Who ever imagined that a regular six-sided polyhedron could cause so much darn trouble? You know, of course, that Steve Jobs never recovered from the cube fetish he first indulged at NeXT, and thus took the wraps off the Power Mac G4 Cube at last month's Macworld Expo. You probably also recall that a company called Cobalt considered suing Apple, because the Cube is too similar (at least in name) to its own Linux-based Qube. Well, that suit hasn't been filed-- yet-- but now both companies may have reason to sue someone else. It's like there's a party in the courtroom and everyone's invited!

See, according to faithful viewer Milo Auckerman, games site IGN has learned that Nintendo's upcoming "Project Dolphin" next-generation games console is likely to be cubic in design. It seems that the company's partners recently registered a slew of domain names hinting that when this product graces store shelves, it will bear the name "Nintendo Game Cube." And just as Apple's Power Mac G4 Cube sports the official nickname of "G4 Cube," Nintendo's dealie will supposedly be called the "N-Cube" in casual mixed company. Is anyone sensing a theme in the console market? You say X-Box, I say N-Cube, let's call the whole thing awful. Let us guess-- the Playstation 2 is currently being reworked into a new form factor dubbed the P-Block.

Anyway, The Register feels that if Nintendo does indeed ship a "cube-shaped console in slick white styling" the lawsuits will come a-flyin' fast and furious. First Apple might leap into the fray with one of its infamous trade dress suits-- particularly since the N-Cube runs a PowerPC at its core and Apple is (supposedly) trying to play up the Mac as a gaming platform. Then there's good ol' Cobalt, who would likely object to yet another computing device with a name like "cube." In fact, it appears that Nintendo's partners even registered the domain GAMEQUBE.NET, hinting that the company might say "triple-dog dare ya" and call its box the N-Qube. Heck, why not? One can never be too rich, too thin, or have too many intellectual property lawsuits nipping at one's heels.

So far we've got a Mac, a Linux server, and game console in the Cube War; all we need is a Wintel box to get things really rolling. Given Mike Dell's Apple-copying proclivities, can the Dell Kyewb be far behind?