Project Dolphin is a Codename Only
Sony is calling their next-generation system the "Next-Generation Playstation" and when the Nintendo 64 was in production, Nintendo called it the "Ultra 64". "Dolphin" is just a name that Nintendo uses to refer to the project and they have not yet made any indication about the actual name of their new hardware. You can bet that the name "Nintendo" will be in the name though.

Dolphin Will Be Released Worldwide in 2000
Nintendo has announced that they plan to release their new system worldwide at the same time (more or less) that Sony releases their next-generation hardware, "Playstation II" in the United States, end of the year 2000. Because of the infamous Y2K bug, retailers are calling the year 2000 a hellish year but for gamers, it will be a very exciting year. Sega's Dreamcast will soon have to go against two powerful next-generation systems and the only artillery for this war will be quality videogames. Good Luck soldiers!

Sega, Sony, and Nintendo all agree that low-quality games will not cut-it in this next-generation, so, a year from now, we gamers can expect a store such as Electronics Boutique to have shelves full of awesome games!

Dolphin will play DVDs, Including Movies
Nintendo has retaliated against Sony by announcing that their new system will adopt the option of using the DVD format for their games but, unlike Sony, Nintendo is also adding the option of playing DVD movies on the system! The DVD drives are being made by Matsushita, known as Panasonic here in the United States and Canada.

Dolphin will be Cheap
The new hardware is built with a PowerPC variant that is manufactured by Nintendo using its .18 micron fab in Burlington, VT. Because IBM is already producing .18 micron chips and the chip is based on an architecture already widely produced, IBM will be able to produce the CPU at a very affordable price. Nintendo of America chairman, Howard Lincoln promised in a recent press conference that the system would be released at a mass market price. The CPU has been codenamed "Gekko."

There Are No Hard Performance Specs Beyond Clock Speed For Dolphin
There are sure to be ranters and ravers all across the Internet solemnly proclaiming that Dolphin will ray trace while transforming 80 million polygons per second.

For those who don’t want to pick through specs, the only information that points to performance of the system is the CPU, Gekko, has a clock speed of 400MHz and the graphics chip, being co-designed by ArtX, is clocking in at 200 MHz. The other salient tidbit is that the system’s memory bandwidth is 3.2GB/sec.

But Nintendo has not revealed what sort of floating point the CPU is pushing or, indeed, whether the system will use traditional 3D rendering. The information announced leaves open the possibility that Nintendo is exploring some kind of crazy NURB surface acceleration.

Nintendo Has Joined The Partner Game With Dolphin
Both Sega and Sony have recently shown the world that not only are games a big business, but some of the world’s biggest businesses want to get involved in games. Sega has a high profile partnership with Microsoft, NEC and Hitachi to manufacture the Dreamcast. Sony has designed the Emotion Engine core of the PlayStation 2 with Toshiba, and it will be fabricated by Toshiba with heavy Sony investment.

Nintendo has joined in the partner game by signing IBM to manufacture Gekko, ArtX to co-design the graphics chip, and Matsushita/Panasonic to develop the storage medium as well as the machine’s "digital networking." Which brings us to...

Dolphin Will Be A Network Device, And May Be A Set-Top Box
Though not drawing much play at the announcement at E3, in the Japanese announcement of Dolphin, Nintendo and Matsushita made it clear that the Dolphin will be a digital networking device.

One of the focuses of the two companies’ future work together will be to develop digital networking technology for the platform further.

With DVD playing movies, networking, music, and high end game applications...it sure sounds like a set-top box to us.

Dolphin Will Bust Piracy
One of the major features of Dolphin is that it will possess hardcore anti-piracy measures. Matsushita and Nintendo’s partnership has yielded "enhanced counterfeit protection" that Nintendo believes will stop pirates in their tracks. It could be braggadocio, but Nintendo announcing that Dolphin’s software will not be piratable will be read as a challenge by every pirate in the world. It’s not a challenge Nintendo would make lightly unless it has the technology to back it up.

Dolphin Development Has Already Begun
Developers are already hard at work on games for Dolphin. Developers burning the midnight oil to release games for the fledgling system are Left Field, Nintendo Software Technology Group, Rare and Retro Studios.

None of these companies are talking about Dolphin games they have in development because...

This Is The Last You'll Hear Of Dolphin For A While
Nintendo believes it still has a healthy life cycle left in the Nintendo 64, with the company estimating 15 million hardware sales left in the system’s life cycle. Its announcement of Dolphin is clearly a "keeping up with the Joneses" affair, with Sony drawing so much attention and praise for its PlayStation 2.

Howard Lincoln told the press today that the company will be revealing no further details on the system for some time, and that the company will continue to be circumspect, internally and externally -- both in an effort to surprise consumers, and surprise competitors.