Regarding the chances of the system being delayed in Japan, McKee says, "I don't know what they have at this point to be able to launch the Xbox in Japan." Keiji Inafune, Capcom's general manager of research and development, concurs, "Microsoft should have talked more with Japanese development houses. Japanese video game developers cannot afford to invest aggressively in making Xbox games because Microsoft has yet to show its specific intentions, such as what age demographic it is targeting." Eidos Interactive has cancelled the Dreamcast version of Soul Reaver 2 so that developer Crystal Dynamics can place more of a focus on the PS2 version, which is supposedly still due out this summer. Previously, Eidos cancelled the PS1 version of the game so that Crystal D could focus on the Dreamcast version. An online petition to save the Dreamcast game was launched shortly after Eidos' announcement. To join the ranks of over 12,000 people who have signed the petition, click here. Eidos and Crystal Dynamics are also working on another PlayStation 2 game in this franchise. This second, recently-announced game is called Blood Omen 2 and is due out this fall. While Soul Reaver 2 is the sequel to Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, Blood Omen 2 is the sequel to Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. Got all that? It's like Hexen and Heretic all over again... Several former Sega.com employees who were largely responsible for the creation of SegaNet have joined together to form a new online gaming company, New Millennium Entertainment. The mission statement of this new company appears to be exactly the same as SegaNet's: Offer a high-speed online gaming service with little or no lag. New Millennium's cross-platform gaming network will support the Dreamcast, Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube. The highest-ranking former Sega.com employees at New Millennium are former CEO Brad Huang and former chief technology officer Lynn MacConnell. Huang, MacConnell, and company hope to have their online service up and running by the end of this spring. Mythos Games has cancelled its ambitious PC strategy game, Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge. This news comes after the release of the game was delayed until early 2002 and Bethesda Softworks dropped its plans to publish the game. Mythos is best known for creating the cult hit strategy series, X-Com. Dreamland's director and lead designer Julian Gollup recently said on the company's web site, "It is with great regret that I have to announce that Dreamland has been cancelled. We have been looking for another publisher for a while now, but no agreement has been reached and we have run out of cash. This means that there will be no further development on the game." Gollup and others from Mythos have formed a new company called Codo Games that will focus on e-mail-based games. Sega of Japan chairman and president Isao Okawa has passed away at the age of 74. Okawa was also the head of Sega's parent company, CSK. Okawa stuck with Sega through thick and thin, including a two-year period in which the company posted a combined loss of over $800 million. This past January, Okawa made a generous donation of over $700 million of his personal money in order to keep Sega up and running in its current form. Microsoft announced several of its first-party Xbox games at its recent GameStock event. The most impressive games at the event were said to be the previously announced Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee and Halo, but also appearing at the show were football game NFL Fever 2002, snowboarding game Amped, racing game Project Gotham, Soul Reaver clone Azurik: Rise of Perathia, and puzzle game Fusion Frenzy. After winning in court once and losing in court seemingly dozens of times, Sony has reached an out-of-court settlement with Connectix, the creator of the Virtual Game Station line of PlayStation emulators for the PC and Macintosh. As part of the agreement, Sony has acquired all of the emulation technology behind the Virtual Game Station, and the two companies will supposedly work together in the future to create new emulators. Connectix will continue to provide technical support and customer service to all existing VGS users, but it will stop selling the VGS on June 30 of this year. Konami will continue to focus on the PlayStation 2 for the foreseeable future. Konami director Kazumi Kitaue recently told Bloomberg News, "Games for the Xbox don't figure much in our plans for next year... devoting resources to Xbox development is risky, as Microsoft has not shown us a clear business strategy." Despite its hesitance, Konami is still working on Xbox versions of Crash Bandicoot, Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Jurassic Park, and Pong 6D. Wait a minute... scratch that last one... In addition to Twisted Metal Black for the PlayStation 2, Incognito Entertainment and Sony are also developing one last Twisted Metal game for the PlayStation 1. While Twisted Metal Black makes the series darker and edgier than it has even been before, the next PS1 Twisted Metal game will actually take the series into the dreaded "cutesy" territory. The characters in this game will be of the big-headed, super-deformed variety, and the vehicles will be miniature versions of familiar Twisted Metal vehicles. Someone gag me. Westwood Studios has revealed numerous details about its massively multi- player PC game, Earth and Beyond. Gamers will be able to play as one of three main professions (warrior, trader, and explorer), each of which will have nine variations. Westwood claims that there will be hundreds of planets and moons in the game world, and they will be full of missions that range from "30-minute quick tasks to quests that could take several weeks." Earth and Beyond is scheduled to ship this fall, but any time someone is working on a game this ambitious, delays are to be expected. Electronic Arts has launched its subscription-based web site at easportsservice.com. For the introductory fee of $5 per month (which will be increased in the future), gamers can download and play web-based versions of Knockout Kings Boxing, Tiger Woods Golf, and NASCAR Racing. Free demo versions of the aforementioned games are also available on the site. Future additions to the service include Triple Play Baseball (due out in the spring) and FIFA Soccer (due out in the summer or fall). Sony has unveiled its newest anti-piracy measures for the PlayStation 2. All future PS2 games will be embedded with a unique identification code, which will be verified on an authentication server when you attempt to play the game. There's just one problem with this anti-piracy technique: It requires an Internet connection to work, and the vast majority of PS2 systems won't have Internet access for at least a few years. Nintendo and Electronic Arts have both settled their lawsuits against Yahoo regarding video game piracy. EA and Nintendo previously alleged that Yahoo was allowing the sale of pirated games to take place on its Yahoo Auctions and Yahoo Classifieds services. The three companies claim that they will now work together to filter and shut down the sale of pirated games on Yahoo. Crave Entertainment has announced a sequel to Ultimate Fighting Championship called UFC: Tapout. Tapout will feature expanded gameplay options and modes, as well as new fighters such as Tank Abbot and the UFC's reigning heavyweight champion, Randy Couture. UFC: Tapout will be released for the Dreamcast in June. Nintendo has announced that the Game Boy Advance will carry a suggested retail price of $100 when it is released in the US on June 11. GBA games will cost between $30 and $40, and the system itself will be available in purple, white, and translucent blue. In related news, Sega's Chu Chu Rocket will be ready for the US launch on June 11, but Sonic Adventure Advance won't be released until sometime after the system's launch. EA has revealed that one of the next games in the critically-acclaimed Medal of Honor will be a flight simulator, not a first-person shooter. Called Medal of Honor: Flight Command, the game will be released for the PlayStation 2 sometime in 2002. EA is also going to publish a Medal of Honor game based on the Quake 3 engine for the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and PC. EA's other game based on the Quake 3 engine, The World Is Not Enough, is still in development limbo and won't be released until the summer at the absolute earliest. Activision previously announced that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 would never be released for the Nintendo 64, but it has apparently changed its mind. The N64 version of the game will be released this summer and is being developed by Edge of Reality, the same company that handled the N64 port of the original game. Why did Activision change its mind, you ask? It might have something to do with the fact that releasing a Tony Hawk game on any system is practically a license to print money... References to The Sims are scheduled to be made for the second time this season on The Drew Carey Show. The season premiere of the show featured Sims-like dialogue boxes and speech during one of the scenes, and the March 28 April Fools' episode is scheduled to feature Carey and his co-stars becoming Sims-like characters for two full minutes. Not so coincidentally, March 28 is also the day that the newest Sims expansion pack (entitled House Party) will be released. Also, Drew Carey is a bonus non-playable character in House Party. A group of European retailers aren't the only ones who are refusing to carry Nintendo and Rare's controversial game, Conker's Bad Fur Day. US retailer KB Toys is also refusing to carry the game. Nintendo's own official magazine, Nintendo Power, will not be publishing any editorial coverage of any kind on the game because it doesn't want to offend any of its primarily young readers, but it has published a separate strategy guide for the game. Activision has picked up the publishing rights to Fox Interactive's Simpsons Wrestling. The game has been finished for over a month and will finally be released on the PlayStation 1 before the end of spring. Development of the game was handled by Big Ape Productions, best known for the disappointing PS1 and PC game, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Simpsons Wrestling was widely regarded as one of the worst games for any system at last year's E3 show, but it has supposedly improved in the past nine months. Nintendo of Japan's director of corporate planning, Satoru Iwata, recently said at a Japanese press conference that Nintendo will eventually release Game Boy Advance updates to "classic games like Metroid, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, and Yoshi's Story." Does Iwata really thing that he can get away with slipping in a stinker (Yoshi's Story) at the end of that list of classic games? NEWS BRIEFS Nintendo has shut down a piracy web site that offered downloadable ROMs of Super Nintendo, Game Boy, and NES games. The owner of the web site, 22-year- old Ryan Carey, has been arrested and faces up to three years in prison if he's convicted. Sega has announced that Phantasy Star Online now has over 200,000 registered members. Namco of Japan continues to publicly praise the Nintendo GameCube. Namco's Yasuhiko Asada says, "Nintendo is the one to watch. We have great interest in making the GameCube our 'target' machine." The #1 video game industry sales-reporting company, The NPD Group, has purchased part of the #2 company, PC Data. Specifically, NPD has acquired PC Data's Point-of-Sale Tracking division, which is responsible for tracking video game sales at retailers nationwide. Microsoft has announced an interesting PC game entitled Zoo Tycoon. It's similar to RollerCoaster Tycoon and Theme Hospital in concept, only you're in charge of building and managing a zoo rather than a theme park or hospital. Zoo Tycoon is due out this fall. The single-player-focused Unreal 2 is now scheduled to be released for the PC in early 2002. The next season of Oz on HBO will also make its appearance in early 2002... Acclaim's "Extreme G" series of racing games just won't die. After two disappointing Nintendo 64 games, the series is making its return in "Extreme G3" for the PlayStation 2. LucasArts has announced plans to bring the PC adventure game Escape From Monkey Island to the PlayStation 2 this spring. Hopefully, the game's sales will be brisk enough to convince game publishers that there is a market for high-quality adventure games on consoles. MCV UK claims that Pacific Century CyberWorks is attempting to buy Activision, the #2 third-party publisher in the US (behind only EA). Pacific Century CyberWorks is based on Hong Kong and previously succeeded in its attempt to buy struggling game publisher Jaleco for $180 million. In an effort to cut expenses, Midway has laid off 60 employees in its arcade division. The Gathering of Developers has scrapped its publishing label for budget games, On Deck Interactive. First-person shooter Serious Sam will be published under the standard GOD label, but will still carry a $20 price tag when it's released in the US next week. Several video game companies have signed on to have their characters appear in anti-drug advertisements. Tony Hawk, Lara Croft, Zoe from SSX, and 3DO's Army Men will appear in banner advertisements on web sites whose target demographics focus on teenagers. SALES CHARTS The following sales charts are based on combined sales during the week of February 18 to 24. Top Ten Games For All Systems 1. Star Wars: Starfighter for PlayStation 2 2. Paper Mario for Nintendo 64 3. Pokemon Gold for Game Boy Color 4. Pokemon Silver for Game Boy Color 5. Madden NFL 2001 for PlayStation 2 (click on the blue text for Master Gamer's review of the game) 6. Crazy Taxi for Dreamcast 7. Sonic Adventure for Dreamcast 8. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 for PlayStation 9. ATV Off-Road Fury for PlayStation 2 10.SSX Snowboarding for PlayStation 2 Ten Five PlayStation 2 Games 1. Star Wars: Starfighter 2. Madden NFL 2001 3. ATV Off-Road Fury 4. SSX Snowboarding 5. Knockout Kings 2001 Top Five Dreamcast Games 1. Crazy Taxi 2. Sonic Adventure 3. NBA 2K1 4. Phantasy Star Online 5. NBA 2K Top Five PlayStation 1 Games 1. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 2. Gran Turismo 2 3. Driver 2 4. Mega Man X5 5. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater Top Five Nintendo 64 Games 1. Paper Mario 2. Zelda: Majora's Mask 3. Donkey Kong 64 4. Mario Tennis 5. Hey You, Pikachu Top Five PC Games 1. The Sims 2. The Sims: Livin' Large 3. RollerCoaster Tycoon 4. Diablo 2 5. NASCAR Racing 4 Sources for news: Fastest Game News Online, ZDNet, GameFan, Blue's News, Next Generation, Adrenaline Vault, The Magic Box, GameSpy, Daily Radar, Core Magazine, PSX 2 Online, PS2 Era, Nintendorks, IGN, RPGamer, Famistu, Gaming Age, The NPD Group, PC Data, www.cowdance.com
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