BE DOPE NEWS (BDN) Quickly following the announcement that Nintendo's next generation machine would be built around a PowerPC chip came the news that Be engineers had already succeeded in booting a version of the BeOS on a prototype version of the machine (known inside Nintendo as Project Dolphin).

"It took very little code adjustment to burn a bootable BeOS DVD," was allegedly overheard said by said Be, Inc. VP of engineering Steve Sakoman (who worked on the original Nintendo 64 project) in a hypothetical conversation, according to rumors from an anonymous source. "Pop it in, turn it on and two seconds later you're running the BeOS on an extremely fast machine."

While many technical hurdles remain (networking, for example) fans of the PowerPC version of the BeOS already see this as a major victory.

"Unlike Macintosh and Macintosh clones, these Nintendo machines will quickly spread to a huge segment of the population, giving Be a tremendous potential install base," said one BeBox owner.

In fact, Nintendo officials have been seen frequenting the Be campus, fueling rumors that a version of the BeOS will ship with the next generation game machine.

"Nintendo is looking to own not only the game hardware business but the home digital entertainment business," said industry analyst John C. Dvorak. "By including the BeOS they give their customers an incredibly powerful audio/video consumption/creation solution along with an amazing gaming platform."

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