The Nintendo Dolphin - Games - http://maxpages.com/sheikshideout2/Nintendo

IGN's official report on the Nintendo Dolphin

The History of Nintendo 64.
It was three years ago, in September of 1996, that the Nintendo 64 was launched in the United States. The 64-bit home-console, the successor to the hugely popular Super NES, proved to be a remarkable success for Nintendo of America. But even as US N64 sales soared, Japanese gamers, with literally no titles to turn to after beating Super Mario 64, were returning the console to retailers across the country. Nintendo 64 has never fully recovered in the homeland, always remaining a distant second to Sony's 32-bit PlayStation.

On the US side, however, the console has never slowed down, boasting a library of huge hits ranging from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time to GoldenEye 007. In fact, the combined Nintendo 64 popularity in the US and Europe has amounted to a library of 64-bit titles that have sold in the millions.

A Humbled Nintendo Reacts to the Competition.
A chain of events may have forced Nintendo to prematurely take part in the next-generation console race:

Sega unveils its next-generation console, Sega Dreamcast, May 21, 1998, in Tokyo, Japan.
Sega Dreamcast launches in Japan on November 27, 1998.
Sony unveils "The next PlayStation" (PlayStation 2) technology to the press in Tokyo, Japan on March 2, 1999.
Sony sets a target release date for PlayStation 2 in Japan: "…within the fiscal year ending March 2000."
Sony sets a target release date for PlayStation 2 in the US: "Fall 2000."
On March 3, 1999, one day after PlayStation 2's unveiling, Nintendo commented, "We are developing a more advanced videogame system, but we are not providing any specifics at this time."

It was clear, however, that the specifics of the system -- or at least some of them -- would be made available soon. Nintendo would have to make an announcement. Only a few months later, it did.

Frequently Asked Questions
Will there be another Nintendo videogame console after Nintendo 64?

Definitely. Nintendo's Nintendo 64 successor has already been announced by the company itself.

When was the announcement made?

May 12, 1999 at a Nintendo held press conference in Los Angeles -- just one day before the beginning of E3 '99. The company announced the next-generation console's codename, business partners, development partners and released a brief summary of official system specs. Nintendo of America chairman Howard Lincoln delivered a confident speech regarding the future game machine, which can be read by clicking right here.

What is the system called?

The final name of Nintendo's next-generation console is still unknown. It has been dubbed everything from "Gekko," to "N2000," by the press, but none of the above will likely appear on the system's box when it ships. The official Nintendo codename for the console is Dolphin. More recently, Nintendo has registered the proper Internet domain names and patents for a product known as StarCube, which has led many to believe this could be the final name of the company's next-generation console. There is no way to validate the StarCube name, or any other potential title, for the Dolphin system at this time.

Why is the console codenamed Dolphin by Nintendo?

During a pre-E3 press conference, Nintendo of America chairman Howard Lincoln admitted that he wasn't sure. Evidently those involved with the development of the console codenamed it. Lincoln mused that maybe they liked dolphins.

What companies has Nintendo partnered with to make Dolphin?

At the pre-E3 press conference, Lincoln announced three major business partners would play key parts in the development and manufacturing of Dolphin: ArtX, IBM and Matsushita. Since that time IGN64 has learned of an additional Dolphin business partner, NEC, as well as semiconductor maker MoSys which supplies 1T-SRAM memory technology. Also, Nintendo announced a partnership with developer Factor 5 to license the company's proprietary sound tools and technology, MusyX, for Dolphin software.

Who is ArtX and what involvement does the company have with Dolphin?

ArtX is a graphics engineering startup based in Palo Alto, California. The company, led by Silicon Graphics Inc.'s former head of Nintendo operations Wei Yen, is developing the graphics chip for Dolphin. Incidentally, Yen and team were primarily responsible for Nintendo 64's graphic architecture.

According to Nintendo of America chairman Howard Lincoln, "Dr. Yen has assembled at ArtX one of the best teams of 3D graphics engineers on the planet."

Lincoln seems sure that ArtX's graphic chip will compete on all levels, commenting, "We are absolutely confident that Dolphin's graphics will equal or exceed anything our friends at Sony can come up with for Playstation 2." Developers already friendly with the Dolphin console have recently seconded Lincoln's comments to IGN64.

ArtX was acquired by respected PC graphics technologies company ATI on February 16, 2000. The $400 million deal provides ATI a gateway into the console market through ArtX's involvement with Nintendo's Dolphin system.

"ATI now becomes a major supplier to the game console market via Nintendo," said a company spokesperson. "The Dolphin platform is reputed to be king of the hill in terms of graphics and video performance with 128-bit architecture."

Basically, the deal doesn't change much so far as Dolphin enthusiasts are concerned. The ArtX chipset will remain intact and will still be delivered exclusively to Nintendo. The only difference is that ATI will also be attached to it.

Full details on the ArtX/ATI merger can be found right here.

What involvement does IBM have with Dolphin?

In a $1 billion deal reached between the two companies, IBM will design and manufacture a unique 400 MHz central processor featuring industry-leading 0.18 micron copper technology for Nintendo's next-generation console. The chip, dubbed the "Gekko" processor, is an extension of the IBM PowerPC architecture.

While the relationship initially involves the development and production of the copper-based processor, the companies will explore the potential use of IBM technology in other Nintendo products as well. The current arrangement calls for IBM to design, manufacture and ship copper processors to Nintendo.

The Gekko is being designed to include extra on-chip memory and more efficient data management between the processor and the game system's primary graphics chip.

"In my mind, I'd always envisioned what a game like Zelda could look like, and with the N64, I was able to create it," comments Shigeru Miyamoto. "Now, with the Gekko processor, I can see an opportunity to take game designs to a new level."

Dolphin processor chips will be manufactured at IBM's high-volume manufacturing facility in Burlington, VT. Speaking at the Nintendo pre-E3 '99 press conference, Howard Lincoln boasted that only IBM possesses the technology to manufacture chips using copper circuitry. "Nobody else in the world can do what IBM does," said Lincoln. "And quite frankly, anything less is simply not state of the art technology."

To clear up any doubts regarding Gekko, Lincoln added, "… it will be the fastest and most powerful CPU in any home videogame system… period."

The Gekko processor has been finalized and is gearing up for mass production. Details can be found here.

For pictures of Gekko, click here.

What involvement does Matsushita have with Dolphin?

Matsushita, the largest consumer electronics company in the world, will develop, manufacture and supply to Nintendo a proprietary DVD disk drive for incorporation into the Dolphin. Note that a DVD disk drive does not guarantee that Dolphin will be able to play Hollywood DVD movies. The exact specifics of movie playback have not yet been determined.

Also, stated Howard Lincoln, "Dolphin's technology will be integrated into various Matsushita or Panasonic branded DVD consumer electronic products, enabling consumers to play movies and music as well as Dolphin games published by Nintendo and Nintendo's third party publishers." So, in essence, specific Matsushita DVD players will theoretically be able to play Dolphin software as well. However, this does not mean that the actual Dolphin console will be able to play DVD movies.

What involvement does NEC have with Dolphin?

NEC, the maker of the PowerVR chipset used in Sega's Dreamcast, has signed with Nintendo to manufacture the Art-X-designed graphics and memory semiconductors for use with Dolphin. According to NEC's associate vice president, systems integration, Junshi Yamaguchi, the Nintendo graphics chipset will use as low as 8MBs and as high as 16MBs of on-board embedded DRAM. Comparatively, Sony's PS2 features 4MBs on its graphics chip, but also draws upon additional system RAM continuously. It is not yet known just how much system RAM Nintendo's machine will include.

The deal with Nintendo marks NEC's first real commercial business for eDRAM, said Yamaguchi. "And if it goes well we will expand eDRAM to use in networking and other applications, so we are making the Nintendo project a strategic priority."

NEC is spending an estimated 80 billion-yen ($761 million) to construct a factory in southern Japan that will concentrate on the production of Dolphin semiconductors. The company will begin development of the new facilities, located adjacently to its Japan headquarters, November 1999. Meanwhile, NEC anticipates the first round of semiconductors, will be ready August of 2000. Nintendo has reportedly already ordered more than 300 billion yen ($2.8 billion) worth in conductors for its next-generation machine.

What involvement does MoSys have with Dolphin?

Sunnyvale-based MoSys is the company behind 1T-SRAM technology, which will make the graphics chip and the Gekko CPU work in perfect harmony with each other -- and at blazing speed. MoSys first announced its partnership with Nintendo in September 1999. MoSys and NEC then announced on January 31, 2000, that NEC's 1st LSI Memory Division will use 1T-SRAM technology in high-density application-specific memories -- including Nintendo Dolphin's.

"1T" refers to the single transistor feature while the "S" means that the RAM is static as opposed to dynamic (DRAM). The static nature of the SRAM is intended to give the Gekko chip immediate access to all the info it needs which should give the Dolphin its incredible speed.

What are the official specs for Dolphin?

CPU: IBM Gekko Processor (an extension of the IBM Power PC architecture)

System Clock: 400 MHz
System Memory: High-speed RAM technology
Memory Bus Bandwidth: 3.2 GB/second
Semiconductor Process 0.18 Micron Copper Technology
Graphics: Custom Chip designed by ArtX, Inc. of Palo Alto, CA

Clock Speed: 200MHz
Semiconductor Processor 0.18 Micron embedded DRAM technology
Maximum Polygon Rate: N/A
Software Medium: Proprietary DVD

Enhanced counterfeit protection
Maximum capacity: 4.7 GB

Additional Information

The combined video technology will later appear in other consumer electronic devices to be marketed under Matsushita's Panasonic brand.
Nintendo promises quick access time comparable to a silicon cartridge.
Manufacturing cost and time will be minimal.
DVD movie playback capability is planned for the future (Matsushita-branded Dolphin machines in Japan).
S3 texture compression technology. For full details, click right here.
Transform and Lighting on-board. For full details, click right here
MoSys 1T-SRAM technology delivers SRAM (sub. 10nsec. random access) performance at DRAM density.
What is 1T-SRAM?

MoSys 1T-SRAM technology (which is available in densities up to 128Mbits) uses a single transistor cell to achieve high density while maintaining the refresh-free interface and low latency random access memory access cycle time associated with traditional six-transistor SRAM cells. Embedded 1T-SRAM, as used in the Dolphin console, enables designers to get beyond the density limits of six-transistor SRAMs. It also reduces much of the circuit complexity and extra cost associated with using embedded DRAM. 1T-SRAM memories can be fabricated in either pure logic or embedded memory processes using as little as one ninth of the area of traditional six-transistor SRAM cores. In addition to the high performance and density, this technology offers dramatic power consumption savings by using under a quarter of the power of traditional SRAM memories.

How does Dolphin fare against the competition?

Not all of the system specifications for Dolphin have been made public, so it's impossible to say accurately. The following chart compares what we do know of Nintendo's next-generation console to the competition.

Polygon Power

Dolphin: N/A. Suspected to be in the 20 million polygons per second range.
PlayStation 2: Around 20 million polygons per second
Dreamcast: Around 3 million polygons per second
Nintendo 64: Around 150,000 polygons per second
PlayStation: Around 360,000 polygons per second (lacks comparable effects)
Main Clock Speed

Dolphin: 400MHz
PlayStation 2: 300MHz
Dreamcast: 200MHz
Nintendo 64: 93.75MHz
PlayStation: 33.86MHz
Memory

Dolphin: N/A. Dolphin's graphics chip alone will feature up to 16MBs of embedded SRAM though.
PlayStation 2: 32MB Direct Rambus RAM
Dreamcast: 16MB (plus 8MB Video RAM, 2MB Sound RAM)
Nintendo 64: 4MB (+parity) Rambus D-RAM (expandable to 8MB)
PlayStation: 2MB (plus 1MB Video RAM, 512kb Sound RAM)
Memory Bus Bandwidth

Dolphin: 3.2 GB/s (Gigabytes per second)
PlayStation 2: 3.2 GB/s (Gigabytes per second)
Dreamcast: 800 MB/s (Megabytes per second)
Nintendo 64: 500 MB/s (Megabytes per second) or about 0.5 GB/s
PlayStation: 132 MB/s (Megabytes per second)
Software Format

Dolphin: Proprietary DVD, 4.7 GB capacity
PlayStation 2: Proprietary DVD, 4.7 GB capacity
Dreamcast: Propriety CD, 1 GB capacity
Nintendo 64: Cartridge, 64MB capacity (so far)
PlayStation: CD, 650 MB capacity

Nintendo Talks Dolphin
Read what Nintendo's Software Engineer Jim Merrick has to say about Dolphin by clicking right here.

Will Dolphin feature a dedicated sound chip?

Yes. But we have no information regarding the specifics of Dolphin's sound hardware at this point.

Will Dolphin sound better than Nintendo 64?

Without a doubt. Dolphin will feature the best audio environments of any next-generation consoles save for perhaps X-Box, which is still finalized in this respect. Developer Factor 5, which has created the sound software for Dolphin, recently released an MP3 file for its upcoming next-generation game Thornado, which is believed to be a Dolphin project. For the full story and sound file, click here.

Interestingly, Factor 5 recently revealed that the sound file was, in fact, running on Nintendo 64 hardware and is nothing compared to what Dolphin can do. Nintendo's next-generation console will be able to produce music with roughly three times the amount of audio channels -- all without the need for streaming. This opens up a whole new realm of wonderful sounding on-the-fly music.

A recent Nintendo job inquiry asked that applicants be experienced with all of the following:

Knowledge of audio/video compression techniques ADPCM, MP3, MPEG2, general MIDI and MIDI sequences.
Knowledge of Dolby Surround, Dolby Digital, DLS, MPEG4, Direct Sound and DSP).
We believe this relates directly to Dolphin's sound capabilities.

Will Dolphin play N64 cartridges?

No, obviously. The console will utilize a Matsushita-manufactured DVD-ROM for games as large as 4.7 GBs. The next-generation console will not be backward compatible with Nintendo 64 games for three major reasons:

1. Dolphin's internal architecture is entirely different from that in Nintendo 64.
2. Dolphin is a proprietary DVD-based console.
3. Backward compatibility is not important enough to justify a significant increase in the price of the console in order to implement it.
Will Dolphin be able to play DVD movies?

Two different versions of Dolphin are planned. A Nintendo-released "base" unit will not support DVD playback. Nintendo is marketing the console as a videogame machine -- nothing else. To this end, the console is expected to be very cheap and mass-market friendly. However, a Matsushita-branded version of the Dolphin console is also planned for release -- initially in Japan. This machine will feature DVD playback, but will be more expensive.

Why won't Nintendo's "base" unit just include DVD playback?

Nintendo claims that it is targeting its Dolphin as a videogame console only. However, logic tells us that price is also a major issue. In accordance with the DVD Forum (formerly DVD Consortium), an organization founded and maintained by major electronics manufacturers worldwide, any corporation wishing to release a DVD-branded device capable of playing DVD movies into the mass-market must pay a fee of approximately $20 per unit to the Forum. Therefore, Nintendo would have to pay $20 to the Forum for every Dolphin unit shipped -- an amount of money that, it seems, is unacceptable.

Will Matsushita's DVD capable version of Dolphin ship at the same time as Nintendo's "base" unit?

Unknown at this time.

Will Nintendo release an add-on or upgrade for Dolphin that enables DVD movie playback?

Unknown at this time. It's not entirely out of the question though.

When will we learn more about Dolphin's DVD capabilities?

An announcement concerning Dolphin's DVD capabilities and sound hardware is expected to be made soon.

Will Dolphin be able to play FMV?

Yes. Nintendo's base unit will be able to decode MPEG-2, despite the fact that it won't be able to legally play DVD-branded movies. This means that full-length cut-scenes and cinemas are fully possible on the console.

How does Nintendo's planned N64 add-on device 64DD fit in, if it all?

As far as we know, it doesn't. It's likely that Nintendo will incorporate some of the DD's talked-about features into Dolphin, but that's as far as it goes.

The 64DD launched in Japan December 1, 1999, and is not expected to ship in the US. Considering that the 64DD has been all but shunned by developers and is selling poorly in Japan, it's very likely that Nintendo will quietly kill the device well before it can be integrated with Dolphin.

Will the Dolphin have a modem?

Yes. Though Nintendo has not officially announced the specifics in relation to its Internet/Network strategies for Dolphin, it did recently confirm that they are in the works. "[The Dolphin] will have a function to access the Internet," confirmed Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. "We are entering the market as a latecomer so the console will have to outperform Sony Corp.'s PlayStation2." For the full story, click here. IGN64 has heard from developers that the Dolphin system is likely to support both 56k and broadband modems.

Will the modem come packaged with the system?

Unknown at this time. It should be noted, however, that Nintendo will keep a close watch on Sega's Dreamcast (which shipped with a modem).

What other Dolphin hardware-related features should we know about?

"I'm the kind of person who starts with various different experiments and I just cannot say which game is going to be for a specific console," game-designer Shigeru Miyamoto told IGN64 at 1999's Game Developers Conference in San Jose, California. "Right now I'm busy working on the controller for the next-generation machine."

That controller, according to Nintendo sources, will expand upon the analog control stick featured on Nintendo 64 joypads with the addition of analog buttons. This will make it possible, for example, to manipulate the speed of a car in a game depending on how much pressure is applied to the analog buttons on the controller.

The controller is also said to include force-feedback options, eliminating the need for a Rumble Pak.

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Page Updated Tue Sep 26, 2000 7:54am EDT