game cube and DVD (1 Viewer)

[Robert A]

Will this game cube thing play DVD video discs, like its competitors? Or is it just going to run the little dvd's?

 

[Joel Mack]

The Gamecube does not support DVD playback.

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"The internet is a place where people from all over come together to
bitch about movies and share pornography."

 

[Robert A]

Did nintendo say why?

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Because it would add $30 to the SRP of the GameCube. That's why MS is seperating it from X-Box. That's the cost of the license of the DVD playback protocols.
There will be a seperate DVD player/Gamecube combo unit, at least in Japan, made my Matsushista(Panasonic)

 

[Graeme Clark]

Also the drive used isn't an actual DVD drive, but a proprietary drive based on DVD technology.
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[Morgan Jolley]

The GCN can't play DVDs even if it was programmed to. The disc drive is smaller (just elaborating on what Graeme said).

 

[Camp]

Post count padding? Or just needed to get his name in the thread?

 

[Pete_S]

Just to elaborate a bit, that $30 per console figure is just to pay the DVD Consortium (I think?) fees, as Jeff said. Any given company has to pay these fees just to legally support the DVD movie format, put the DVD logo on their machines/boxes, and so on... But for the GameCube hardware to actually support DVD playback, it'd cost even more. If DVD playback had been a feature, GameCube would have been the third next gen console pushing the $300 mark.