N-Sider Q&A
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November 6th, 2000
Hey N-sider
You guys had an article on Nintendo's 2nd party and you listed Mix-core as a 2nd party developer but now in an interview they said they were hired by nintendo to demonstrate what the NGC was capable of. So they are not owned by nintendo then. Did you screw up? Why was Yamauchi not at Spaceworld this year? He usually make a speech,don't he? Also I read that he wanted the NGC be called Starcube but many directors decided Gamecube was better so they went for Gamecube. Does not that show that he is losing power in nintendo?
Nintendo was always presided by a Yamauchi when Hiroshi retires who willl take the lead? Finally at the Spaceworld they didnot reveal much about the internet capabilities of the AGB. Will the modem be integrated in the AGB? and will it be usable in USA? Thats all and keep the good work.
-Adrian
Pete: Mix-Core is a second party Nintendo 'team' that is reportedly close to HAL, another Nintendo 2nd party. In the future perhaps they'll do cutscenes for in-house Nintendo games (be it real time or FMV). We're not sure if Nintendo now owns a chunk of Mix-Core or not, but considering how prominent Rebirth was at Spaceworld, expect to hear more from them in the future.
Yamauchi's absence from Spaceworld was surprising, wasn't it? Even Sega's Yuji Naka, who was at the Gamecube/GBA press event stated that Yamauchi's no-show caused quite a stir. The Starcube story is something that was run on TendoBox a while ago. We can't verify that story, although it wouldn't surprise us if there was some truth to it. Many people are pointing to Minoru Arakawa, president of Nintendo of America and Yamauchi's son-in-law, to take over Yamauchi's place when he retires. Hiroshi Imanishi, who has been Yamauchi's 'second in command' for some time now is also another name that keeps popping up.
What do you guys think about what Yamaguchi said about Squaresoft and Enix? Should we just forget about Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger coming to Gamecube? (I didn't say FF cause I don't think that will ever happen)
AL Rosado
Pete: Remember when Yamauchi said Nintendo would be focusing its resources on the GBA? Well that didn't quite pan out either, so it sometimes helps to take what Yamauchi says with a grain of salt. Mr. Miyamoto said he would be demonstrating NGC to the big RPG makers himself and he was confident they'd develop for that console, so that makes us feel better about the situation.
if mix-core claims to be an FMV-only company, what are they doing making parts of rebirth on gamecube hardware? isn't there better hardware for making advanced FMVs? if they know how to make such awesome environments in realtime on gamecube, why not make a game? does this mean games by experienced game-making companies will look/be even better? SSB24NGC!!!
chad
Pete: Mix-Core is a digital FX/CGI animation studio. According to them, the Rebirth demo was done not only to show the NGC's video display capabilities, but to show that developers can 'bridge' that gap between prerendered CG and realtime on the NGC.
I n-sider guys. My question is about Yamauchi san, who is this man and what he have done for nintendo? My feeling about him is that he cause only trouble to nintendo by insulting the big 3rd party. How could these company can come back to nintendo if Yamauchi blast them? Nintendo should hire an assasin and... Thats my point of view. Very nice site, keep the good work.
dagobert41
Pete: Well, it seems like its 'bash Yamauchi day' here at N-Sider! Seriously, though, we're not sure what Square's current relationship with Nintendo is. Enix still makes Game Boy titles and they even make Nintendo-themed merchandise (Pokemon pencil cases, Fire Emblem Japanese comics), so I think convincing Enix to develop for NGC would be easier. Square is going to be a tough sell, but if Miyamoto and Nintendo's board of directors can convince the RPG-maker to look past Yamauchi's comments, it would of course be a huge coup for the Gamecube and GBA.
Has E.A. announced any titles for the Gamecube yet? NBA Live 2002, and all those guys would be sweet on the cube.
Davy Fields
Pete: Well, Matt over at IGN has it on good word that EA is already making NGC games. Expect NBA Live 2002 as well as the other usual suspects-- Madden, NHL, etc. to make their way to the Cube.
Hello Fran and co,
Hey, I was thinking about the mini-DVDs. Basically, they're a little over 1.5 gigs. Your typical normal DVD carries 4.7 gigs on one side, if double layered. Now, you have to think that the Gamecube DVD player will probably be able to read double layered DVDs, since 95% of all DVD players currently do, and we're talking about Panasonic (Matsushita) here. Now, if the Gamecube DVD only has 1.5 gigs, it probably means that they're only using one layer, on the first DVDs that Nintendo puts out. Which means that when Nintendo decides to start using double layered discs, they'll probably be able to fit about 3 gigs. But the problem here is that developers can't burn a double layered disc and try it out immediately. And, if a single mini-DVD were double layered, and both sides were used, it would seem that we would get 6 gigabytes on a single disc, or at least 3 gigs if the DVDs are only single layered.
So my question: Do you think that the mini-DVDs are double layered? And, what do you think the chances are that we'll see the next generation of game systems using FMD-ROMs?
Pete: A full-size DVD carries 4.7 on its first layer (the second layer is slightly less, so you get just over 9 gigs per side dual layered). Because the NGC uses compressed textures and compressed audio data, size really shouldn't be a big problem. The only real space hogger is MPEG-2 quality FMV, which can eat up those small 1.5 GB DVDs quite quickly. The solution? Well MPEG-4 is one form of video compression that allows for near MPEG-2 quality at extreme compression ratios (up to 11:1, although Nintendo would really only need 3:1 to match a standard sized DVD). You can take a look at this editorial I did on the subject. I think you'll see that given today's compression techniques, 1.5 GB is more than enough for pretty much any game.
N-Sider,
Do you guys remember some of the "fake" mock-ups of supposed Dolphin games that ran around the net late last year? After Spaceworld, I remember that some of them look remarkably similar to what we saw in the GC demos. Especially the Rogue Squadron demos, and the race car demo. I've included two samples of some of the shots I'm speaking of, which I collected back then. In retrospect, they don't seem so impossible! That's the amazing thing! Do you think these shots represent actual games in retrospect?
- Aesop
Pete: I've never seen these images before, to be honest. They are quite similar to the Gamecube car demo and the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron demo, I'll give you that. I believe the Gamecube could run these models in real-time; the Rogue Squadron X-Wings even look more detailed than that mockup in some respects.
Hi,
I hope this question gets posted! It gets tiring reading the same questions about 3rd party support and release dates. Anyway, here is my question?
I was wondering if you could explain to the gaming community about Nintendo's secrecy policy toward third parties? It seems like internal teams could EASILY let each other in on the different platforms and what they are doing for those different platforms? How can Nintendo protect the X-Box team from talking to the Cube team and getting info on hardware and software? I know that things like the controller functions are easily available through the right people on the developement teams so how is Nintendo avoiding this issue that could be a huge blow to their plan. I think this is already happening because I heard a rumor that Nintendo was going to have a microphone on their controller back when and now I find out Microsoft is adding this to the X-Box controller? THanks!
Phillip
Pete: Nintendo will be opening up to third-parties a lot more in the next six to eight weeks (if not sooner), so watch for that. Nintendo has always been very secretive about new products, and who knows, maybe they are planning on keeping some functions of the NGC secret until next year, when Microsoft or Sony can't copy them. Then again, maybe it's all just a smokescreen. You never really know if Nintendo is bluffing or not.
Lots of people are talking about the neato memory cards for the cube, but I haven't heard a single person mention using the sd cards as the main cards instead of those tiny .4 meg cards (or whatever the are). Maybe just shrinking down the size to 8 megs for the digicard like the ps2. Come on... if Nintendo thinks that a 64 meg card is going to be consumer friendly (has to be less than $50), certainly a small 1-8 meg card would be extrememly cheap (less than $20). Advantages? mmmm.. more memory, not having to make an adapter card to fit in the slot, smaller size= cheaper on materials, a standard form of medium instead of two different kinds (less consumer confusion), smaller size (again) meaning possibly having a slot on the actual controller= 4 slots for each player instead of sharing only 2, it would promote Matsushita's proprietary media= better relation btwn Matsushita and Nintendo, compatability with other Matsushita electronics and computers as well as other companies who use/will use the sd cards... remember it's becoming a standard (think built in dex drive), and well the list is almost endless. The only reasons to keep the regular card with .4 meg around would be if it fit in the GBA (probably not) and to restrict developers to keep the size of save files fairly small. (meaning sports games wouldn't take up anymore space than the.4 megs which is a good thing considering they take up an entire card already in this generation of consoles) Did you get all that?
In the last Q&A you responded to GC's possible use of NURBS. I'm sure it can. Don't know if you know this but the 64 is capable of doing bezier curves. Yes I said bezier curves... be amazed. (Not that it was ever used, or that it could have been done well)
Pete: I have to be honest that I find the SD Card deal a bit puzzling. Everything is perfect, expect those suckers are really expensive. Fran believes the price will come down quite a bit, and I can see that. When mass produced in large quantities, they shouldn't be so expensive. Even so, they still probably will end up a bit too pricey at the NGC's launch. By 2002/2003, I suspect they'll be much cheaper, maybe even closer to the magic $30-$40 range. Maybe Nintendo might be better suited to include some kind of really small (300-600MB) memory drive of some kind for rewritable game data?
We constantly hear that Nintendo is probably keeping developers tight lipped. In essence there are many things we don't know about in terms of games being made and companies making them.
So what do you feel is the chance that a company like Enix is already on deck. Or how about MGS2 already on the burner. What do you think? I personally believe that the great SQUARE is not going to be on the roster at first, but will jump on the bandwagon later. I also believe that MGS2 is already on the way. How about you?
Peace
generaltao
Pete: Let me just put it this way-- if Nintendo can't get at least Enix (Square is going to be quite tough; I sense there's some bitterness in their breakup especially with Yamauchi), they are going to face a very uphill battle in Japan. I can't see why Konami wouldn't port MGS2, since they're already doing a XBox version. If it's already multi-platform, they may as well get their money's worth.
I have just read on the internet that there might be a second Rogue Squadron for the Gamecube but i have also read that the demo shown at speceworld 2000 was done to show how advanced the machine is and the game might not come out at all. What is up with that? Is it coming out or not? if yes, when?
thanks
LC
Pete: The deal is this: Everything Nintendo showed at Space World was just a "demo". Now some of these demos might eventually become games, but Nintendo simply isn't saying. However, if you look at the amount of detail Factor 5 put into that demo (they rendered the Death Star 1:1!), well...it would be pretty strange if they didn't turn the demo into a full fledged Rogue sequel. Considering the N64 version sold over 1 million copies, and Star Wars and Nintendo is pretty much no-brainer as far as success goes, I think you'll be playing some kind of Star Wars title from Factor 5 early on in the Gamecube's lifespan.
Man, that was one huge Q&A. Keep those questions rolling in by sending them here.