Hey all,

I was bored at work and decided to call Nintendo's info hotline (1-800-255-3700) and decided to venture into a conversation with the tech help about the whole Gamecube+Internet+Security issue. This was brought upon me when I was thinking about the whole Xbox exposé a little while back.

It appears that the Gamecube will indeed have both a modem adapter and a network (broadband) adapter coming out in sept.02. Now this is where the conversation gets fun. I asked the operator if the Gamecube will be able to surf the net. (Like the Dreamcast could) He told me that from what he knows (and he knows little) the Gamecube will not be able to surf the internet.

He said the only reason for the adapters is to connect to remote machines and play against other people. I asked if this whole thing will be set-up with a Nintendo gaming server (Like Sega) for gamers to connect and launch a game. He wasn't much help on that.

All he could tell me was that Nintendo will be releasing a game called something like Phantasy Star (by Sega) for gamers to play. I asked if this was to be Nintendo's idea of Everquest. The operator knew nothing about Everquest and could not tell me anything.

He informed me that Nintendo's (apparent) intentions is that the Gamecube is not a replacement to a computer (duh) and that computers can surf the web faster. I asked if Nintendo was going a seperate route to the Dreamcast, again a blank silence. I then asked if Nintendo was avoiding the whole internet surfing issue because of question of security on the web. He told me that Nintendo has nothing with security, but that the Gamecube is not a replacement of the computer (I heard him the first time).

I could tell he was getting a little upset at this point. (not sure why) So I figured I'd let him go. I went to their site Nintendo.com (as was told several times by the automated voice while on hold) and found very little. The only thing the site mentions is that Nintendo wants to be the innovators for online gaming Article

However, it never mentions, anywhere, how this "online gaming" will work. Will it be a server which you must connect to throught the web (ie: Blizzard) or will they have local numbers to dial and connect to a remote server? All I have come accross is that Nintendo is surely not worried about security. And why should they? It's not like someone will try something j/k