Nintendo has partnered with Freescale Semiconductor's Game Technology Organization to bring Nintendo GameCube development hardware and CodeWarrior development tools to North American university students. The packages will be available from Freescale for $1,500. This will provide students the opportunity to develop for a unique platform rather than the traditional PC. Compared to the PC, consoles have limited RAM, usually no hard drive and a static transfer rate between processors.
"By teaming with Freescale, we want to help universities produce developers capable of generating world class content for Nintendo platforms early in their careers," said Ramin Ravanpey, Nintendo of America's director of software development support, in the press release. "The program is one of the ways Nintendo is working to ensure that the best and brightest young talent are able to leverage the full power and capabilities of Nintendo game technology."
Nintendo has been a big proponent for game development education. They support several programs including the Nintendo Game Seminar in Japan and the DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, WA.