Numerical Design Ltd. (NDL) and Nintendo of America announced that the NetImmerse game engine is now available to developers creating games for the highly anticipated Nintendo Gamecube. NetImmerse is a multi-platform game development tool that, according to NDL, can save approximately six months of development time and a year or more of engineering costs. It can be used for a wide variety of game genres and platforms. NetImmerse includes the C++ run-time API plug-ins that allow developers to import content from the leading modeling packages easily and optimization tools that enable the developer to combine high visual quality with the most efficient use of computing resources more quickly. "The higher-level interface offered by NetImmerse will enable developers to quickly create new titles. We have optimized the engine to take full advantage of the power of the Nintendo Gamecube system," said John Austin, NDL’s president. "Nintendo’s selection of NetImmerse illustrates that NDL’s game engine is a recognized standard for multi-platform game development." Nintendo Gamecube will be available in Japan July 2001 and will release in the U.S. October 2001.