Q: When is the new machine coming out?
Nintendo is currently aiming for a holiday 2000 release worldwide. That means no delay (or very little delay) between the Japanese and U.S. launches, similar to the release of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Whether or not this ambitious date is obtainable or not is in question. Quite frankly, I have my doubts, and it's likely that the launch will be delayed until 2001.

Q: What is it going to be called?
Nintendo has not finalized a name for the new console yet. It is code-named Dolphin, but is also known as N2000 (Nintendo 2000). Recently (July), NCL announced that it was abandoning the Dolphin name and requested that their new console be referred to as the "Next Generation Nintendo" system. This site, along with just about everyone else, will continue to refer to the next generation Nintendo system as Dolphin.

Q: Are there any pictures of Dolphin?
Nintendo has not released any images of their new console. Any pictures that you come across on the internet or in magazines are probably mock-ups or fakes. I think it's safe to say that Nintendo has not yet finalized their case and controller designs.

Q: Will it be more powerful than the Next Generation Playstation?
Nintendo is consistently claiming that Dolphin will exceed the next Playstation's graphic capabilities. Specs that have been released show clock speeds 33% higher than Playstation 2's chips. Whether or not this will actually translate into more polygons per second and floating point operations per second is not known. Since Nintendo only claims better graphics, it's possible the new Nintendo will sport lower benchmarks than the new Playstation, but will employ more special effects and possibly support for NURBS (see below) to produce graphics power exceeding Playstation 2 (similar to the situation between Nintendo 64 and Playstation).

Q: Why don't they make it 256-bit and blow the competition away?
We're at a stage in technology where bittage doesn't matter much anymore. Remember, the Pentium II is only 32-bit, and it certainly outperform's Nintendo 64's 64-bit processor. What's important is that the hardware can push a large number of polygons and handle huge amounts of floating-point operations.

Q: Will they go with DVD? If so, will they offer DVD playback?
Yes, Nintendo has teamed up with electronics giant Matsushita to make Dolphin a DVD-based system. Also, the next generation Nintendo will indeed be able to play back video DVDs.

Q: How much will it cost?
Nintendo says the machine will be very affordable (at least the same cost as or less than Playstation 2). By teaming up with IBM to produce Dolphin's CPU, this goal looks very attainable.

Q: Who's developing the hardware this time?
The CPU will be designed by IBM. The graphics co-processor will be developed by a company called ArtX Inc.. ArtX was formed by two former Silicon Graphics employees who were closely tied to SGI's Nintendo 64 team.

Q: What will the new controller be like?
If you remember the months leading up to Nintendo 64's unveiling, its controller was among the last of peripherals to be shown to the public. Why? It was incredibly innovative, sporting analog control and a slot for expansion. Expect a similar amount of innovation for the new controller. It is known that Dolphin's controller will feature built-in rumbling and two analog buttons. Shigeru Miyamoto is working on it, and if it is even half as revolutionary as Nintendo 64's controller was, it will be incredible.

Q: What are NURBS?
It stands for Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines. A mathematical definition is beyond the scope of this F.A.Q. (and beyond my mathematical background... for now). NURBS have the advantage of being able to more accurately reproduce a curve. However, they require extra storage to define traditional shapes like circles. The bottom line is, hardware support for NURBS would allow games to look better, so we certainly want the new Nintendo's hardware to support it. Read more about NURBS here.