Read please, an interesting mail that about N5 and Hitachi

[Urian]

¿And GCP?

From: mixmazta@lycos.com (mixmazta)
Newsgroups: alt.games.video.nintendo.gamecube
Subject: Nintendo to stop making home consoles?
Date: 18 Oct 2002 18:41:32 -0700
Organization: http://groups.google.com/
Lines: 52
Message-ID: <debddee4.0210181741.7405948e@posting.google.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 63.226.183.217
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1250
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Trace: posting.google.com 1034991692 17337 127.0.0.1 (19 Oct 2002 01:41:32 GMT)
X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com
NNTP-Posting-Date: 19 Oct 2002 01:41:32 GMT


Somebody sent this to me from www.macosrumors.com. Two interesting
bits to us nintendo fans are the mention of a phaseout of the GC in
2004, and that Nintendo may stop making home consoles.


Interesting news coming from Japanese semiconductor industry
newspaper. Hitachi is planning to purchase the PPC portions of
Motorola's business. (Motorola is in need of serious capital after
quarter and quarter losses snf may even consider selling off
Metrowerks -- no evidence, that was justa "rumor" ) Hitachi and
Motorola have a long relationship that dates back to Motorola's 6809
chip (used in many arcade games and home computers in the 80's.
Hitachi made a faster "clone" of the 6809.) Analyst believe that they
(Hitachi) plan to use PPC technology in upcomming 3G cellular phones,
which Japan is leading in.

More exciting is the statement by Hitachi's Morishita Koichiro, head
of Consumer Electronics that a future "digital-hub" (his words are
"home gateway" but perhaps digital-hub is known by more consumers)
based on the PPC is planned. This digital-hub will be a joint
partnership between Hitachi, Nintendo, NEC and Access. Industry buzz
in Japan is that the Kyoto-based Nintendo, is planning to phase out
hardware production of home consoles (but not mobile models) as SEGA
did recently. In related news, the Japanese video game magazine,
"DenkiKidsGen" (translation) also interviewed Nintendo's Hardware
Solutions manager and he confirmed that the future product betwen
Hitachi and Nintendo would be supported by the team behind the
GameCube (which if I recall uses IBM's PPC) and that the two companies
plan to make a good challenge (translation --> we plan to take their
market share) to Microsoft and Sony products.

He also confirmed that remaining hardware from the company would be
targetted at the mobile market (GameBoy line) once the phase-out of
the home unit (GameCube) is completed, projected Q2 2004. NEC (Nippon
Electronics Company) will hold a 15% stake in the new project and will
be providing the graphics hardware for the system. Interesting to note
that NEC marketed their own game system not too long ago called the
TurboGraphics and ALMOST provided the graphic chipset to power a
console from Nintendo three years back.

ACCESS CO.,Ltd, known for their cellular-phone browsers (market leader
in Japan) amoung other things will be assisting Hitachi and Nintendo
to integrate this "digital hub" into the Internet and also into
consumer products like MP3-based products. Back to the main story.
What does the purchase of the PPC plants by Hitachi mean for IBM and
Apple? Only time will tell. I don't want to speculate but my sources
say that Apple and IBM will move closer to each other and surprise --
bring, in a third company to take over Motorola's shoes (although
Hitachi will continue to use the PPC but move off into their own
designs) from South Korea. My guess is Samsung.
There's a lot of if's and maybe's in there, but in between there is
quite a bit of ins

I know that the source is not an official source but I believe that this source is more realistic with the actual scenario that the others that I saw and readed.

 

[Blade]

So basically, Nintendo would be changing hardware manufacturers.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Urian - this has been posted before, a long time ago. And in fact, I re-posted the very same rumor last night in the MS-Nintendo joint effort thread: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7627&start=20

Interesting though, no? I'm glad you made a thread just for it.

I think this joint effort between Hitachi-NEC-Nintendo is very plausable.

There is no reason why the rumor of NEC-Cray (or just NEC) building a TeraFlop class multi-core CPU, and the reality that ATi is working on graphics for Nintendo, cannot co-exist with that digital-hub rumor. Perhaps this Digital-Hub and N5 are one and the same. The only other major partner not mentioned would be Panasonic.

NEC-Hitachi-Nintendo-ATI-Panasonic (plus other smaller partners as with GC) would be a FORMADIBLE alliance against PS3.

 

[Nexiss]

So basically, Nintendo would be changing hardware manufacturers.

Not sure, but I think it is implying more than that. Seems like Nintendo shifting its focus more towards software while throwing its weight behind an alliance between the companies to combat Sony and MS.

 

[Urian]

Urian - this has been posted before, a long time ago. And in fact, I re-posted the very same rumor last night in the MS-Nintendo joint effort thread: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7627&start=20

Sorry I didn´t know.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Seems like Nintendo shifting its focus towards software while throwing its weight behind an alliance between the companies to combat Sony and MS.

Yes exactly. it would seem that way. that would not however, mean there will be no next generation Nintendo console, so others reading this should not take it that way. we are all aware of Nintendo statements regarding a successor to Gamecube, and the official involvment of ATI, and semi-official (but just as likely if not even more) involvement of NEC.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Sorry I didn´t know.

naa, its cool. as I said, I'm glad you made this thread.

It's very relevant IMHO.

 

[Urian]

If the mail is true the impact in the CPU market will be awesome because PowerPC is going to be in all the markets from Mobile systems to the powerful Servers.

 

[ShinHoshi]

Hmmm...Sorry for my ignorance but what achievement has done Hitachi lately ?. I really don't know anything about them except that they do processors and that SS and DC had Sh2 and SH4 as main processors.

 

[Deepak]

But Hitachi is still a behemoth, all Japanese electronics giants are!

 

[a4164]

What are the chances the N5 will use a Panasonic, NEC or Hitachi label? Hardware by Panasonic, NEC, Hitachi, etc. Software by Nintendo. I think the Panasonic label would do well against Sony's brand name. I can see Nintendo not wanting to foot the bill for hardware that has to compete with theoretical Cell class power (~1TFLOPS).

 

[Deepak]

If N does tie with NEC/H which I hope that they do then it would be their wisest decision in ages. They know that they ALONE can't hope to compete against two Godzillas (S&MS).

 

[Megadrive1988]

If this is in fact happening, there should be Panasonic, Hitachi and NEC versions of this machine, all capable of playing Nintendo games. like Panasonic's Q.

Sega did this with the Saturn. Both JVC (Matsushita) and Hitachi had their own Saturn clones. V-Saturn and HiSaturn, respectively. Saturn btw, was Sega's only sucessful console in Japan.

 

[Cyborg]

"It's a sort of conglomeration of hardware and software" -Satoru Iwata

Hmmm

What a weird thing this would be though. But in many ways, its logical. Electronic giants probably already know sony's plan for PS3 as being a digital hub for multimedia in homes via a large network connected to the internet. This would be a way to counter sony taking all the market in this type of home products.

 

[Qroach]

I find it interesting that they said GC is going to be phased out of production by Q2 2004. That explains some of thier recent annoucements.

 

[jvd]

I find it interesting that they said GC is going to be phased out of production by Q2 2004. That explains some of thier recent annoucements.

I really don't see gamecube , ps2 or xbox selling many more units . So by q2 2004 there will be a ton of ps2s , xboxs and gcs just sitting in the warehouse waiting to be sold. Esp with new systems coming out about a year later.

 

[Qroach]

Of course they are going to sell more units. 2005 just isn't realistic enough of a new start date. Sony doesn't have all their hardware together for PS3, MS dosen't have their hardware for Xbox an d nintendo doesn't have it together like the other two. None of them are in any postistion to launch in 2005.

Either way that won't really affect sales much.

 

[Kolgar]

I really don't see gamecube , ps2 or xbox selling many more units .

Really? Each successive price drop usually helps these companies make greater inroads into the mass market. Especially with PS2, I see lots and lots being sold as we go to $149 and eventually, $99.

Didn't Nintendo used to say that by the time they got to $129 or $99, they'd only sold half of their ultimate total?

Kolgar

 

[PC-Engine]

Hmmm...Sorry for my ignorance but what achievement has done Hitachi lately ?. I really don't know anything about them except that they do processors and that SS and DC had Sh2 and SH4 as main processors.

Hitachi is ranked at #16 on Forbes International 500. SONY is ranked #20 and Matsushita #21.

Hitachi also makes supercomputers. At the time IIRC their single chip supercomputer cpus were among the most powerful in the world capable of 8 GFLOPS each back many years ago. I think their current single cpu is capable of 14.4 GFLOPS. For reference the Cray X1 has a single cpu performance of 12.8 GFLOPS and the Earth Simulator has a single cpu performance of 10 GFLOPS. However the clockrates of the different cpus varies. For example the Hitachi and NEC cpus run at a much lower clock than the Cray. Per clock I think Hitachi has the most powerful cpu in the world with regards to GLOPS performance. The Emotion Engine is only slighty less powerful at 6.2 GFLOPS at only 300 MHz.

 

[Megadrive1988]

So MAYBE NEC, Cray, Hitachi are working on a TeraFlops class CPU for Nintendo that will rival or surpass the IBM-Sony-Toshiba Cell for PS3.