Don't be a square - get totally cubular with the Nintendo Gamecube!! (And so on.)

The Nintendo Gamecube is the years-old company's response to nearly everything that has happened in video games these last four years. With the press swooning over it at Nintendo's 2000 Spaceworld show, buzz on the PlayStation 2 has dropped off to nearly nothing. What has Nintendo done with this system to make it lean, mean and ready to succeed? This article explores some of the Nintendo 64's weak points and how the Gamecube attempts to address them.

It is said that the development of the Nintendo Gamecube was based on careful consideration of the N64's shortcomings.

The main problem is, as higher performance demands make life harder for the developer, the statement that "N64 is hard to develop for" has become a given fact in the industry.

It's not a problem limited to the N64. As systems move from generation to generation, the games grow bigger and bigger. Some even say that the ballooning amount of work and money required to develop games for next-gen systems could ultimately destroy the marketplace.

The main timekiller is in graphics. The visual capabilities of next-gen systems have rapidly increased, and we, the consumer, expect companies to use the machines' new abilities to create ever more elaborate and beautiful game graphics. However, the ever-increasing processing power of new machines only represents the peak abilities of the system. And, for modern software houses, the difficulties of making graphics that use the peak abilities of systems have become a large obstactle to creating games. To developers, hardware features that can only be implemented through fine tuning the software are a huge drain of time and energy.

In direct response to this, Nintendo's Gamecube developers decided to emphasize "durability over peak abilities" in their system. Looking beyond pure catalog specs, they put their minds towards features that would help software designers create games that perform solidly.

For example, it was deemed necessary to reduce the amount of processing required for a memory request in the system. Using speedy 1T-RAM in both main and graphic memory, along with two large caches in the microprocessor, Nintendo's system provided features that allow developers to program the system with as little trouble as possible. Within its developer kit, Nintendo is also providing tools, data convertors and other utilities to make the Gamecube's development environment as easy as possible for designers to work in.

Shigeru Miyamoto, frech from his Miami Vice stint

Shigeru Miyamoto, director of technology and known around the world for his games, discussed how easy it was to create the Gamecube demos, created with code similar to actual games. "Until now, us software developers were always being put on by the hardware developers" - whenever new hardware comes out, software developers are always amazed, their imaginations stirred by the spec numbers. However, the reality so far is that the new system's real speed is not even a tenth of the peak performances shown in the specs. Gamecube, though, is different - "I finally feel like I've met a set of honest hardware guys."

With this style of hardware design, one wonders how far software developers will be able to take the system. A lot will come down to the development environment, which will depend on how well Nintendo prepares in getting the kits ready.

As a machine created simply for games, it is obvious that the Gamecube was designed to help with the creation of great software. If it succeeds at that, then game fans have much to be happy about.

-Gamespot/JAPAN