Nintendo keep a hold in the console market (GameCube in General)

Member Name: RussellC

Product:	GameCube in General
Date:	05/09/00 (152 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good looking graphics, finally using DVD, Nintendo gameplay.

Disadvantages: Not as powerful as the PS2? Going to have a tough fight to compete.

After months of speculation Nintendo have final announced the specifications for its new console and Playstation 2 rival. As someone with most of the major consoles and no real company loyalty I have to say that the machine is looking quite promising. I don't think Nintendo fans should expect it to shake up the market, Sony have established such a strong brand now that it would take an awful lot to shift their market presence. However the machine gives me hope that Nintendo will continue to occupy a firm niche in the gaming world and that hopefully means I'll still be able to get some of the superbly designed games they produce.

Considering the boxes specifications all the expected leaps have been made. Nintendo have shoved tonnes of power and memory into the little box. A 405Mhz CPU produced by IBM is at the core of the system alogn with a GPU from DEC. All together the machine houses an impressive total of 40Mb of RAM, in the order of ten times more than the N64. Numbers like that alone don't mean much, but the images and video Nintendo have been showing so far make the right impression. Resolution is vastly improved, but there's still the distinctive Nintendo style, bright colours and bold design.

Memory cards will come in at roughly 1Mb, but with optional adaptors for memory cards in the range of 32-256Mbs. It looks to me like Nintendo are going to try to achieve what they aimed for with the 64DD drive. Perhaps saving large levels or extensions to your memory card? There's more than enough room on one of those for any of the N64's cartridge games. Probably the biggest change of all is that Nintendo have finally moved to disc based storage, this time using their own proprietary mini-DVD format to house a game. Promising 1.5 Gb of sotrage on a disc this should be mroe than enough for the style of gaming Nintendo normally go in for. It does however limit the Gamecube away from the wider field of DVD movies, something I'
;m more than happy to accept, I prefer my games machine to be a games machine and my DVD player to be a DVD player. However for those who want a hybrid, there are rumours that Panasonic will be building the technology into future players.

All this is built into a neat looking cube with four sockets for controllers at the front. One feature I was pleased to see was the promise of wireless controllers so we don't have to have tonnes of wires trailing across the floor and waiting to trip us up. Superficial, but welcome. The controllers themselves look like the odd hybrid child of an N64 controller and a playstation one. I'm not convinced it'll be comfortable but time will tell. I musn't forget to mention the presence of the now obligatory Internet connection. At the base of the cube is a slot into which either a modem or broadband connection device can attach (the later not any time soon in this country it would seem).

In raw numbers of polygons Nintendo's games designed for the system are outputing at a rate of 6-12 million per second, compared with the PS2's alledged 75 million per second (or X-box's 150 million) it doesn't sound so good. The thing to remember is that so far PS2 games are working in the order of 3-5 million per second as difficulties with the PS2 architecture have made it hard for developers to maximise their usage of the platform. More important to remember is gameplay, however many polygons you have on screen gameplay still counts, anyone who has played Mario 64 knows that Nintendo can do gameplay. Whether compelling gameplay will be enough when faced with Sony's marketing skills will have to be seen.

Overall I'm optimistic about the Gamecube, I'll definately be getting one, but then I'll be getting a PS2 too and I already have a Dreamcast. Nintendo seem to be going for a niche market of hardcore gamers and younger children still and leaving the older teens and twenty-somet
hing market to Sony. Games though at a higher resolution still seem to have the more youthful appeal of the typical Nintendo game (though it has to be said that the N64 has branched out into more adult gaming). Perhaps with good pricing they could pose more of a challenge to Sony as the £300 tag for PS2 does seem a little much. It's a well speced box that will hopefully carve out a niche in the market s I can continue playing those Mario and Zelda games.

Summary: