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Japanese GameCube Dev Kits to get Tech Upgrade

by Steven Rodriguez - January 30, 2002, 10:27 pm EST
Source: Press Release

Applied Microsystems signs on a Japanese distributor to help out developers in Japan.

In the past, GameCube developers had to burn a new copy of a game if they made even the slightest change to the code. This obviously becomes more annoying toward the development process, when a developer needs to tweak the code to finish. All the discs that need to be burned takes up time and money.

American developers have had the luxury of avoiding this through Applied Microsystem's optical disc solution, which emulates the GameCube's optical disc format, meaning no disc required. However, now Japanese development kits will be getting this technology as well.

AM has agreed to a deal with Marubeni Solution, Japan's ichiban GCN dev kit distributor to distribute this technology along with the kits themselves. Check the press release for all the goodies.

REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 30, 2002--Applied Microsystems Corp., developer of optical disk-based development kits for the game console market as well as embedded software test, debug and verification tools, today announced its new agreement with Marubeni Solution Corp. -- the leading distributor in Japan of Nintendo GameCube(TM) development kits.

Under the new agreement, Marubeni Solution will distribute Applied's optical disk solution, a key highlight of Nintendo GameCube development kits. Commenting on the new agreement, Makoto Sekoguchi, general manager, IT Solution Division, Marubeni Solution Corp., said: ``When the average game title costs $5 million (US) to develop, finding high performance yet cost effective tools is a very important priority for the game developer. Based on the experience Nintendo's customers in America are having with Applied's products, we are confident and pleased to extend this solution to our game developers in Japan.''

With Applied's solutions, it's no longer necessary to burn discs for every minor change that is made, saving developers crucial time, resources and money. Working with debuggers such as SN Systems' ProDG(TM) and MetroWerks' CodeWarrior(TM), Applied's emulation technology delivers the critical visibility and communications channel into both the host and target environment so that game developers can control the quality of their code and data through emulation of their optical disk environment. Using this optical disk emulation technology, developers can compile code while they emulate -- thereby significantly shortening the time game title development typically takes today.

This next generation optical disc emulation technology emulates the physical characteristics of the optical disk drive by adjusting the transfer rate of data coming from the hard drive. Armed with this tool, developers can observe spin up/down, head seek and rotational time, disc cache operation, and the data transfer rate based on the physical location of data on the drive. Applied's optical disk emulation technology allows the developer to inject errors to simulate scratches or bad discs so typical variations caused by these real-life factors can be accurately managed at the development stage.

Applied's Vice President of Sales and Marketing Mark Budzinski said: ``We are grateful to Nintendo Co., Ltd. of Japan for introducing us to Marubeni Solution, their leading distributor in Japan. Applied is looking forward to serving Nintendo's game developers in Japan through this important relationship with Marubeni and committing to them the most cost effective high performance optical disk game development kit available today.''

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