Nintendo GameCube
From GamerWiki
 Nintendo GameCube
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| Manufacturer: | Nintendo |
| Alternate Names: | GCN |
| Announced: | ? |
| Release date: | JP: 12/September/2001 NA: 18/November/2001 EU: date/month in text/year AU: date/month in text/year |
| Initial Price: | JP: ¥25,000 NA: {{{naprice}}} EU: £129.99 AU: {{{auprice}}} |
| Discontinued: | February/2007 |
Other games available (temporary link)
Contents |
Overview
The 128-bit GameCube (codenamed Project Dolphin- Dolphin Park was a course in one of the launch titles, Wave Race: Bluestorm), 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 outside casing of the Nintendo GameCube comes in a variety of colors, such as indigo, platinum, and black (also a limited edition Resident Evil 4 platinum and black game console and a Zelda gold console). In Japan, the system is also available in orange, or in limited edition colors like Crystal White, Mint Green, Copper, and White with black pinstripes. 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. 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."
The GameCube system also has the unique capability to connect to Nintendo's portable system Nintendo Game Boy Advance or its SP variant. Such a connection between the two systems allows the transfer of game data. Examples of this functionality include the use of the Game Boy Advance as a controller for the game played. Subsequent information related to game play may be displayed on the Game Boy Advance's color screen for added convenience or to avoid the cluttering of the display on the television screen. This functionality has also been used to unlock "secrets" such as new levels or characters when two games, a Game Boy Advance game and its GameCube equivalent, are connected together. Up to four Game Boy Advance systems can be connected to the GameCube through the GameCube's four controller ports for multiplayer play. A special Nintendo GameCube to Game Boy Advance connection cable is required for each Game Boy Advance system that is to be connected to the GameCube. A fair variety of GameCube games implement this innovative functionality, while Nintendo encourages its continued use.
Despite the protection of a non-standard disc format (essentially a miniature DVD-ROM with non-standard sector and filesystem formatting), a Modchip has been released that allows the use of a standard DVD-ROM with a GameCube, to load backed-up, homebrew or pirate software. However, it does not work very well, and no commercial gamecube games have been able to be run on a pirate disc.
Nintendo GameCube Specification
Nintendo GameCube Technical Specification
- MPU ("Microprocessor Unit")* : Custom IBM Power PC "Gekko"
- Manufacturing process : 0.18 micron 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
- External bus : 1.3GB/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 : Custom ATI/Nintendo "Flipper"
- Embedded frame buffer : Approx. 2MB sustainable latency : 6.2ns (1T-SRAM)
- Embedded texture cache : Approx. 1MB sustainable latency : 6.2ns (1T-SRAM)
- Texture read bandwidth : 10.4GB/second (Peak)
- Main memory bandwidth : 2.6GB/second (Peak)
- Pixel depth : 24-bit color, 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, HW 3-line deflickering filter.
Nintendo GameCube Physical Specifications
- Sound Processor : custom Macronix 16-bit DSP
- Instruction Memory : 8KB RAM + 8KB ROM
- Data Memory : 8KB RAM + 4KB ROM
- Clock Frequency : 81 MHz
- Performance : 64 simultaneous channels, ADPCM encoding
- Sampling Frequency : 48KHz
- System Floating-point Arithmetic Capability : 10.5 GFLOPS (Peak) (MPU, Geometry Engine, HW Lighting Total)
- Real-world polygon : 6 million to 12 million polygons/second (Peak) (Assuming actual game conditions with complex models, fully textured, fully lit, etc.)
- System Memory : 40MB
- Main Memory : 24 MB MoSys 1T-SRAM, Approximately 10ns Sustainable Latency
- A-Memory : 16MB (81MHz DRAM)
- Disc Drive : CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) System
- Average Access Time : 128ms
- Data Transfer Speed : 16Mbps to 25Mbps
- Media : 3 inch NINTENDO GAMECUBE Disc based on Matsushita's Optical Disc Technology, Approx. 1.5GB Capacity
- Input/Output : Controller Port x4, Memory Card Slot x2, Analog AV Output x1, High-Speed Serial Port x1, High-speed Parallel Port x1
- In select models - Digital AV Output x1, High-Speed Serial Port x2
- Power Supply : AC Adapter DC12V x 3.25A
- Main Unit Dimensions : 4.3"(H) x 5.9"(W) x 6.3"(D) (15cm x 11cm x 16 cm)
- Available Colours: Black, Purple, Platinum, Spice, Emerald.
Trivia
- The GameCube sold 133,719 units during its first weekend on sale in Japan.
Software library
Key first-party titles
The Nintendo GameCube software library contains such traditional Nintendo series as Super Mario, Star Fox, The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid.
Some of the more popular first-party titles include Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Mario Sunshine, Metroid Prime, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Pikmin and its sequel Pikmin 2, Animal Crossing, Luigi's Mansion, Wave Race: Blue Storm, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and Pokémon Colosseum.
Approach to third-party developers
One of the defining aspects of the Nintendo GameCube is the rejuvenated relationship between Nintendo and its licensees. 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 (for instance ex--console manufacturers Sega worked on 'F Zero GX'). The architecture of the Gamecube was designed to make programming much easier than the N64. Due to the Cube having smaller discs than the Playstation 2 or Xbox, though, many multi-format games have been ported from the PS2 virtually unchanged in order to fit in the game, and often due to time and cost considerations, despite the Cube's capability for better graphics than the PS2. The most notable third party relationship of this generation on Gamecube is arguably that with Capcom. They made a very promising start on the Gamecube with a remake of the original Resident Evil game, a game (like Luigi's Mansion) that shows off the Gamecube's lighting, water and fire effects to the full. Capcom then unveiled the 'Capcom 5', five games that would be exclusive to the Gamecube- Dead Phoenix, Viewtiful Joe, P.N.03 (product number 3), Killer 7, Resident Evil 4. Of these, the first was cancelled. The second received generally very good reviews and was later ported to the Playstation 2 with an additonal playable character, Dante from Capcom's Devil May Cry series. The third received generally mediocre reviews. The fourth received generally good reviews (tempered by puzzlement or concern that the strange subject matter/abstract presentation was an acquired taste) and was later ported to the Playstation 2. The last was only rivalled in magazine reviews by Metroid Prime or The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for the highest scores of this generation on the Gamecube and it was later ported to the Playstation 2). Amongst the majority of players, Resident Evil 4 seems to be the most uniformly highly praised game on the Gamecube. Whereas The Wind Waker divided popular opinion about the merits of cel-shading, or its standing next to Ocarina of Time, and Metroid Prime's lack of characters, deliberately isolating feel and unusual control did not agree with some players, Resident Evil 4 had characters, story, lots of action and an amount of gore and horror out of all proportion to the vast majority of the Gamecube's other games.
Games
A full list of Gamecube games documented on GamerWiki can be found at the Nintendo GameCube category.
Alternatively, a manually created list is also available - this is to be deprecated, so please add any further games to the games to be added page.
External links
Nintendo GameCube board at Catharton Electronica
This article uses source material obtained from Wikipedia The original article can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_GameCube
