Gaming wasn’t really

"back at CES" as they were saying it would be.  I

have to be honest when I say that in the 12 hours I was on the show floor, I

literally had to hunt for not only Nintendo news, but anything video game

related.  Sure, Dolby was running

Metroid Prime in Pro Logic II, but that’s not the news you crave. 

I waded though the 1.25 million net square feet of exhibit space, the aisles of cell phone accessories, PDAs, booming car

stereos, and booth babes (ahhh it’s good to see booth babes again), and found a

TV running the import version of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. 

I looked up, and found that I was at the ATI booth.

ATI had Zelda on display, and was promoting the fact that Zelda can look so outstanding

because of their graphics hardware.

I met with John Swinimer, Public Relations

Manager for ATI, and talked with him about some of their upcoming

products.  After beating around the bush for a while, I then asked him,

"So now that GameCube has been out for well over a year, what's ATI working

on next?  Are you working with Nintendo on their next generation

hardware?"

John smiled and answered, "We were very happy to work

with Nintendo on their GameCube hardware, and we'd be interested to work with

them again in the future."  I prodded and tortured him to the best of

my abilities.  I even asked him if he'd seen the Tazer booth that was

across the way.  But, no matter what I tried...he wouldn't say anything

further than the company line.  Whether ATI is actually working on the successor

to the GameCube is still an unknown, but after seeing what ATI pulled off with

the GameCube hardware, I sure wouldn't mind.

For more pictures of the ATI Booth at CES,

click here.