Future Gamer brings you the third and final part of our Project Dolphin feature. Courtesy of IGN, we bring you up to date on the development of Nintendo's next-generation console and compare its vital statistics to those of the Dreamcast and PS2...


Author's Note:
The information regarding Nintendo's next-generation system below is not set in stone. Rather, it is a compilation of official statements from Nintendo, early system specifications from Nintendo, anonymous developer insight and intelligent speculation.
Matt Casamassina.


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 IGN 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 analogue control stick featured on N64 joypads with the addition of analogue 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 analogue buttons on the controller. The controller is also said to include force-feedback options, eliminating the need for a Rumble Pak. Rumours have also surfaced which suggest that Nintendo may be developing a method of linking up the Game Boy/GBC with the Dolphin via infrared signals between the machines.

How much will Dolphin cost?
Exact pricing for the console is not yet known, but it's going to be marketed cheap. "While our new Dolphin hardware will be extremely powerful," said company chairman, Howard Lincoln, at a Nintendo-held press conference last May, "it will retail at a mass market price for home videogame systems". Lincoln also noted that Dolphin software would sell at a competitive price. "Let me assure you that this is a critical objective for Nintendo - as is the need for flexible and quick manufacturing turn around of Dolphin software and strong and effective counterfeit protection. All of these objectives will be achieved under the Nintendo-Matsushita alliance".