Hoping to quell rumors that it won't be participating in the next round of the video game console war, Nintendo recently announced that it plans to show off the next version of its GameCube at next year's E3 game show. Nintendo's GameCube has faced fierce competition from Sony's popular PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox, and the company has fallen short of its GameCube sales goals while holding third place in worldwide market share. Rumors are swirling about Sony and Microsoft's next-generation consoles, which are both expected to launch in late 2005 or early 2006, but little is known about Nintendo's next-generation GameCube. The company has hinted that it wants to offer new ways of game playing, rather than a new edition of the same thing. The console market has surprised analysts by supporting three players so far, but as Sony's dominance continues to grow, it becomes increasing more difficult for third-party developers to devote resources to more than one console. On the other hand, Nintendo has been around too long to count them out of the game. The gaming scene could get very interesting
