To say it's been slow in the news department lately might be a small understatement. So when something as nice as this comes along, it makes it that much sweeter. Here are a few tidbits to chew on during the Long Drought. Notice how Miyamoto-sensei says time and again that polygons alone don't make a difference and it is how the entire system works together that will be the true test.

Miyamoto-san:" Polygon movement is essential in the creation of 3D games. Therefore, we are taking various steps to simplify polygon movement. Namely, this includes calculation of polygon display, properly shading and lighting the polygons, and applying the textures.

"Whenever new hardware comes out, the manufacturer always talks about how many million polygons it puts out, but never mentions that when textures are applied only half that can be handled. Then when you do the lighting calculations, that number halves again. So the actual number of polygons is half of half, or about 1/10th of what they say. So if the specs say the machine can do 80-100 million polygons, that really translates to roughly 5-8 million.

"Polygon-pushing power isn't enough; game machines have to be able to handle things like terrain and collision detection too. When the CPU handles these tasks, it can't do much else. With the Gamecube, we've divided the tasks up as much as possible to eliminate bottlenecks. If you simply look at the documented specs for existing systems, they may seem to be the latest and greatest things at the moment, but in a year or so they'll already be outdated. On the other hand, looking at the Gamecube, I think it will have a shelf life of many years. We wanted to make a piece of hardware that would free developers from worrying about technical stuff like polygons or bottlenecks."

The master of Deception also states that the Gamecube "will have a shelf life of many years." Interesting don't you think? Tell us exactly what's going on in that brain of yours by hitting the Talkback Button!