<<
Passing thought: the very idea that the Cube will launch with no less than five Nintendo house titles is grounds for me to move to Japan so's I can get at it this summer. >>
Dont be so dramatic, little one

You know youre going to import one
I really think Nintendo has a nice box on their hands here. They have 8 textures to Xbox's 4 per clock. But my question is, do they have HSR? (No sarcasm for once, I'm asking a legit question

)If they dont have HSR, having Embedded memory for the graphics chip isnt going to do a whole lot. The only worries I have for GC are:
1) Load times. With such a small disc, the load times are going to be horrible. They cant put the load files to the outside of the disc (a la PS2/DC) or load them to the hard drive for future loads (Xbox)...
2) Kiddy games? With hearing that Conker's Quest will be a Mature game (could have knocked me over with a feather) I think they are making progress. In the future I expect them to be just slightly behind Sony in gore and maturity levels, although they will have the Kids lineup there for sure... You cant expect Mario to be full of gore, can you?
Other things that are discouraging, but not huge worries:
1) Paying for connectivity. You want broadband, you have to buy the adapter.
2) No hard drive, but that is not a huge deal. Xbox is going to have a big advantage here, but this doesnt mean you wont have a hell of a lot of fun with your GC.
Basically the only thing Nintendo has on Xbox is 8 textures per clock rather than 4. They both have 8 lights, they both have nice sound chips, (with the nod going to Nvidia's Xbox chip for 256 voices) and they both have seemingly nice controllers. In more detail about the controllers, you know that Nintendo's is going to rock. Xbox has the sidewinder team working on theirs, and i personally do not like any of the Sidewinders. I don't see MS letting loose with a sub-par controller, quality control wouldnt let it happen, but it is something to look at. Xbox has a controller advantage though, having 6 buttons on the face for fighting games. (Something sorely lacking on the DC)
2nd party developers:
Sony: Squaresoft.
Nintendo: Rareware.
Microsoft: Bungie.
I'm worried about this. Rare and Square are the best in the biz, and MS has Bungie... Something to look at.
So far from what i have said, you are probably thinking that Nintendo has a huge advantage. This is not the case, though. Microsoft has a couple aces up their sleeve. To start, an 8gb hard drive. They can load textures to the hard drive instead of streaming them from the CD. They can load game files to the hard drive on the 1st time you play the game, and then have nearly no loading for every time you play the game from there on out; they can have downloadable new levels from the game's creator. (Imagine this - 6 months after Goldeneyes release, you get new multiplayer modes and three new maps. All this is going to do is add PURE REPLAY VALUE.) Then, you get instant network lovin. Hook up to your cable internet, and boom, you have online gaming. Talk about more replay value. You get Halo the day it comes out, and you play it for a week. You get stuck on a mission. Do you put the game down and play something else, or do you link up to the web and start playing deathmatches? Hell, while youre at it, ask for some help with that puzzle you cant beat...
When it comes down to hardware, the Gamecube probably has the best processor of the three big players. 400mhz .18um copper IBM PowerPC chip. RISC lovin, straight in your console. Think advanced G4 400mhz against P3 733mhz. All the Sony fanboys are going to come in screaming, but noone can tap all the power out of the emotion engine. Its broken into three pieces, and getting them to run in sync is something noone will be able to do completely. And why should someone have to? As a developer, you should be able to write code and let the machine eat it up. This is something that Xbox and Gamecube will be able to do. Here's an analogy - Dreamcast removes hidden surfaces with tiling. What if the developers had to code to make the hardware tile instead of it doing it itself?
Big N learned its lesson with the N64. You dont make a hard to develop console, period. Xbox has Direct X 8, something that can be monkied with as we speak. This is obviously the best method. A tried and true powerful code API only for Xbox. Nintendo supposedly has simple coding for its Cube. Playstation 2 is a nightmare. Why do you think we only have a few good games so far? Square and EA will be able to tap the power, but very few others will be able to. This means you will have console selling games, but no others. You can only play your Final Fantasies so many times... With easy coding like the Xbox and GC have, the AVERAGE game will be much better. You have tons of GOOD games, a good amount of stunning ones, and only a couple stragglers.
Gamecube will be able to compell and excite, but Xbox will probably take the crown. With 160 developers already signed up and mindblowing amounts of developer kits sent out, games will be streaming in like mad. With Direct X 8's simplicity behind the games, most will be good, and houses with talent will be able to create those games that stifle you - the games that you think about playing while youre at work. You LOOKED FORWARD to booting up Final Fantasy 7 while you were taking care of your business. If FF7 wasnt one of the ones you daydreamed about playing, substitute one of your favorites in... Resident Evil maybe?
Here is one of the killers, though. COST.
GC will run you $200 from the start, and fall to $150 within 6 months most likely. X will go for $300 to start, probably dropping to $250 later on. Xbox will have internet play, internet/hard drive enhanced replay value, and for $20, DVD playback. To me, that is worth the extra $100. What about all the other people though? I know my parents bought my brother a Dreamcast for Xmas, not a PS2. He got an extra controller, two games, (plus my library *cough cough*) and a VMU for less than the cost of the PS2 alone. When it comes around to Christmas time, will the kids be getting a Xbox with nothing or a GC with another controller, a game, and a memory card?
Then again, all we are doing is speculating.
