IBM CPU to power the next Nintendo game system

International Business Machines (IBM) will provide the brains behind thenext Nintendo game system, code-named "Dolphin," that is due for releaselate next year. Designed to compete with the Sega Dreamcast and the nextSony Playstation, Nintendo's Dolphin system will be powered by a low-voltagecopper 400 MHz IBM PowerPC chip. It will also sport a DVD drive that willplay today's movie DVDs. Pricing is expected to be in the $200 range.

"We brought our best design skills, our top technology and our productioncapabilities to the party for this," said John Kelly, IBM's general managerfor Microelectronics. "I think it was an important factor that we arealready running our 0.18-micron production copper process in two fabs, andcould show our ability to ramp to the kind of volume Nintendo needs on theirschedule."

Nintendo's previous generation system, the Nintendo 64, was co-developedwith SGI, but a falling out caused the company to look elsewhere. ArtX willsupply graphics hardware on the new system this time around