Nintendo today denied Japanese reports that it has delayed the launch of the GameCube's successor and that its 2005-6 release target is the one it has always had in mind.

"Other companies aren't expected to come out with next-generation consoles until late 2005 or 2006," Nintendo spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa told Reuters. "Our machine will be ready at the same time as the other new consoles."

This morning, Japanese business newspaper the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said Nintendo would delay the launch of a next-generation game machine. The report did not say when Nintendo had originally planned to introduce GameCube's successor.

The report also claims that Nintendo is planning a new peripheral device for the GameCube that will improve the console sound and graphics.

Nintendo has already signed IBM to produce the processor that will power its next-generation console. IBM already manufactures the PowerPC chip, codenamed 'Gekko', at the heart of the GameCube. ATI will provide the console's graphics.

Ironically, both IBM and ATI have been contracted to provide processor and graphics technologies, respectively, for Microsoft's second-generation Xbox. That makes us wonder if GameCube 2 might well be a rebranded Xbox 2, and certainly the Nintendo spokeswoman's claim that the company's "machine will be ready at the same time as the other new consoles" doesn't contradict that idea. ®

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