[Gloriano]

Before reading this, repeat after me: this is a rumor with no basis in anything that I personally know.

That said, somone who works for ATI and posts on Beyond3d.com as well as another senior poster who has connections to people in the know as far as hardware goes are both saying that MS and Nintendo are likely to share the same platform next generation. As to what this means, I dont know. It could simply mean that Nintendo is buying into the XNA initiative which would allow games to, essentially, be co-developed easily for Xbox2, N5 and PC... which would make Sony the od-man out for third party support. This seems like the most likely outcome.

However, at another forum I frequent a thread broke out about the rumor, and the following people have chimed in on the subject in various ways.

matt C. cube.ign.com - thinks there is something to it.
japanese poster - says MS has a HUGE ace up their sleeve
staff member for japanese gaming publication - wont say anything because he does not want to upset the people who told him, but says that the gaming-world will be turned on its head.
Edge writer - "Itssaa mee a-master chief" (direct quote).

....Check the link for the rest .

Link to original thread: http://www.xblgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=80489#postid=80489

From TeamXbox Forum

I really hope it's just rumor or Darn!

[Nico]

iirc, the gamecube uses ATI components. afaik, the Xbox2 is gonna switch from nVidia to ATI for the graphic card. And  that's all there is, I suppose, no groovy Xcube to expect.

[Martinus]

[color=66ff00]It would not be groovy to say the least, with dodgy software running on it and restrictive licencing of games who would be interested in creating gmaes for it?
[/color]

[Nico]

"Looking at currrent list of editors for both the Xbox and the GameCube"
Quite a lot?
Never had any pb with dodgy softaware on my own XB, btw.

[Gloriano]

if that is True: then there is no N5 But I hope it's just rumor

[mikhael]

Given the rancor with which Nintendo shot down the Microsoft takeover bid, I cannot believe for a moment that the two would team up.

In all likelihood, the only chance of these two hooking up is in a software/hardware partnership: Nintendo makes/sells hardware and Microsoft sells software or provides microcode (like a basic OS) for the device.