cartridge (in video game terms, cart game pack or Game Pak can be one method of programming different functionality, providing variable content, or a method by which consumables may be replenished. The term cartrid-based system. Physically shaped similar to a geometric cubeThree dimensions A cube (or hexahedron is a Platonic solid composed of six square faces, with three meeting at each vertex. The cube is a special kind of square prism, of rectangular parallelepiped and of triangular trapezohedron, and is dual to the octah, the Nintendo GameCube uses a unique storage medium, a proprietary format based on Matsushita's optical-disc technology; the discs are approximately three inches (7.5 centimeters) in diameter (considerably smaller than a standard CD or DVD), and the discs have a capacity of approximately 1.5 gigabytes. Despite these protections, proof of concept videos have been released that show it is possible to use a regular DVD with a GameCube, albeit one heavily modified to allow full-size DVDs to fit, to pirate games. The outside casing of the Nintendo GameCube comes in a varitey of colors, such as, indigo, platinum, and black. In Japan, the system is also available in orange, or in limited edition colors like Crystal White, Mint Green, Copper, and White with black pinstripes.

The GameCube system also has the unique capability to connect to Nintendo's portable system GameBoy Advance or its SP variant. Such a connection between the two systems allows the transfer of game data. Examples of this functionality include the use of the GameBoy Advance as a controller for the game played. Subsequent information related to game play may be displayed on the GameBoy Advance's color screen for added convenience or to avoid the cluttering of the display on the television screen. This functionality has also been used to unlock "secrets" such as new levels or characters when two games, a GameBoy Advance game and its GameCube equivalent, are connected together. Up to four GameBoy Advance systems can be connected to the GameCube through the GameCube's four controller ports for multiplayer play. A special Nintendo GameCube to GameBoy Advance connection cable is required for each GameBoy Advance system that is to be connected to the GameCube. A fair variety of GameCube games implement this innovative functionality, while Nintendo encourage its continued use.

Nintendo plans to release the GameCube's successor, currently code-named Project Revolution, in late 2005.

2 Approach to third-party developers

One of the defining aspects of the Nintendo GameCube is the rejuvenated relationship between Nintendo and its licencees. Unlike previous generations in which Nintendo was seen by some as bullying its third-party game developers, Nintendo openly sought game-development aid on Nintendo GameCube. Sometimes, Nintendo would merely request that a third-party developer produce a game based on the third-party's own game franchises; other times, Nintendo would request that the third-party developer produce a game based on Nintendo's own game franchises. This effort from Nintendo resulted in many exclusive third-party games for the Nintendo GameCube. The following is a partial list of examples:

Sonic the Hedgehog games (from Sega, based on Sega's own game properties)
The Resident Evil series (from Capcom, based on Capcom's own game properties)
Tales of Symphonia (from Namco, based on Namco's own game properties)
Baten Kaitos (from Namco, based on Namco's own game properties)
(from Square Enix, based on Square Enix's own game properties)
F-Zero GX (from Sega, based on Nintendo's own game properties)
Donkey Konga (from Namco, based on Nintendo's own game properties)
, a collaborative enhanced remake between Konami and then-secondparty to Nintendo, Silicon Knights.

3 Hardware specifications

The following are hardware specifications provided by Nintendo of America. According to specifications, the GameCube falls between the PlayStation 2, being more powerful and the Xbox being less, in terms of raw power. Some benchmarks provided by third-party testing facilities do indicate, however, that some of these specifications, especially those relating to performance, may be conservative.

3.1 Central processing unit

Name: "Gekko"
Producer: IBM
Core Base: Power PC 750CXe
Manufacturing Process: 0.18 micrometre 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
- 128-bit SIMD
External Bus:
- 1.3 gigabyte/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)

3.2 System LSI

Name: "Flipper"
Producer: ArtX/Nintendo (ArtX were acquired by ATI Technologies in 2000 and is now a part of ATI)
Manufacturing Process: 0.18 micrometre NEC embedded DRAM process
Clock Frequency: 162 MHz
Embedded Frame Buffer:
- Approximately 2 megabytes in capacity
- Sustainable latency of 6.2 nanoseconds
- RAM type is 1T-SRAM
Embedded Texture Cache:
- Approximately 1 megabyte in capacity
- Sustainable latency of 6.2 nanoseconds
- RAM type is 1T-SRAM
Texture Read Bandwidth: 10.4 gigabytes/second (at peak)
Main Memory Bandwidth: 2.6 gigabytes/second (at peak)
Fill Rate: 648 megapixels/second
Pixel Depth:
- 24-bit RGB / RGBA
- 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
- Anisotropic filtering
- Real-time hardware texture decompression (S3TC)
- Real-time decompression of display list
- Hardware 3-line deflickering filter

3.3 Aural functionality

Producer: Macronix
Clock Frequency: 81 MHz
Instruction Memory:
- 8 kilobytes of RAM
- 8 kilobytes of ROM
Data Memory:
- 8 kilobytes of RAM
- 4 kilobytes of ROM
Simultaneous Channels: 64 channels
Encoding: ADPCM
Sampling Frequency: 48 kHz

3.4 Other system specifications

System Floating-point Arithmetic Capability: 10.5 GFLOPS (at peak) (MPU, Geometry Engine, HW Lighting Total)
Real-world Polygon Performance: 6 million to 12 million polygons/second (at peak) (assuming actual game conditions with complex models, fully textured, fully lit, etc.)*
Main RAM:
- Approximately 24 megabytes in capacity
- Sustainable latency of 10 nanoseconds
- RAM type is 1T-SRAM
Auxiliary RAM:
- Approximately 16 megabytes in capacity
- 81 MHz in speed
- RAM type is DRAM
Disc Drive:
- Drive type is Constant Angular Velocity (CAV)
- Average access time is 128 milliseconds
- Data transfer speed is between 2 megabytes per second and 3.125 megabytes per second
Disc Media:
- Based on DVD technology
- Diameter is 3 inches in length
- Producer is Matsushita
- Approximately 1.5 gigabytes in capacity
Controller Ports: 4
Memory Card Slots: 2
Analog Audio/Video Outputs: 1
Digital Video Outputs: 1 *
High-speed Serial Ports: 2
High-speed Parallel Ports: 1
Power Supply: AC Adapter DC12 volts x 3.25 amperes
Physical Measurements of Entire System: 110 mm (H) x 150 mm (W) x 161 mm (D). [4.3"(H) x 5.9"(W) x 6.3"(D)]

* The Digital output was removed in a hardware revision in May 2004. Models without the port are DOL-101. [1]

4 Accessories/peripherals

Controller (in Purple, Black, Orange, Silver or Purple and clear)
Wavebird ( RF wireless controller)
Memory Card (59, 251 or 1019 blocks. A maximum of 127 files can be stored on a memory card)
GameCube Game Boy Advance Cable (for games that support connectivity between the GameCube and the Game Boy Advance)
Modem or Broadband adapter (for internet play)
Game Boy Player (to play Game Boy games on the television, using either a GameCube controller or a connected Game Boy Advance)
Component video cable (for progressive scan (480p) support) which requires a GameCube with Digital Video Output. (See System Specifications above and Official Information.)
VGA Adapter. Allows GameCube play on a standard computer monitor. Several are available from Lik-Sang, however, a game supporting 480p combined with the Component Video cable above, and the VD-Z3(which has a monitor pass-through) or this can give Progressive Scan display quality on a computer monitor.
In Europe, an RF cable for connection to older televisions, and an RGB SCART cable for high-quality connections
Bongos for use with the music game Donkey Konga.

5 See also

6 External links

Official Nintendo GameCube site from Nintendo
Warp Pipe - Application which allows online GameCube functionality
Console Database - Info on GameCube and Panasonic Q
IGNcube channel at IGN
N-Sider
GameCube Café
eLook GameCube Cheats
GameCube Cheats
GameCube Directory
Planet GameCube
European GameCube fan/newssite
GameFAQs - GameCube

Nintendo hardware Video game consoles

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