Nintendo Keeps Up With Technology

By Kenneth King & Eric Ho 
Pendulum Staff Writers 

        Nintendo. Super Nintendo. Nintendo 64. Despite the name, Nintendo systems will always have two things in common: their name as part of their titles, and great first-, second-, and even third-party games. 
Unfortunately, Nintendo made a couple of bad choices with the N64. Instead of keeping up with technology and using the CD, Nintendo stuck with the cartridge for its N64 games. This was bad for 3D graphics, and was one reason why Sony and Square left Nintendo (but that is another story). Thankfully, Nintendo has learned from these mistakes and is hoping to make up for them in its next generation console, the tiny, purple cube named GameCube. 

        Sony’s PlayStation2 will allow you to hook just about anything to it to create the ultimate computer entertainment system. Microsoft’s XBOX has a built-in hard drive that is bigger than the ones in most computers. Meanwhile, Nintendo’s GameCube really does only one thing, the most important thing any game console should be able to do: play games. 

        Nintendo does not waste space and money building a bunch of extra features onto GameCube, which is why the cube is about the size of a shoebox and only costs around $200. The PS2 is not necessarily big, but it still takes up more space than the GameCube. The XBOX is probably around three times the size of the GameCube. Both PS2 and XBOX are $100 more than the GameCube. The Nintendo GameCube is 110 mm by 161 mm by 150 mm, respectively the height by length by width. 

        Panasonic/ Matsushita, a company working alongside Nintendo in this whole GameCube production, will come out with a GameCube/ DVD player hybrid next year for $300. If you want a GameCube, do not really care for a PS2, but still want a DVD player as well, it is best to wait for this one to come out. 

        There are many features and accessories that go with the GameCube. The Game Boy Advance Adapter allows you to hook the Game Boy Advance (you know you have one) to the GameCube (you know you will get one) to use as a controller of sorts. The only thing it will be used for right now is to hide plays in sports games using your own private Game Boy Advance screen. More innovative uses for it will develop over time. 

        The GameCube’s memory card is called a digicard. It can carry a maximum of 4-Mb (megabytes) of memory. There are two memory card slots on a system that has four controller ports, allowing four people to swap data. 

        Panasonic/ Matsushita is also releasing a secure digital adapter that slides into the digicard. It is about the size of a stamp, but can store a maximum of 64 Mb of memory. It is compatible with digital cameras and music players. No wonder Nintendo does not need to worry about multi-entertainment like Sony does, since Panasonic can do it for them. 

        There is a slot on the bottom of the GameCube for a 56K-modem or broadboard adapter, which connects to cable modems or DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) for high-speed data transmission. Neither will be ready any time soon though, since Nintendo has not finalized its online plans yet. 

        The final version of the GameCube controller actually is not that much different than the original. The gray color is now purple like the main system. The B button was changed from a crescent to a small button next to the much larger A button. The PlayStation-like handles are larger, along with a built-in rumble feature. The L and R triggers are analog and if you press them all the way in, you can register a button press other than that of the normal L and R triggers (in short, the L and R buttons are actually two buttons in one). 

        The GameCube uses small, proprietary, eight-centimeter (in diameter) discs that hold 1.5 Gb (gigabytes). Nintendo and Panasonic/Matsushita came up with this pocketsize disc that uses Matsushita technology to prevent the discs from being easily copied. This format may be used for future handheld systems. 
Unlike Sony, with its confusing graphics engine that lacks the memory to use the engine’s power effectively, Nintendo made game development easy by adding 1T-RAM technology into the main memory and Graphics LSI Mixed Memory. They also added a secondary cache into the MPU. All this will make creating games extremely problem-free. 

        The GameCube will come out in purple, orange, and black on November 18, 2001 at a retail price of $199.95, along with three launch games: Luigi’s Mansion, Pikmin, and Wave Race, Blue Storm. Memory cards cost $14.95 each and controllers cost $34.95 each, raised from the original $19.95. Nintendo will ship 700,000 units at launch and another 400,000 by the end of the year. GameCube games will be in the $50-$60 pricing range. 

        You have less than a month to gather enough change to get your GameCube for Christmas. I suggest starting as soon as you finish reading this article… now.