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The Nintendo GameCube (originally code-named "Dolphin" during development) was released on September 14, 2001 in Japan; November 18, 2001 in North America; and Spring 2002 across Europe. The Nintendo GameCube, or GCN, was widely anticipated by many who were shocked by Nintendo's decision to design the Nintendo 64 as a cartridge-based system. Physically shaped similar to a geometric cube, 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 modded GameCube (a regular DVD wont fit in the GameCube casing) to pirate games. The outside casing of the Nintendo GameCube is most often Indigo, but the system is also available in other colors, such as Platinum (a silvery color) and Jet (a very dark gray or black color). In Japan, the system is also available in Spice (an orange color) or in limited edition colors like Crystal White (for Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles), Mint Green (for Tales of Symphonia), Copper (for Char Aznable from Gundam) and White with black pinstripes (for the Hanshin Tigers). The GameCube system used for testing software during development is a chocolate color.

The Nintendo GameCube software library contains such traditional Nintendo series as Super Mario, Star Fox, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid, in addition to numerous third-party games. The Nintendo GameCube does not have any DVD-movie support, but a Nintendo GameCube hybrid product containing movie functionality has been released by Panasonic in Japan, named "DVD/GAME Player Q." Some popular titles for Nintendo GameCube include Super Smash Bros. Melee, Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, , Star Fox Adventures, and Pokémon Colosseum.

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

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:

A few Sonic the Hedgehog games (from Sega, based on Sega's own game properties)
Most of 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)
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (from Square Enix, based on Square Enix's own game properties)
F-Zero GX (from Sega, based on Nintendo's game properties)

Hardware specifications

The following are hardware specifications provided by Nintendo of America. Some benchmarks provided by third-party testing facilities do indicate, however, that some of these specifications -- especially those relating to performance -- may be conservative.

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)

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

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

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 Audio/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. More info from Nintendo.com

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)
In the US, component video cable (for progressive scan (480p) support)
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.

Categories: Video game consoles | Nintendo hardware

Last updated: 10-24-2004 05:10:45

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