Could Nintendo's next handheld be a portable Gamecube?

[Kal_El]

I was thinking about this the other day, does anyone else think it's possible that part of the reason Nintendo decided on their small custom sized disks may be so they can be used on a future handheld. The disks size means the machines size can be compact and the gamecube hardware is already cheap to make so it would be able to be released at their usual ?80 - ?90 price range also by the time it came around I would guess the GC hardware would most likely be able to fit onto 1 smallish sized board something the size of a personal CD player maybe.

It would also mean a huge collection of top quality titles for the handheld available from the start and the overall demand and sales potential for gamecube games would be huge ensuring a lot of 3rd Party support. The graphics would be awesome compared to anything seen in a handheld and would certainly help keep control of the handheld market over Sony's new effort.

Is this just wishful thinking and do any of you tech minded folks think it possible?

[Wools]

No chance. To have a Gamecube in a portable case woud cost a fortune in Nintendo R&D to minimize it.

And cost a fortune for us too.

[snowman]

THINK of how small it is now jeeeeeez what do theese people expect?

NO but surely for the price range they would have to acomodate. How on my earth would they be able to make it handhld size.

GAME GEAR was bad enough :O

N64 would even be a hard push...

[?pint]

I don't think he means now, but in the future when the GameCube's successor is in our households. If you think about it logically, by that time it shouldn't be too hard to make the console smaller. Look at how the PlayStation could be scaled down to the PSone (and even then, the relatively large size of it was due to the huge discs, not large parts). I think in 5 years time it would be entirely possible to have a portable GameCube much like the GBA-SP. Discs slot in the bottom, and there we go . They might have trouble getting analogue sticks though.....

[dataDave]

There's no doubt that one day they will have the technology to do this at such cheap production costs too.

Imagine speaking to someone back in '92/'93 regarding the prospect of a portable SNES with better graphics. They'd laugh at you, long and hard.

[Burai]

Better? I'm still laughing...

I'm not sure we'll be seeing a portable GameCube for a good while. Unlike Sony who design and fab their own processors, Nintendo won't have the same luxury as Sony do with their "PS2 on a chip" concept they've got going. Nintendo would be lucky to see ATI and IBM working together and sharing R&D.

The discs are purely for security/speed reasons and I believe we'll be seeing something much smaller/safer to carry in your pockets for the new Game Boy.

[probeater]

It wouldn't make economic sense for nintendo to let you use existing gamecube disks, they would make you buy the games again and would also probably take a few buttons away from the controller for good measure

[dataDave]

Better? I'm still laughing...

I'd like to see Golden Sun on the SNES. Not even the mighty Terranigma comes close. F-Zero stomps over its SNES father, as does Mario Kart, Final Fight, SF2 etc etc.

DKC could have been a perfect port, it's not the hardwares fault the developers decided to **** around with the presentation, sprites, and backgrounds and more or less everything else.

[Kal_El]

There's no doubt that one day they will have the technology to do this at such cheap production costs too.

Imagine speaking to someone back in '92/'93 regarding the prospect of a portable SNES with better graphics. They'd laugh at you, long and hard.

That's very true I couldn't have imagined a SNES in the palm of my hand back in 92/93. I'll live in hope, you never know maybe in 5 years we'll all be playing the likes Wind Waker, Monkey Ball and Metroid on the go

[Baroque]

I was thinking about this the other day, does anyone else think it's possible that part of the reason Nintendo decided on their small custom sized disks may be so they can be used on a future handheld.

When they first showed the Cube Disc's they were asked this and refused to rule this out. It's very possible that the could use those discs in a future product, they should be about the same size as Sony's UMD media.

The graphics would be awesome compared to anything seen in a handheld and would certainly help keep control of the handheld market over Sony's new effort.

Don't count Nintendo out just yet, we've been told that the PSP will come in at a price higher than the GBA but cheaper than a portable DVD player. That puts it well out of the reach of the "Pokemon segment". The GBA is a portable toy, the PSP is going to be one of those "Digital Lifestyle Devices".

[dataDave]

"Digital Lifestyle Devices".

With that in mind - I wonder how much software will end up being developed for it when we're 6 months from launch?

Seems like too much of a risk for most software companies.

[Baroque]

I'm not sure we'll be seeing a portable GameCube for a good while. Unlike Sony who design and fab their own processors, Nintendo won't have the same luxury as Sony do with their "PS2 on a chip" concept they've got going. Nintendo would be lucky to see ATI and IBM working together and sharing R&D.

And who needs ATi?

Nintendo own flipper from root to branch, if they decided to go mad in the morning and wanted Flipper & Gecko on a chip, they could contract IBM Semiconductor to wedge both of them onto a single die. It doesn't make any real sense for them to do that though as there are better ways to do a handheld.

Indeed Nintendo are actually in a better cost position than Sony in the design stage of such a project, as they don't own any fabs and can contract the design out, as they did with the GBA, to people like ARM Holdings or any other chip design shop out there. Where Sony's advantage in owning the Fab is in cost reductions to the development of their design as manufacturing process technology brings yields up and costs down.

Nintendo just have to factor this in up front, as they'll be paying the manufacture whatsoever sliding rates they agree on regardless of how cheap things can be made years from now. But that's where a good contract comes in, and as we all know the house that Yamauchi built squeeze every penny out of everything.

Indeed Sony's advantage can all but be eliminated depending on who you get to FAB the silicon. Look at the Taiwanese "MegaFABS", there is excess semiconductor manufacturing capacity out there and Ninty don't have to actually own any infrastructure so long as they build the up front costs into the retail price like they did with the GBA.

It's a competitive market with people owning $3B megafabs touting for every scrap of work they can get their hands on, to keep those things earning money or paying off the costs involved in building them.

The discs are purely for security/speed reasons and I believe we'll be seeing something much smaller/safer to carry in your pockets for the new Game Boy.

I'd say so too, there are a world of options out there but if they choose to use Micro-DVD's there is nothing to stop them, they are cheap to make and have excess capacity for whatever Nintendo will bring to market after the GBA (Which could very well be in 2005 if the PSP takes off.)

[Baroque]

With that in mind - I wonder how much software will end up being developed for it when we're 6 months from launch?

Seems like too much of a risk for most software companies.

It's part of the Playstation brand and Sony are not stupid when it comes to lining up third parties. I'd just be wary about the quality of what shows up in the first 12 months. Third parties will be on it, but they won't want to spend too much money to be there just in case Sony prices themselves out of the market at launch.

It's possible that Sony could initially take a bath on the hardware cost again, like they did with the PS and the PS2 to get it to a reasonable price point. Reasonable is still going to be "costs more than GBwhatever" because of what they intend it to do. Music/Video playback and so on, though these days I can't imagine why people would want yet another portable media playback device which doesn't use a hard disk. Touting your CD collection around with you in your backpack or whatnot is so...90's.

[Smeghead]

did Nintendo not say they'd been sitting on GBA technology several years before release due to the sucess of GB an GBC?

Also Sega got the DC down to a single chipset, I'm no whizz, but I'm sure it'd be feasible to do the same with the GC within a couple of years.

[Baroque]

did Nintendo not say they'd been sitting on GBA technology several years before release due to the sucess of GB an GBC?

Also Sega got the DC down to a single chipset, I'm no whizz, but I'm sure it'd be feasible to do the same with the GC within a couple of years.

Yes they did. They also said it was a stop gap on the way to 3D. If I recall the GBA project or the one to follow it, I can't remember was called "Atlantis" or something.