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February 18, 2000 Square has revealed more information about Final Fantasy 10 and 11. Final Fantasy 10 will allow you go log on to Square's network, Play Online, in order to download strategy guides, hints, and new quests for the game. The base gameplay will still be single-player, though. The online-only Final Fantasy 11 is in development for the PC in addition to the PlayStation 2, and the two versions might even be released at the same time. The online gaming network will be compatible with both versions of the game, so PS2 owners of the game will be able to interact with PC owners of the game. PS2 players will even save their progress and then pick up where they left off on the PC (or vice-versa) since the saved game data is stored on Square's servers, not on any memory cards. There will also be an exchange system in the game that lets players negotiate trades for weapons, accessories, and other items. FF11 will also link American gamers with Japanese gamers. Both the US and Japanese versions of the game will offer English and Japanese language selections. Gamers speaking both languages will be able to "interact fluently" (according to Square), which would seem to require the use of an automatic language translator like the one used in Ultima Online. Square is aiming to make FF11 one big virtual world in which any possible combination of PlayStation 2, PC, English, and Japanese will be compatible with every other combination. Square is hoping to release FF11 in Japan and the US at the same time in the summer of 2001. Huge new details have emerged about Microsoft's X-Box video game system, which still hasn't been officially announced by Microsoft. Here are the latest facts about the system, as revealed by trade publication MCV (which has never, ever been wrong when it states something as fact): -The target launch date is September 2001, not late 2000 as previously believed. -The price will be dependent on what the PlayStation 2's price is when the X-Box is released. Microsoft could charge as much as $350 if that's how much the PlayStation 2 costs at that time (which is unlikely). Microsoft is also prepared to charge as little as $150 at launch if that's what it takes to one-up the PlayStation 2. -The licensing fees that Microsoft will charge third-party developers will also be dependent on Sony's prices at the time of the X-Box's launch. Microsoft plans to charge slightly less than whatever Sony is charging at that time. -Like the PlayStation 2, the X-Box will be DVD-based, and it will be able to play DVD movies. -The X-Box's Central Processing Unit (rumored to be from AMD) will be at least 450MHz, and it could be as fast as 800MHz. -The X-Box will have a 56K modem. -The X-Box will have around 64MB of total RAM. -The X-Box will have a hard drive that can store between 4GB and 8GB. -The X-Box will not be an "open platform" like the PC where anyone can make games for the system. Microsoft only wants about 30 third-party developers, and games may or may not have to go through some sort of approval process before being released. PC games don't have to be approved by anyone other than their own publisher before being released. -X-Box games will not work on the PC. However, X-Box-compatible PC games might work on the X-Box. -The system will carry the Microsoft brand, not Dell, Gateway, Compaq, or any other computer company. Now it's time to make some inevitable comparisons between the technical specifications of the PlayStation 2 and the X-Box. CPU: X-Box will be between 450MHz and 800MHz; PlayStation 2 will be 300MHz. Clearly the X-Box's CPU will be much faster than the PlayStation 2's, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be more powerful. It could just be a souped-up version of AMD's Athlon chip, not a revolutionary chip like the Emotion Engine. RAM: X-Box will have around 64MB of total RAM; PlayStation 2 will have 38MB of total RAM (4MB of video RAM, 2MB of sound RAM, and 32MB of general RAM). Modem: X-Box will have a 56K modem; Sony says they're going to have cable modem or DSL access on the PlayStation 2 before the end of 2001. Hard Drive: X-Box's will be between 4GB and 8GB. Sony's Phil Harrison previously said that the PlayStation 2 will have a hard drive with "tens of gigabytes" of storage space, but it's not known when this hard drive will be released. Nintendo has delayed Perfect Dark until May 22. In addition, recent reports on the Internet claim that Perfect Dark will require an N64 Expansion Pak to run. In fact, the game will run if you don't have an Expansion Pak, but you'll be missing out on some things. -You won't have access to the "main single-player missions" (in Rare's words). -You will only be able to have a two-player deathmatch (not four-player). -The two-player deathmatch will not be full-screen, but letter-boxed (with black spaces at the top and bottom of the screen). -There will be a lot less gameplay options. With an Expansion Pak, you'll experience everything the game has to offer, including four-player deathmatch and all the single-player missions. The previous edition of Master Gamer News reported that Rare took the Game Boy Camera compatibility out of Perfect Dark because they couldn't get it to work correctly (Nintendo's Ken Lobb said so at a Nintendo press event). Now Rare claims that the Game Boy Camera feature was "fully operational" before it was removed from the game. The feature would have allowed you to take a picture of someone using a Game Boy Camera and insert their face into the game's deathmatch mode, but the Disney-like duo of Nintendo and Rare didn't want to face any of the controversy that such a feature might cause. Sony previously said that there won't be any improvements made when you play PlayStation 1 games on the PlayStation 2, but now they have revealed that this is not true. Some PlayStation 1 games will have better texture quality when played on the PlayStation 2. Users will be able to turn this feature on or off at will. This feature won't work for all games (and it will actually cause errors in some games), but it will still be a welcome addition in the games that it does support. Following their purchase of the company, Infogrames has decided to kill the GT Interactive brand. What this means is that all future games from GT will say "Infogrames" on their packages, not "GT." Also, GT's CEO Thomas Heymann has left the company, but will remain on the board of directors. When Heymann was appointed as GT's CEO about a year ago, a clause was put into his contract that he would be able to leave the company with a large cash pay-off if the company didn't re-locate from New York to Los Angeles (where Heymann lives) within one year. A year has passed and GT is still based in New York, so now Heymann gets to leave the struggling company and take lots of cold, hard cash with him. Infogrames' CEO Bruno Bonnell will take over as GT's CEO. The new management at Infogrames/GT has made a bold move in shutting down GT-owned Cavedog Entertainment, creators of the Total Annihilation series. This news comes after GT as a whole posted a $118 million loss in its latest financial quarter, down drastically from the $17 million profit it posted in the same quarter last year. Cavedog was working on Total Annihilation 2 and an expansion pack to Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, and it's not clear whether these games will be cancelled or finished by another one of Infogrames' developers. Given the good sales of Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, it's safe to say that the Total Annihilation series will probably live on through a different developer. Third-party developers have been told nothing about the Game Boy Advance beyond what Nintendo has announced publicly. In addition, almost no one has development kits other than Nintendo itself. The Game Boy Color is selling so well that Nintendo is getting cold feet about launching the Game Boy Advance this year. Nintendo's David Gosen recently said, "A release date for the Game Boy Advance was slated for later this year, but because the Game Boy Color is doing so well, we don't know yet." A different Nintendo executive actually said, "Why should we push aggressively another platform into the market while the Game Boy Color and Pokemon are still extremely popular and a fantastic success?" Uh... how about because most of the Game Boy Color's games would be considered crappy if they were released for the NES in 1989? Hasbro Interactive has filed a lawsuit against GT Interactive for allegedly ripping off several Atari properties (Hasbro owns the rights to all Atari franchises). Hasbro alleges that GT's "3D TetriMadness" is an illegal rip-off of Tetris. They also allege that GT's "Macman" and "3D Munchman" are illegal rip-offs of Pac-Man. If Hasbro wins the lawsuit, all of the rip-off games will be pulled from store shelves, and Hasbro will get a large sum of money from GT. Value-priced game developer E-Games is also being sued by Hasbro for allegedly ripping off Tetris, Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Centipede, and Asteroids. E-Games' response to the lawsuit is: "Hasbro is unfortunately trying to control the ideas behind certain video games when such ideas are free for others to use and improve upon." Just like every company that gets sued, E-Games also said (no joke), "E-Games believes that the allegations are without merit and intends to defend the action vigorously." Is there some kind of law that says you have to use that sentence in your public statement when you get sued? In other E-Games news, the company has signed on to include Digital Rivers' eBot technology in all of their future games. Once eBot is installed on someone's computer, it keeps them up to date on the latest games, add-ons, and other products that might be of interest to them. eBot: For Those Of Us Who Aren't Already Getting Enough Crap In Our Mailboxes Trying To Get Us To Buy Something. Panelists at a recent conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) suggested that video game consoles should be played at schools nationwide. Idit Harel was one of the speakers, and she is also the founder of educational company MaMaMedia. Like several other panelists at the conference, Harel believes that if kids could "play some of the best Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and PlayStation games for at least an hour at school, they would score higher on all standardized tests." Why? "Because they know something good will happen to them," Harel said. Square is partnering with Disney to create a new PlayStation 2 game. The game has been nicknamed Disney All Stars, and its development team will be led by Tetsuya Nomura, one of the character designers for the Final Fantasy series. Disney All Stars will be a 3D action/RPG featuring familiar Disney characters, as well as new characters created specifically for the game. Disney All Stars won't be released in the US until sometime in 2002. A Westwood Studios employee recently told FGN Online that Command & Conquer: Firestorm (Westwood's Tiberian Sun add-on pack) will be the last C&C game that will use the classic C&C game engine (featured in the original C&C, Red Alert, and Tiberian Sun). Firestorm's producer Rade Stojsavljevic said, "Firestorm could be the end of the top-down view, but I don't know for sure yet. I do know that Firestorm will be the last time we use our current game engine. What the next one's going to look like I don't know yet. I'm still working on that with the team." Maxis claims that The Sims is their fastest-selling game ever. So far it's selling twice as fast as Sim City 3000 did when it was first released, and Sim City 3000 was North America's best-selling PC game last year according to EA. Over 250,000 copies of The Sims have already been shipped in North America, and plenty of free downloads and add-ons are already available at thesims.com. Another commercial PlayStation emulator is about to hit retail shelves- again. Sony previously sought (and got) a court order that prevented Connectix from selling the Virtual Game Station, a PlayStation emulator for the Macintosh. Connectix appealed the decision, and a judge has ruled in favor of Connectix, allowing them to sell the Virtual Game Station again. The PC version of the Virtual Game Station is scheduled to be released soon. The Sony-Connectix case will now go back to the district court level, and if Sony or Connectix appeals the ruling of the district court, the case will go to the US Supreme Court. Sony has tried unsuccessfully on three occasions to get a PlayStation emulator for the PC called Bleem removed from store shelves, and this latest turn in the Connectix case bodes well for Bleem's chances of continuing to beat Sony in court. The server behind Microsoft and Turbine's online RPG Asheron's Call recently froze and was down for about 30 minutes before service was restored. As a result, everyone's characters were reverted back to the state they were in the last time they saved their progress, resulting in the loss of character advancement for many people who hadn't saved in a while. The server that runs Asheron's Call had been running the game for three months straight without being re-booted a single time. Microsoft and Turbine now plan to re-boot the machine before every major game update so that this sort of crash never happens again. Oddworld Inhabitants president Lorne Lanning recently spoke out against the lack of innovation in many PlayStation 2 games. Lanning said, "It's obvious that Gran Turismo and fighting games are going to be great on the PS2, but where is the creativity? As much as people are going to buy classic genres on the new system (myself included), people are also extremely hungry for new ideas. This is why it's exciting to us, because as long as it's the same ideas being done by the majority, then it allows the minority of unique ideas to shine more brightly and get more visibility." Sony hasn't quite perfected the PlayStation 2's backwards-compatibility features. A Japanese newspaper recently revealed that some PlayStation games have broken up sound and distorted graphics when they're played on the PlayStation 2. Sony says that these problems are "under investigation," and they added that some old software might not work at all on the PlayStation 2. The only PlayStation games that have been released in the US and also have also been confirmed to not work on the Japanese PlayStation 2 are Monster Rancher and Wing Commander 3. A list of US PlayStation games that don't work on the PlayStation 2 should be released in the near future. As previously reported in Master Gamer News, Konami recently signed a deal with ESPN to include the ESPN brand on future Konami sports games. One such game is going to be ESPN Baseball Tonight. Now EA Sports has signed a deal with ESPN to promote EA's Triple Play 2001 on one of ESPN's shows. Can you guess which show it is? It's ESPN Baseball Tonight, the very show that Konami's first ESPN game is named after. Somebody at ESPN made a little boo-boo... Sources within Rare have leaked out details about one of their upcoming games, code-named Dino Planet. The game is reportedly "Rare's attempt to do a Zelda-style action/adventure game, only with dinosaurs." The source said that Dino Planet is not related to Disney's upcoming dinosaur movie at all. He also said that Dino Planet is for the N64, not the Dolphin. No release date has been revealed for Dino Planet, but if history tells us anything about Rare, it will probably be released 1-2 years after the first announced release date ... The makers of the LithTech graphics engine at Monolith are going to create and sell an online game engine. Creating an online game from scratch is almost impossible financially unless you have the backing of a major company like Sony or EA. Monolith's engine will be licensed out to developers who want to focus on the design aspects of their online game and let Monolith's engine worry about the technological aspects. Of course, companies will have to pay Monolith for the rights to use the engine, and Monolith will also get a percentage of all revenue generated by games using their engine. Monolith itself is creating an online game based on a popular Fox franchise, possibly Aliens vs. Predator. Sega has announced that cable modem access will be available for Japanese Dreamcast owners this year. There's no word on when cable modem access will be able to American Dreamcast owners, but keep in mind that America's Internet technology is far ahead of Japan's, so it shouldn't be too long. The government of Quebec threatened to sue Nintendo and Sony if they didn't provide French versions of their games in Quebec. Nintendo and Sony met Quebec's demands, so Quebec isn't going to sue them. Quebec's language minister is planning to use similar tactics to get Sega to provide French versions of their games in Quebec. One million people across the world are now connected to the Dreamcast Network, but that figure is actually pretty low considering how many Dreamcast owners there are worldwide. Most Dreamcast users aren't connected to the service. About 520,000 are connected in Japan; 280,000 in the US; and 200,000 in Europe. Sega expects the number of people registered on the Dreamcast Network worldwide to jump from one million to four million by March of 2001. A Japanese newspaper recently quoted Sony's president Nobuyuki Idei as saying that Sony is interested in taking an ownership stake in an American TV network (NBC, CBS, ABC, or Fox) in order to promote Sony's e-commerce business. A Sony spokesperson said, "The entire story is speculation. It is wrong to its very core." The Dreamcast version of Virtua Cop 2 is going to be released in Japan on March 2, but Sega hasn't said whether the game will be released in the US. Sega did say that the Dreamcast version will have five times as many polygons as the Saturn version. Sega didn't say whether you'll still be able to beat the game in 30 minutes... As reported in the previous edition of Master Gamer News, Activision and Sony will co-publish an online RPG based in the Star Trek universe. As previously reported, the game will be developed by the makers of EverQuest, it will be for the PlayStation 2, and it won't be released until early 2002. The new information about the game is that like EverQuest, it will cost $10 per month to play. Activision and Sony will split the cost of the development, which is expected to be around $4 million. One of the three founders of Firaxis Games recently left the company. Legendary game designer Sid Meier founded the company in 1996 along with Jeff Briggs and Brian Reynolds. Reynolds recently left the company for un- disclosed reasons. Firaxis is currently working on two games: Civilization 3 and an un-named strategy game featuring dinosaurs. Sierra has announced that Half-Life is going to be released for the Dreamcast this summer. The Dreamcast version of the game is being developed Captivation Digital Laboratories. No mention was made of any network capabilities, and you would think that they would be playing up the network capabilities if there were any. I asked Sega whether the game will have network capabilities, and they told me, "I believe it won't." Recent reports out of Japan claim that you will need to insert a special CD-ROM into the PlayStation 2 before you can watch DVD movies on it (in the same way that you have to insert the Dreamcast's web browser CD before accessing the Internet). Sony says that these reports are not true; you will be able to watch DVD movies without any kind of boot-up disc. In order to promote the release of ECW Hardcore Revolution, ECW stars Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer were at Software Etc. in New York City this week to greet customers and sign autographs. The game went on sale at the store two days before its nationwide release. ECW's hardcore brand of wrestling was reflected in Van Dam and Dreamer. Van Dam is out of action for 3-4 months with two broken bones one of his ankles, and Dreamer is going to wrestle for the rest of his career with two herniated disks in his back. ECW can be seen every Friday night at 8:00 Eastern on TNN. Ion Storm's Larry Herring recently said that Daikatana is "getting close" to completion. Of course, this means absolutely nothing because Ion Storm has been claiming to be "finalizing" Daikatana since early 1998. Herring also said that his co-workers have been play-testing the game and "laughing their asses off because of the fun nature of the game." As opposed to the rest of the video game industry, which is laughing their asses off because of Ion Storm's inability to ship a game... Lionhead Studios previously announced that their highly-anticipated PC game Black & White would eventually be brought to the Dreamcast. Now Lionhead has also confirmed that it will offer online multi-player gaming through the Dreamcast Network. The Dreamcast version of Black & White is scheduled to be released this fall. Simon & Schuster Interactive is working on a unique PC game called Panty Raider: From Here To Immaturity. The goal of the game will be to take good pictures, as is the case in Pokemon Snap. The catch is that instead of taking pictures of cute little Pokemon, you're taking pictures of supermodels in their panties in order to prevent horny teenage aliens from destroying the world. Simon & Schuster is also the company that published Deer Avenger, a hunting game in which you're a deer trying to kill humans. Panty Raider is scheduled to be released in May at a $20 price point. Sony recently announced that the PlayStation 2 will have eight levels of parental control in order to prevent kids from watching any of the wide variety of porn movies that are available on DVD. I guess they need to have some kind of parental control, but eight levels? What parent is going to say, "You can watch softcore porn, but not hardcore"? With eight levels, parents could probably pick out specific sexual acts that their kids can and cannot watch. Why not just say you can either watch porn or you can't? Nintendo is still officially claiming that the Dolphin will be released worldwide before the end of this year, despite the fact that production of the system isn't going to begin until August, and even then it will only be at the rate of 10,000 chips per month. If Nintendo wants to market the Dolphin this year, I've got a good slogan for them: "The Dolphin: No games, no specs, no finished hardware, no third-party developers, and no development kits, but it's still coming out this year!" Nintendo may as well have titled their press release, "Please Don't Buy The PlayStation 2!" because that is clearly the purpose of their continued lying on this subject. Capcom has announced that their online gaming network will cost 12 cents per minute in Japan. Capcom also said that they're going to expand their network to include the PlayStation 2 in the future. It could eventually be possible for Dreamcast owners and PlayStation 2 owners to play the same game together over Capcom's network. What's taking Majesco Sales/Pipe Dream Interactive so long to finish the Dreamcast version of Rainbow Six? For one thing, they're also working on ten Game Boy Color games that are due for release this year. Majesco is now claiming that Rainbow Six will be released for the Dreamcast in the second quarter of this year (April, May, or June). The Dreamcast version of the game will have lots of single-player missions, but no multi-player mode whatsoever (online or off). Majesco is planning to release Rogue Spear (Rainbow Six's sequel) for the Dreamcast in late 2000. It may or may not have an off-line multi-player mode, and it definitely won't have an online multi-player mode. Tecmo has denied rumors that they're bringing Dead or Alive 2 to the PlayStation 2 in the US. Tecmo is bringing the game to the Japanese PlayStation 2, but a Tecmo USA spokesperson said, "Tecmo has no plans at this time to produce a version of Dead or Alive 2 for any platform other than the Dreamcast here in the United States." The spokesperson's wording leaves the door open that the game could eventually be brought to the American PlayStation 2; they just have "no plans at this time" to do it. Then again, that kind of logic kept lots of people's hopes up for a long time that Tobal 2 would eventually be brought to the US, and that never happened... Hasbro Interactive is going to publish several games based in the Dungeons & Dragons universe for the PlayStation 2, Dreamcast, and PC. Hasbro acquired the franchise when they bought Wizards of the Coast. A Dungeons & Dragon movie with a budget of $40 million is currently in post- production. Hasbro hopes to get the movie delayed and get their D&D game for the PS2 developed in 10-12 months so that the game's release can coincide with the movie's release. Don't worry about the fact that developing a PlayStation 2 game in 10-12 months is the equivalent of running a mile in a minute, just as long as the game is released at the same time as the movie! Pure Entertainment Games is preparing to launch a web site that will let you play several games from Take-Two Interactive for free over the Internet. All you have to do is sign up at freeloader.com between now and May 1 and you'll be able to play games like Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, and Rat Attack for free, even if you don't already own the games. Take-Two believes that letting gamers play their old games for free will make them more likely to buy Take-Two's newer games. Either that, or it will make gamers realize that most of their games suck and convince them to never buy anything from Take-Two... Fox Interactive has cancelled Major League Baseball 2001 because Fox didn't think the game was "of high enough quality to bring to market." Also, it wasn't going to be finished until well after the April start of baseball season, and the majority of baseball games are sold in March and April. A puzzle game called Chu Chu Rocket will be released for the Dreamcast on March 2. It will be fully playable as a multi-player game over the Dreamcast Network. Chu Chu Rocket is the one and only exception to Sega's previous statement that there will no online gaming on the Dreamcast until the second half of this year. This year's Blockbuster Entertainment Awards will include video game awards in addition to the usual awards for movies and music. The awards show will air live from Los Angeles, California in June. The award categories will be Favorite Game for the PlayStation, Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, and Game Boy, as well as Favorite Game overall. Believe it or not, the five finalists for Favorite Game overall are Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, Driver, Army Men: Sarge's Heroes, Pokemon Yellow, and Super Smash Bros. NEWS BRIEFS Activision has acquired the rights to produce a series of value-priced PC games ($20 or less) based on the TV show Entertainment Tonight. Video games based on Entertainment Tonight? Now I've seen everything... Graphics card makers Nvidia and S3 have dropped their lawsuits against each other. Not only that, but they have signed a seven-year contract to share technology with each other. Sounds to me like somebody realized they were going to lose the lawsuit and decided to make peace... Enix has announced that Dragon Quest 7 will indeed be released in the US, and Enix is going to publish it themselves. No US release date has been set for the game, which has been delayed just as much as Ion Storm's Daikatana and Shiny's Messiah. Sega of Japan is working on a high-capacity VMU for the Dreamcast that will be able to store and play back MP3 sound files. The unit will also have a headphone jack. Sega has announced a May 16 US release date for Space Channel 5, their quirky game in which you have to save the world by dancing like a madman. Sony's new online store is located at http://www.jp.playstation.com, not playstation.com as previously reported. EA's James Bond game based on the Quake 3 engine and The World Is Not Enough license is being developed internally at EA. It's scheduled to be released for the PlayStation 2 and PC this fall. Several years after the system's death, Capcom is still going to release one more game for the Sega Saturn in Japan. Final Fight Revenge will be released for the Japanese Saturn on March 30. Sega has announced a peripheral for the Dreamcast called Dreameye. The Dreameye will be a digital camera, a web cam, and a video phone, all in one. Sega has not announced a US price or release date for the Dreameye. The newest version of the Dreamcast's web browser will be released in Japan this April. The new browser will support the Dreameye, it will feature an ICQ-like chat program, and it will allow users to download and play over 300 classic Sega Genesis games. Nintendo has delayed StarCraft 64 again. The game's newest release date is June 12. Sony has reduced the licensing fees that it charges third-party PlayStation developers. As a result, you will begin to see more and more PlayStation games priced at only $10, possibly as soon as April. A previous Fox Interactive promotion resulted in Gummi Savers being in Croc 2. Now a similar promotion will result in Whoop Ass energy drinks being in Die Hard Trilogy 2 for the PlayStation and PC. The video game industry generated $6.9 billion in 1999, up from $6.3 billion in 1998. Hasbro Interactive claims that RollerCoaster Tycoon was the top-selling PC game in North America last year. EA previously claimed that Sim City 3000 was. PC graphics card maker ATI Technologies has announced that it is buying ArtX for $400 million. ArtX is the company that is creating the Dolphin's graphics chip for Nintendo. Gran Turismo 2 has sold over one million copies since its release on December 16. The original Gran Turismo has sold over ten million copies worldwide, three million of which were sold in North America. Nintendo of Europe executive Axel Herr recently said that the Dolphin will be 33% more powerful than the PlayStation 2. I'll believe it when I see it... Hasbro's games division posted a $53 million loss in 1999, despite strong sales of RollerCoaster Tycoon, Frogger, and Glover. However, Hasbro as a whole (not just the games division) still made a $189 million profit. Activision and THQ recently entered into serious discussions about a merger between the two companies, but negotiations have broken off and no merger will take place. 3dfx is not a profitable company, and they hope to change that by laying off 20% of their work-force in order to cut expenses. 3dfx is beating Nvidia in retail sales, but losing in the much more lucrative area of OEM sales. Also, their technology roadmap is lagging behind Nvidia's. Believe it or not, computer giant IBM has already manufactured two million copies of the Dolphin's CPU. Unfortunately for Nintendo, you need a lot more than two million CPUs sitting in warehouses to ship a video game system... SALES CHARTS In the week ending February 5, the best-selling game for all systems (at all retailers) were: 1. Crazy Taxi for Dreamcast (click on the blue text for Master Gamer's review of the game) 2. Mario Party 2 for Nintendo 64 3. Pokemon Yellow for Game Boy Color 4. The Sims for PC 5. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? for PC 6. Centipede for PC 7. Gran Turismo 2 for PlayStation 8. Pokemon Red for Game Boy 9. Pokemon Blue for Game Boy 10.Spyro the Dragon for PlayStation The top three selling games for each system at Babbage's and Gamestop.com were: PlayStation: Gran Turismo 2, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, and The Dukes of Hazzard Dreamcast: NHL 2K, Crazy Taxi, and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver Nintendo 64: WWF Wrestlemania 2000, Mario Party 2, and Harvest Moon 64 PC: The Sims, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, and Final Fantasy 8 The games with the most pre-orders were Diablo 2, Pokemon Stadium, and the Dreamcast version of Rainbow Six. Sources for news: Fastest Game News Online, GameSpot, GameFan, Blue's News, GI News, Next Generation, Adrenaline Vault, The Magic Box, Daily Radar, Happy Puppy, PSX 2 Online, IGNPSX, Nintendorks, IGN 64, MCV, The Sega Zone, Sega Otaku, Gaming Age, The NPD Group, www.hamsterdance.com
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