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Games Entertainment

New Nintendo System to use PowerPC 119

Posted by CmdrTaco from the games-people-play dept.
An anonymous reader wrote in to tell us that "The new Nintendo game system is going to be made with the PowerPC architecture, as well as DVD and networking from Matsushita. Next Gen has a story up."
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New Nintendo System to use PowerPC More

New Nintendo System to use PowerPC

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  • m2 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hmmm...

    I hope I'm not the only one who remembers this.

    Back before the N64 came out, The 3DO Company was making noise about the next generation of 3DO called M2, which had a DVD drive and a PowerPC processor. Matsushita bought this technology from 3DO and I hadn't heard anything else about it.

    It looks like this project is very similar to the PlayStation, which grew out of the CD-ROM attachment for the SNES.

  • Re:Power PC? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We dont how much of the Playstation2's 6.4 gflops are pure hype. AFAIK the 'emotion engine' is based on the MIPS RX000 series, and I don't think that Sony is able to produce RX000-CPUs that are so much faster than MIPS's or SGI's... Perhaps they have geometry processors or similar custom logic that achieves this performance, but certainly not in a general purpose CPU.

    I'm not so sure that you're right about the 'emotion engine' being a MIPS based chip. There will be a R3000 in the PSX2 as I understand it, but it's there as an I/O controller and to provide compatability with the PSX.

    But the main cpu isn't the chip that makes or breaks a console, it's the graphics and sound processors that do all the work...

    That's what is strange about PSX2... That big honking CPU. That and all the expantion options on this pupppy really makes me think sony is making a run for wintel with that thing...

  • Heterogenous dual-CPU systems (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Most extant "classic" Amiga systems use a heterogenous dual CPU setup, in which a 68060 runs alongside a PPC 604e. Basically, a memory protected kernel called WarpOS runs on the PPC side, while the AmigaOs 3.1 runs on the 68k.
    Very wierd.
    Future "classic" amiga designs will use warpos with a 68k kernel emulation for legacy apps, running on single or dual G3s or G4s

    Note that the "classic" amiga is not to be confused with Gateway's "next-gen" amiga project, based on QNX, which has about as much in common with the original amiga as the C64 Web.It has in common with the C64 i.e. they've used the same trademark for a completely different product.


    The PPC is a very good microprocessor architecture, much better than x86 (It simply is - ask anyone who knows anything about CPU design, even if they work for Intel) Do not dismiss the PPC simply because it's main use in the non-embedded field is running that pile of crap called MacOS. LinuxPPC very good - I used to run it on my Amiga PPC box. It is a shame that there are not many clone PPC motherboards out there that one could just run Linux on, with no Mac stuff.


  • Re:Linux? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The PowerPC chip is not so power hungry, sure they use more power than the ARM stuff, but they have an FPU, and run at higher clock speed. The 400MHz G3 uses between 5.8W and 8.0W only, and i am sure IBM and Motorola have some very low power version arround (the MPC8260 consumes only 2.5W, not far from the about 1W of the ARM cpus ...)

    Also consider that Apples latest laptop can run 5hours on one lithium battery ...

    Friendly,

    Sven LUTHER
  • If it's a G* making use (granted, this wasn't IBM's baby, but still) of the AltiVec registers, then it's basically allowing extensive general purpose operations on effectively 128-bit general purpose registers. The application to anything 3D is quite obvious, and there could easily be other applications (the _compilers_ get to use these registers anytime they want to, and there aren't really fancy rules apart from the sheer word (sentence? ;) ) size of the registers, so compilers don't have to be superlatively fancy to do stuff with this. At the least it's free parallel operations in a basic way, and there are some very big win situations as I understand it- some guy got (I think) a matrix blur going several _hundred_ times faster than non-Altivec.
    A game console _would_ be the ideal introduction for this. I wonder if Nintendo are expecting Altivec. Certainly the most obvious use is 3D graphics- particularly with respect to complicated geometries- what with modern cards stuff isn't particularly fill-bound, it's all more and more complicated and fluid geometries now.
  • Its style is a bit "tabloid" and thoroughly biased(anti-MS, anti-Intel), but you can pick up some useful snippets of information.

    Biased against Intel and MS?? Noooo, not the Register! They call Intel 'Chipzilla', and MS 'Evil Empire' cause they like and admire thier superb corporate practices. ;D
    hehe
    It's far easier to forgive your enemy after you get even with him.
  • Does this mean that Linuk might be able to run on them?
  • Consider this: Linux has ben ported to PowerPC. Not only that, but I believe I heard somewhere that Linux has also been ported to N64. With these in mind, I'd consider a Linux port to this new system (N2000?) not only likely, but probable.

  • Re:Power PC? (Score:3)

    by tjansen ( 2845 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @04:16AM (#1896449) Homepage
    We dont how much of the Playstation2's 6.4 gflops are pure hype. AFAIK the 'emotion engine' is based on the MIPS RX000 series, and I don't think that Sony is able to produce RX000-CPUs that are so much faster than MIPS's or SGI's...
    Perhaps they have geometry processors or similar custom logic that achieves this performance, but certainly not in a general purpose CPU.
  • Well, if this is going to be a customized PPC chip, how hard is this really going to be to emulate, especially from a Mac. Processor speeds are getting up there, and I'm pretty sure by the time its out, it will be conceivable to run an emulator at full speed at this rate. Of couse you still have to look at the speed of the bus, but this would still be possible, right? All I'm saying is, remember when the N64 first came out? Everyone went on forever about how it would not possible to emulate it? Well, you never know with this :)
  • Zelda for N64 is easily one of the best games Nintendo has ever put out. period.

    I saw on Ign64 last night that Miyamoto-san has promissed Ura-Zelda (an expansion of sorts) is on the way. As well as Super Mario64 2. And there will be more playable characters (Luigi is a given)

    And Metroid 64(?) is currently in development (still in the conceptual stages though...)

    This year looks promising for the N64 (Perfect Dark, Woohoo!). The only thing I see on the horizon for Sony is Final Fantasy 8.
  • It better be next generation game boy. The standard gameboy (well the one I got many moons ago) was a Z80. The NES, which was still the standard at the time, was what, a 6502 and a Z80 coprocessor?

    That having been said though, game boy Zelda kicked a supreme amount of booty. I never played N64 Zelda, but the game boy version was sweet.
  • ....cluster of playstation 2s.....

  • Re:m2 (Score:1)

    by ewhac ( 5844 )

    Actually, it didn't have a DVD drive, but there's no reason it couldn't have been retrofitted. The MPEG core also needed some minor tweaks to get it to support DVD-level MPEG streams (and those tweaks would have been made ages ago if that miserable prima donna on the chip team hadn't refused to get out of the way).

    Otherwise, yes, it sure looks like 3DO's old M2 may have found a home.

    Schwab
    Former 3DO Guy

  • A lot of people are not buying either Nitendo
    or playstation for games and their game market
    is slowing being taken over by PCs. Check the
    sales of computer games and you will be very
    surprised. Because of the growing interest in
    the internet more and more people are having
    computers in the house. Often people choose
    between a computer and a nitendo game machine.
    As the computers get cheaper and cheaper nitendo
    is likely to get in trouble, being superior in
    quality doesn't mean, you have to remember that
    kids don't buy the equipment but the parents
    who often know little except that 2 is more than 1.

    Assume for the sake of arguments that Linux does
    become a strong contender in the computer area,
    the desktops that is. Nitendo would succeed in
    an area that Apple has not with some custom
    hardware. Nitendo could eventually flush apple
    out of the desktop area and give a good challenge
    to Microsoft.

    People would write games for Linux that would
    run much better and faster on Nitendo than any
    other platform. Nitendo could actually make
    profits with the Nitendo PC.
    Nitendo could be used for the internet, word
    processing, etc ...
  • Techdirt [techdirt.com] is another computer news site that's more from a professional viewpoint than Slashdot. It uses the Slash engine to run the site.

    Worth checking out, though not many people read it yet.
  • From the talk that was given at GDC, it's a 300Mhz MIPS-based processor with two vector floating point units added on, which makes it about as good as a PII for integer performance. As far as floating point performance goes, it's got closer to the power of 3 PIII's...

  • The DD was vapor since the moment it was announced. The idea was to turn attention from mass-storage media with the promise that "we'll have that too in a year or so..." Nintendo used the same tactic with the SNES-CD to grab attention from the Sega CD. Then Sega made the rather foolish decision to back the FMV game craze that probably set CD media back two years because of all the hype.

    Then came polygons. So while Sega of Japan was working on the Saturn, Sega of America launched the ill-conceived 32X add-on that was too underpowered to compete with newer systems and too overpriced to be a cheap accessory.

    Of course, Nintendo is trying to forget the Virtual Boy. And the Super Game Boy SNES add-on. New and different? Sure. Marketable? Not hardly.

    Then Sega releases the Saturn. Virtually equivilant to the PSX in capability, but the dual processor architecture made development difficult and the powerful 2D capabilities were used only by Capcom and a few others. The Saturn was the unfortunate victim of the catch-22 of consoles. No games mean no consoles sold. No consoles sold mean no developers. No developers mean no games.

    Meanwhile, Nintendo was hyping the n64 as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Babylon 5-quality graphics, was the rumor. In the end, the cartridge format forced the system to make heavy use of blurring to hide the fact that its polygons were so poorly detailed. Like all of Nintendo's systems, it had little more power than any of the competition, came in years after they did, and resulted in even more loss of Nintendo marketshare.

    Another new Nintendo system announced on the heals of the PSX2 and Dreamcast bodes ill after the relatively new n64 and the long delays in getting it to market. But at least there's hope they'll be getting out of the cartridge business in favor of optical media.

  • Tom's Hardware Guide has a "latest tech news" section. The URL is http://www.tomshardware.com/technew s/index.html [tomshardware.com].


    Sharkey Extreme's "news" section is also good. The URL is http://www.sharkyextreme.com/news.shtml [sharkyextreme.com] .


    I'm mainly interested in chip news and graphics news, though. For more general news or for specific news on other topics, you'd have to check other sites.

  • "I think we need a few restaraunt reviews here. Everyone knows nerds like to eat, right?"

    Well, you can get free saltines and ketchup at Wendy's--two out of four food groups ain't bad.
  • My memory is a little hazy on this, but I seem to recall that the Sega Saturn was built with mostly off the shelf components, which improved time-to-market and initial cost but increased their costs in the long run.
    Usually, being the first to market gives you a big advantage (Zip vs. LS-120, for instance), but looks like the trade off bit 'em in the rear that time.
  • I think it does, potentially, since Linux has been ported to PPC already. So if somebody really wanted to, they could probably modify it to run on a Nintendo, just like they did to make it run on a PalmPilot. Although I'm not sure why they'd want to, except just for fun. Which is a good enough reason.
  • Looking around Nintendo's site, I found this [nintendo.com] press release that talks about the new chip. Apparently, the chip is being called "gekko." Mozilla, anyone?

    Dysprosium
  • So what If the site is heavily biased towards Linux? Every site has biases. Do you see us complaining about the slanted "Microsoft Daily News" articles appearing on Microsoft's site? No, we've got better things to do. I suggest you get a hobby.

    And as for Rob's commentary on most of the stories, now what is that really hurting? Its basically just a short editorial. Considering that this is his site, I think he's certainly entitled to do what he wants. He's under no obligation to serve our every need.

  • Price wars are hurting Nintendo, the lack of RPGs in Japan is. But they show that with a non standard product that they can still kick ass, unlike Sega. And don't go around praising one system over the other, since the Playstation has some good games and the N64 has good games too.

    Loading response....

    Nintendo hates load times, so I'm sure that they will figure something out to minimize that.

    And finally, since I'm not buying Quake 3, I'm going to buy other games.
  • I'm primarily a Mac user, but I don't mind this site being a watering hole for Linux users. Learn what it's like getting along in a mixed community.
  • Hey, if it's using the Book E architecture that Mot and IBM came up with, it'll be completely compatible with future PowerPC designs.
  • I so agree. Byte magazine used to be a good tech magazine but now they are gone. Slashdot I find is good because it has a lot of discussion and does have links to the techy stuff. I am not much into circut design, but when it comes to software I like to know about the workings of it.

  • If the new Nintendo console comes out with DVD player support for a decent price, it might make Sony backtrack on their plan to offer DVD movie capabilties only with an add-on. That would be nice, I hate to buy peripherals for consoles, it kinda defeats the whole purpose of having a single unit that provides everything in one neat package.
  • How can you stand those cutsie pics?
    I hate anime trying to be cute and all (eyes as big as watermelons, with non-existent noses.)

    I did enjoy super metroid though, which at the time was a neat looking game.
  • 8 Comments and NO "Man, gemme a beowolf cluster of these puppies" comments?!?!

    We must be lagging around here...
  • "The new Nintendo game system is going to be made with the PowerPC architecture, as well as DVD and networking from Matsushita."

    Sure, and the SNES was supposed to have a CD-ROM addon done by Sony, and now we have something called the PlayStation instead... Heh heh
  • The N64 DD will only be released in Japan. There's VERY little chance of it being released in America.
  • Nintendo would be stupid to not add DVD player support. While Sony may feel that adding this support to PSX2 would take away from their other DVD player sales, Nintendo has no such worry. Nintendo needs something big to get back in the race (Sony has quite the advantage right now) and "one-upping" them with the DVD player thing could be a good way to kick Sony in the ass.
  • Here are a couple. They're not really like slashdot in that you can't comment on the stories, which makes them less usefull.

    http://www.newshub.com
    Its news though from a bunch of sourcesupdated often from multiple sources. Its updated automatically.

    for mac news from various sources:
    http://www.macsurfer.com

    check it out.

  • Nintendo Comedy (Score:3)

    by Techno_Jesus ( 20829 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @08:19AM (#1896492) Homepage
    I emailed this link to my friend and he sent this back to me in an email, I thought it was funny

    Here it is:

    I checked out the system, big deal. The Playstation 2 will be backwards compatible and have mature themed games.

    But, I can see Nintendo's first generation line up for the system.

    Year: 2002 (It's nintendo.. vapor ware)

    System Price: $600

    Actual system at release: a Cartridge based system at $120 a cartrage, because the Nintendo staff couldn't figure out how to open a CD jewel case.

    Nintendo will, after business conflictions, make their own 3D hardware that will get an amazing 4,000,000 polygons a second at 120 FPS, but only displays in 256 colors. But extra color will be available after buying a $160 add on chip.

    To cut the cost $200 per system (acording to the nintendo financial department) a 1 watt internal fan won't be available, hence, play time will be limited to three daily sessions of 45 minutes each.

    Due to Nintendo's commitment to quality, saved games can only be stored on special $400, 20 GB Western Digital/Nintendo hard drives that must be replaced every two weeks.

    And because of Nintedo's merger with Divix in 2000, All games must be re-purchased at full price, on-line (over MSN, of course), every 15 minutes.

    Packaging: No controllers, No games, No memory hard drives. To cut the cost $525 per system (again, says the Nintendo financial department) the plastic casing must be custom made by the buyer.

    Also, Due to Microsoft's and Nintendo's purchase of the American Government from the Chinese in 2001, Emulating, copying, or saying "Nintendo" without expressed written consent from god will result in execution without trial.

    Misc: Rumble pack sold separate. All other extras will require 9 AAA bateries.

    Games: "Mario 4K", "Mario Kart 4K", "Lame Snowboarders 4K", About 23 different driving and baseball games, "WCW 'We Look and Play Like Hell Wrestling' 2002", and about 14 variations of "Pusssywillow Meets the Stinky Footed Fary" pussy kid games.

    And after 4 years of being on the market, there will be a whopping selection of 8 games to choose from!!!!!!

    But, inspite of these amazing projections, it will fail because it hase the name IBM on it.



    I thought it was pretty funny...
    -Aaron

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • To be fair, the Register is biased against everyone, not just MS and Intel. :-)

  • They can do a Linux port I think but it will need some work since they said:
    IBM Custom Processor (Extension of Power PC Architecture)

    so this is not a classic power PC but one that will be specifically modified for Nintendo (that's what I understand at least).

  • technology didn't matter last time! (Score:3)

    by schmack ( 32384 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @04:15AM (#1896498)
    It's interesting to see that whereas Sony's next generation playstation is spec'ed to the eyeballs, nintendo's offering is looking a little bit more 'current tech'.

    Maybe Nintendo have realised that spending truckloads of cash on hardware doesn't really pay off if the game developer base isn't all there to support it. The console price wars must be hurting Nintendo [with their designer internals courtesy of the 'we don't get out of bed for less than $5K' SGI team] a lot more than Sony.

    And in any case, at least those smug techno-eliteist Nintendo users are going to have to wait for their games to load [DVD -- hehe!] like the rest of us Playstation devotees...

    I just want to know if anyone out there will ever need to buy another game after Quake 3 Arena is released?

  • When the N64 came out, pc graphics hardware was nothing like it is today. Which brings up another point -- there is probably not THAT much going on with the PPC processor. Most of the intensive stuff (read hard to emulate) is going to be handled by customized graphics processors, etc...
  • I remember when the 3DO first came out, was a seriously neat system. Shame it never became more popular.
    Hawkins and Mical seem to have this habit of working at companies that produce brilliant equipment that then fails in the marketplace (still use two chickenhead machines at home though). Anyone knows what those two are up to nowadays?

    Oh, and Leo, if you're reading this, I remember that the latest Schwab output was always something to look forward to on the fishdisks.
  • it's 3.2gb/s system memory bandwidth. This isn't surprising (or impressive), given that all next-generation consoles (sans Dreamcast) and the next generation of PCs will all be using 800Mhz Direct Rambus DRAM, which, surprise! has a memory bandwidth of 3.2 gb/s.

    The truly impressive thing is Sony's graphics memory bandwidth of 48gb/s.
  • Like mentioned before, the actual integer performance of the Emotion Engine (MIPS IV based) is equivalent to a Pentium II-300 (or 333), but it uses 128-bit integers (maybe 64... I forget exactly). It is the only *true* 128-bit console in existence (or on the horizon). The vector units (VU0 and VU1) are reprogrammable via microcode, so they can be used for considerably more than just vector processing. Total floating point performance would be equal to about a quad-Pentium III Xeon 500 (since SMP invariably penalizes each processor - actual FP is about 3.5x the speed of a P3-500).
  • The emotion engine is actually quite a few "processors" thrown into one processor.

    At the heart is a MIPS IV subset with full floating point, but (I believe) it handles 128 bits of data at a time.

    In addition, there is an MPEG2 processing unit on the chip, two reprogrammable vector units (adding 14 parallel FP MACs and DIVs), and direct buses to both the graphics synthesizer and the I/O processor.

    Everything can be used in parallel on the EE, so streaming DVD video for textures is entirely possible, as is the 6.4gflop figure.

  • Piracy (Score:3)

    by fredsan ( 37428 ) on Wednesday May 12, 1999 @04:10AM (#1896504)
    Also, "Enhanced Counterfeit Protection" points to an increasing concern in the software industry -- rampant piracy.

    I really don't understand why they bother with this. There are people out there who are going to crack it no matter how much time they spend making it "crack-proof". They could save time and money by implementing some basic scheme to stop the general public from doing it.

    Oh well, I don't plan on getting one anyway.
  • Nintendo is once again going to hurt themselves. They are releasing a DVD compatible system which means all those Nintendo 64 owners that spent a fortune on the system and the games for it will have to buy a system that alienates their current software(taking a note from Sega no doubt). I for one will enjoy playing new as well as old games on my next generation playstation when comes out.
  • I noticed when they compared the all powerful next gen Nintendo system(which software developers haven't seen demonstrated yet) to the next gen Playstation(which software developers have seen demonstrated), he seemed to leave out the fact that Sony's system is backwards compatible. Also stated was DVD movie playback would be available in the future, which sounds like it won't be available out of box.
  • oops. After reading another faq apparently the new Nintendo system will feature DVD playback out of box. The DVD is developed by Panasonic, Panasonic also sells DVD players. The new Nintendo system is supposed to be real cheap. Sounds to me like Panasonic may lose it's low end DVD player market if it will be cheaper to buy the Nintendo system. They better hope they get a good chunk of Nintendo's profits on this system
  • not true. For a short period of time there was an adapter you could buy for the SNES that would allow you to play NES games
  • All of these game system companies thrive on vaporware....just so they can say they're "coming out with this or that" next year.

    The only company that doesn't do this is Sega. It seems they think something up one week, the next week they announce it, and the next week they release it....so what if it's slapped together and basically an underpowered piece of shit (the Saturn, 32X, CD-ROM for Genesis, Game Gear...), they get it out there!! Just take my advice and don't BUY any of Sega's equipment, because they'll just abandon it in like 6 months.

    Remember when Nintendo said they were going to have a special removable add-on drive similar to a Syquest for their N64? They were going to debut it with Zelda...but it was pure vapor and never came out. Now they're talking about all the new specs and technology that's going to be on their NEXT game system...but I'll bet that a lot of it get's dropped before it's shipped.


  • So are you implying that Project Dolphin will never come out? I guarentee you it will. Nintendo will not just stop making systems any time soon.
  • I don't know where you get your sources but Linux is not, can not, and will not be ported to the N64. It's not a computer, it's a gaming platform. Computer do not equal gaming console. I doubt this thing even has anything but the simplist OS, not Linux. You guys seem to be hung up about that. Yall are the only ones that I've read in all my gaming sites (if this could be called a gaming site) that even discusses the possibility of Linux on a system. I think you need to stop thinking about OSes.
  • I posted something similar in the thread under this, but it applies here too. What's with your constant asking if Linux will port to it? You did the same thing with the PSX2 announcement, and now it's the Dolphin annoncement. I find it wierd that Slashdot is the only site I've ever been to that suggested that Linus should be the OS of a gaming console. I doubt the Dolphin will have anything but the simpleist and least complex OS. And even if there is a complex OS, I doubt it'll be Linux, Nintendo will design their own OS. You people really do think of nothing else other than Linux.
  • Next-Generation Online had a great article on the 10 things you must know about the Dolphin. Lots of interesting stuff in there. Also some other Dolphin stuff from IGN64. http://ign64.ign.com/news/8035.html
    http://www.next-generation.com/jsmid/news/6618.h tml
  • And in any case, at least those smug techno-eliteist Nintendo users are going to have to wait for their games to load [DVD -- hehe!] like the rest of us Playstation devotees...


    Hate to burst your bubble, but Nintendo has said that the Dolphin will have quick access times comparable to a cartridge. I don't know how, that's just what they said.
  • Well, the Dolphin WILL play DVD movies, straight off the bat. So I guess Sony will be in the hot seat now.
  • Considering the PSX2 is the very first system to ever have the chance to play old games on a new system, I don't see how Nintendo is hurting themselves. People still bought a N64 even though it doesn't run SNES games. Not to mention it would be practically impossible for Nintendo to allow that.
  • Ah, but the SNES CD-ROM was just an add-on. The Dolphin is a whole new system, something completley different. Besides, they've made all the deals, and they've already developed a lot of it, that's why it's scheduled to come out in Fall 2000.
  • Well according to NGO, they have a running Dolphin at E3 behind closed doors. The report didn't say much, but it proves that Nintendo has been working on this thing for quite some time.
  • Hook, line and sinker...

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