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Nintendo doesn't have the notoriety, marketing or cash reserves of its larger competitors (Sony & Microsoft), but they do provide a gaming system that is attractive to people worldwide. With tried and true games and characters like Mario, Pokemon, Zelda and Donkey Kong, it has been able to win over both young and old. Their latest big winner is Super Smash Bros. Meleee which has sold more than 2.5 million. The interactive game market is a whopping $27 billion market, so owning a significant share of the market can be lucrative. The GAMECUBE is Nintendo's gaming system that competes directly with XBox and Playstation 2. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the other 2 but provides the esstentials for gaming. Nintendo also has partnered with Metrowerks to develop software tools for gamers interested in creating games for the 'CUBE.

GAMECUBE is powered by IBM's 485MHz Gekko Power PC processor. It was built strictly for gaming and offers good graphics and sound performance. Graphics is based on an an ATI graphics chip that delivers 24 bit colors with 24 bit Z buffer for depth. Graphical rendering is done with an engine that generates 6 to 12 million polygons per second. Multiple image processing functions deliver video across component, S-Video or DVI connections.

GAMCECUBE has 40MB of memory that is comprised of 24MB of SRAM and 16MB of DRAM. Additional memory can be added through 2 memory expansion slots. There is no hard disk drive in the system and the 'CUBE can't read DVDs or CDs. A proprietary optical disk is used to load games and has up to 1.5GB of storage capacity. Serial and parallel ports are provided to communicate to other peripherals. Optional broadband and modem attachments will provide networking capabilities for future games and features.

Four ports are provided for game controllers or Game Boy attachments. The GAMECUBE controller is ergonomically designed for the gaming experience. It includes two analog control sticks, a built-in rumble, and directional control buttons. The Game Boy cable connects the GAMECUBE to the Game Boy to allow game uploads, data exchanges or to use the Game Boy as an input attachment to the GAMECUBE.

Content is king in gaming, of course graphics and audio performance have to be up to par. The games make or break the gaming system. Nintendo and its gamers have provided many popular games such as Donkey Kong, Pokemon and Melee. To enlist more developer support for games with better features, Nintendo has partnered with Metrowerks to provide GAMECUBE development tools and emulation environment. Metrowerks' CodeWarrior for Nintendo GAMECUBE provides an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for C/C++ development. An emulator simulates the GAMECUBE platform for development on Windows based workstations.

Pricing and Availability

GAMECUBE is available online or at retail chains and has the lowest cost of the three major brands of home entertainment gaming systems with a low price of $149.

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