GAMECUBE UNVEILED
August 24, 2000

At Spaceworld today, Nintendo unveiled Gamecube (formerly Dolphin), which has a compact (6"x6"x4.3") housing. It features a highly customized, 405 Mhz, copper wire central processor from IBM; a graphics co-processor from ATI with Mosys 1-T SRAM memory embedded directly onto the chip; and 40 MB of memory, including one of the largest implementations of static memory in consumer product history.

Storage media comes in the form of a small (8 cm diameter), 1.5GB proprietary optical disk from Matsushita. Accessories will include a 56K modem and (future) broadband modem, the 'Wavebird' wireless RF controller, (2) Digicard slots for either 4MB Digicard flash memory cards or a 64MB SD-Digicard adapter, and a variety of high speed ports and both analog and digital AV outputs.

Nintendo Gamecube will launch in Japan in July of 2001, and in North America in October 2001, barring any further delays.

"In my experience, there have often been theoretical claims of high performance for game hardware, and although people were very impressed by the figures, the actual products haven't even delivered one-tenth of the claims," says Shigeru Miyamoto. "It is a given that the Nintendo GAMECUBE will offer better graphics and higher quality sound, but more importantly it will allow developers the freedom to concentrate on creativity without worrying about technical limitations."

Dozens of developers around the world are in possession of tools to create Gamecube games, and dozens of titles are in development. Exact games will be announced closer to launch, but will certainly include many of Nintendo's biggest first party games.

Broadband Device Image
Controller Image
Game Disc Image
Link (Zelda) Image
Luigi Image
Luigi (2) Image
Mario Image
Memory Card Image
Metroid Image
Specs
System Image
System Image 2
Zelda Battle Image

Thanks to Nintendo for the screens.