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"Taking Away Lots Of My Time That Should Be Spent Playing Wild Arms 2"
May 19, 2000
DREAMCAST NEWS
There is a huge amount of Dreamcast news this week, so I have separated
all of it into its own special section. First of all, Sega has decreased
its forecast of Dreamcast hardware sales. Last year Sega estimated that
five million Dreamcast systems would be sold in the US by the end of 2000.
When the Dreamcast sold much better than expected last year, Sega increased
that estimate to six million. Dreamcast hardware sales have slowed down
considerably this year, causing Sega to reduce its estimate back to five
million.
Sales of Dreamcast systems are expected to increase in June when the $50
rebate goes into effect, and again in August when the $200 rebate goes into
effect. The $50 rebate will be available to anyone who signs up with
SegaNet for any length of time, while the $200 rebate will only be
available to those who agree to remain a SegaNet member for two years.
At the same time Sega announced their decreased hardware estimates, they
increased their software estimates due to the upcoming "All Star" pricing
program. Starting in September, the Dreamcast's most successful games will
be lowered in price to $20, the same price as the PlayStation's Greatest
Hits games. In order to participate in the All Star program, a Dreamcast
game has to have been available for at least nine months and sold a certain
number of copies (an amount that has not been revealed by Sega). Sega
has not yet announced which games will take part in the All Star program
when it starts in September.
Many in the industry are disappointed that Sega chose to do a rebate
program rather than coming right out and dropping the price of the system
to $150. Executives at Midway, Hasbro, Eidos, and Havas are among those
that have spoken out on the record against Sega's decision. Former Sega
president Bernie Stolar is waiting until he gets all the facts before he
passes judgment. Stolar says, "The $199-$149 price with the rebate of $50,
I need an explanation on that... I have financial concerns to their model,
and until that's addressed to me, we have to wait and see."
Sega of America's current president Peter Moore has responded to these
detractors of Sega's strategy. Moore says, "The concept is that we have a
strategy that we are sticking to, which is online console gaming. As a
result, rather than doing just a pure $149 price point... we really want to
lure consumers online." Moore continues, "If this industry doesn't grasp
the vast power of the Internet both in its current form of narrowband and
its future form of broadband, then the difficulties we are currently having
as an industry will get worse."
Bleem's PlayStation emulator for the Dreamcast (called Bleem for
Dreamcast) will let you play PlayStation 1 games on your Dreamcast, and
you'll still be able to use your PlayStation controllers if you also buy
the Bleempod adapter. Bleem for Dreamcast is not licensed by Sega in any
way, and Sony continues to fight (and lose) in court in an attempt to
essentially shut Bleem down. PlayStation 1 games will look better when
played on the Dreamcast than they do on either the PlayStation 1 or
PlayStation 2 hardware.
The Bleem for Dreamcast demos at E3 were reportedly impressive, with one
source going as far as to say that Gran Turismo 2 running on Bleem for
Dreamcast looked almost as good as Gran Turismo 2000 for the PlayStation 2.
Bleem for Dreamcast will be released in mid to late June at a price point
of $20 for every 100-game pack. Regarding the ongoing legal battle between
Bleem and Sony, Bleem's president and CEO David Herposheimer says, "Sony is
going to try and extend this for as long as they can... I want to go out
there and say, 'Everything Sony accused me of last year was bulls--- then
and it's bulls--- now.'"
Capcom's president Bill Gardner is one pissed off man. Capcom
originally planned to give the Dreamcast version of Street Fighter Alpha 3
online capabilities through their own game servers without Sega's help.
For the sake of consistency, Sega refused to approve the game for release
unless it would use Sega's game servers, which aren't going to be ready
until August. For the past six months, the game has been in development
limbo, ready to go in every area except the question mark of its online
capabilities. Finally, Capcom has pulled the trigger and sent the game to
be manufactured without any online capabilities, including the character
downloads they had been planning. The game should hit store shelves on
June 2.
Regarding the now-cancelled online capabilities, Gardner says that he
told Capcom of Japan, "Take it out and leave it out. I don't want to see
it. I don't care about it. It's not going to sell one more piece of
software." Signs of tension between Sega and Capcom were apparent last
December when Capcom's VP of sales Bob Lindsey said, "I don't need to pay
Sega to access my customers."
The whole experience seems to have soured Capcom of America on the idea
of online console gaming in general. Last fall, Lindsey said that Capcom
could be a leader or a pioneer in online console gaming. Now Gardner says
that Capcom of America "is not devoting resources to online console gaming
in the near term."
The final versions of the Dreamcast's online game development kit have
still not been shipped to third-party developers. Developers do have
almost-finished kits and should have completely finished kits soon, but
there is still no excuse for Sega to not have final online kits out by now.
Bill Gardner also made headlines this week when he revealed that
Resident Evil: Code Veronica hasn't significantly increased Dreamcast
hardware sales. Gardner says, "I'd like to see the hardware sales pick up.
We released Code Veronica and we tracked the sales, and the disappointing
part for me was that while Code Veronica sold very well, I didn't see a
spike in the hardware sales like I thought I would."
Ubi Soft has picked up the US publishing rights to Grandia 2 for the
Dreamcast. Ubi Soft brought another RPG (Evolution) to the US Dreamcast
last year, and they're now working on the US version of Evolution 2 as
well. RPG fans have to be a little disappointed that Working Designs isn't
going to do the US translation of Grandia 2.
Midway is not including online features in any of its upcoming Dreamcast
games. The company's VP of publishing Mike Ribero says, "We're not going
to make a huge investment in online Dreamcast games until we wait and see
how it plays out." Ribero doesn't seem to be too optimistic about the
PlayStation 2's online prospects either. He says, "It'll be a good three
to five years before broadband reaches the mass market."
SONY PRESS CONFERENCE
Sony held a lengthy press conference last week during which they spent
most of the time talking about the PlayStation 2. I have already reported
on what little major news came out of the press conference, so all that's
left to do now is make fun of Sony for some of the things they said that
deserve to be made fun of. Here are some notable quotes from the press
conference.
-Sony's VP of marketing Andrew House: "The PlayStation 2 will redefine the
entertainment lifestyle with DVD, Internet access, and most importantly of
all, eventually with broadband delivery." House should have also said,
"Oh yeah, and it might be able to play games too."
-Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai: "This slot (in the back of the
PlayStation 2) is the gateway for the consumers to experience the full
entertainment experience available and perhaps experienceable." You
have to really like the word "experience" to use it three times in one
sentence...
-Sony's VP of third-party relations Phil Harrison: "Many of these games
(at E3) have only been in development for maybe five or six months. This
shows the PlayStation 2 is a great, easy system to develop for." That's
odd, because almost every third-party developer in the world seems to think
that it's very hard to develop for. Who does Harrison think he's fooling
with such a blatantly full-of-crap statement?
-Phil Harrison again: "In the analog narrowband world, we use a keyboard
to navigate this space. (he holds up his thumb) That's the interface for
the broadband world." What the hell?
-Phil Harrison yet again: "Computer entertainment, our business, our world,
is at the nexus of traditional and non-traditional content and
entertainment lifestyles." Once again: What the hell?
INTERACTIVE ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
The annual Interactive Achievement Awards took place during the E3 show
last week in Los Angeles. The academy made a mockery of the awards system
by awarding Age of Empires 2 with the PC Game of the Year award while also
awarding The Sims with the Overall Game of the Year award. How could the
academy think that The Sims is the best game released in the past year for
any system if they don't even think it holds that honor for the PC?
Anyway, here are the award winners:
Overall Game of the Year: The Sims
Console Awards
Action: Crazy Taxi
RPG/Adventure: Final Fantasy 8
Fighting: Soul Calibur
Racing: Star Wars Episode I: Racer
Children's Family Title: Pokemon Snap
Sports: Knockout Kings 2000
Console Game of the Year: Soul Calibur
PC Awards
Action: Half-Life: Opposing Force
RPG/Adventure: Asheron's Call
Simulation: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 Professional
Sports: FIFA 2000
Strategy: Age of Empires 2
Online Game of the Year: EverQuest
PC Game of the Year: Age of Empires 2
Outstanding Achievement Awards
Art Direction: Final Fantasy 8
Animation: Final Fantasy 8
Sound Design: Medal of Honor
Musical Composition: Um Jammer Lammy
Game Design: The Sims
Visual Engineering: Unreal Tournament
Gameplay Engineering: The Sims
Hall of Fame inductee: Hironobu Sakaguchi (the creator of the Final Fantasy
series)
ANNUAL E3 POLL RESULTS
I recently sent an e-mail to over 50 people who work for video game
magazines and web sites in which I asked them three simple questions, which
are included below. The percentages below indicate the percent of
respondents that named a particular product as one of their favorite or
least favorite products of the show. So many games were mentioned that I
will only include those that were mentioned by more than 25% of respondents.
Which products impressed you the most at E3?
1. Metal Gear Solid 2 for PlayStation 2 (86% of respondents)
2. Jet Grind Radio for Dreamcast (43% of respondents)
3. Madden NFL 2001 for PlayStation 2 (29% of respondents)
4. X-Box demos (29% of respondents)
Which products disappointed you the most at E3?
1. PlayStation 2's overall line-up (86% of respondents)
2. Gunslinger for PlayStation 2 (43% of respondents; this game was
described by one respondent as "early, ugly, and slow")
3. World Series Baseball 2K1 for Dreamcast (29% of respondents)
Which company had the best overall booth at E3
1. Sega (92%)
2. Nintendo (4%)
3. Electronic Arts (4%)
Last year, the top three games were Freelancer, Giants: Citizen Kabuto,
and Black & White, all PC games. This year, console games dominated.
Despite Metal Gear Solid 2 earning top honors, 86% of respondents said that
the PlayStation 2's overall-line-up was one of the biggest disappointments
of the show for them. I was also surprised to see Jet Grind Radio finish
as the second-most impressive game of the show, behind only Metal Gear
Solid 2. The most resounding victory went to Sega for best overall booth
of the show.
OTHER NEWS
Sony's latest modification of the PlayStation 1 hardware will make it
much smaller and more portable. The new hardware will play all PlayStation
games and will be only slightly bigger than a portable CD player. Contrary
to many reports on the Internet, the altered PlayStation hardware design
will NOT make it a portable gaming system like the Game Boy. Its smaller
design makes it easier to take from place to place, but you still need a
screen to plug it into because the modified hardware doesn't have an LCD
screen or any other kind of screen. The new hardware can be powered by a
car's cigarette lighter, which means you could be able to play it in your
car if you have a portable TV or a mini-van with a TV monitor in it. The
modified hardware will be released "this fall before the PlayStation 2 is
released," which means September or October.
A district court judge has almost completely dismissed Sony's lawsuit
against Connectix, the makers of the Virtual Game Station PlayStation
emulator for the PC and Mac. The judge threw out the bulk of the lawsuit
(Sony's trademark and copyright charges), leaving only two charges
remaining: unfair competition and misappropriation of trade secrets.
Connectix is confident that these two remaining charges will eventually be
dismissed before the case ever goes to trial.
There was also some bad news for Connectix, though. The judge said that
Sony might have a stronger case if it sued Connectix for patent
infringement instead of copyright infringement. Of course, Sony took the
judge's advice and immediately filed a new lawsuit for patent infringement.
Connectix followed by presenting a motion to have Sony's new lawsuit thrown
out before it ever gets off the ground.
The court will decide whether or not to grant Connectix's request
sometime in the next few days. What's this? The court system actually
responding to something in a timely manner? That's quite a change of pace.
If you told our court system that its shoelaces were untied, it would need
several weeks or months to process the information.
Details are beginning to surface relating to why Origin founder Richard
Garriott left the company in late March. Origin is now focusing completely
on Ultima Online and its upcoming sequel, but Garriott apparently wanted
the company to work on more than those two projects. Origin's general
manager Jack Heistand says, "What Richard is interested in pursuing in game
development is moving in a different direction than where Origin is going."
Origin's PR manager put a typically positive spin on things by saying,
"Richard is still a friend of Origin."
Heistand also said Garriott had not been involved in Ultima Online for
quite some time and had never been involved in day-to-day work on its
sequel. As a result of the departure of Garriott and 20 other employees,
Origin has cancelled Wing Commander Online, Privateer Online, and the
single-player Ultima 10. In the first press interviews for Ultima 9,
Garriott spoke of Ultima 9 as if it was an almost-insignificant blip on the
Ultima series' radar compared to Ultima 10, which will now never see the
light of day.
Codemasters continues to go back and forth on an almost monthly basis
with its stance on the US. First the European company showed interest in
the US market by setting up an office in Oakhurst, California. Then they
showed disinterest in the US market by cancelling all US-based internal
development other than two online games. Now they have once again showed
interest in the US market by setting up another office in New York.
So, Codemasters, are you really interested in the US market or not? I
don't care very much one way or the other, but make up your freakin' mind
already! Codemasters' managing editor Nick Wheelwright says, "Obviously,
locating our North American headquarters in New York allows us to work more
closely with all our strategic partners in the US." How do you figure
that? The vast majority of all video game companies in the US are based in
California, including Codemasters' distribution partner Activision.
Nintendo is being sued for $120 million by the singer of the Pokemon
theme song in the US, Jason Paige. Paige claims that he was paid less than
$1,500 for the use of his voice in one TV advertisement for Pokemon. Since
then, his voice has been used in many TV ads for Pokemon, including video
game, cartoon show, and trading card commercials. Paige is seeking the
$450,000 that he believes he is owed for his services, plus just under $120
million in damages.
American sales of "music games" have been mostly good since PaRappa the
Rapper was released in November 1997. Both PaRappa and Psygnosis' Spice
World have sold about 250,000 copies, while Codemasters' MTV Music
Generator has sold a decent 95,000 copies. The only sales disappointments
have been Bust-A-Groove (which has sold 75,000 copies) and Um Jammer Lammy
(which has sold an embarrassingly low 45,000 copies).
Tecmo previously said that Dead or Alive 2 would not be released for the
PlayStation 2 in the US, but now it will be. Excuse me, Dead or Alive 2
Platinum will be released for the PS2 in the US. Tecmo claims that Dead or
Alive 2 Platinum "will be significantly different from the version you see
on the Dreamcast today." Obviously it won't be too different it or it
would be Dead or Alive 3 instead of Dead or Alive 2 Platinum. Tecmo has
not announced a release date for Dead or Alive 2 Platinum, but they have
said that it will be a PlayStation 2 exclusive.
Electronic Arts has picked up the US publishing rights to Kessen, the
promising PlayStation 2 strategy game from Koei. EA and Koei are in
negotiations for EA to possibly bring more Koei games to the US in the
future. In the meantime, Koei has announced that it is making a
PlayStation 2 sequel to the critically-acclaimed Nintendo 64 game, Winback:
Covert Operations. Winback 2 will be released in early 2001.
Sony expects the shortage of PlayStation 1 hardware will last until
September. Sony's vice president of sales Jack Tretton says, "Seven of our
top ten retailers have absolutely nothing." Tretton continues, "The retail
channel will start getting filled in the first week of June, but because
there is so little inventory, we put a couple hundred thousand systems in
and they will blow through before we bring in the next couple hundred
thousand." Tretton believes that the supply won't catch up with the demand
until September.
NewKidCo has acquired the rights to make games based on the ET license
(the movie about the alien, not Entertainment Tonight). And now it's time
for a little history lesson about the last ET game. NewKidCo's ET games
will be the first since the infamous release of ET for the Atari 2600 in
1983, which some people say singlehandedly caused the crash of the video
game industry that took place that year. At the very least, it was a
significant contributing factor to the crash. The game was developed by
one man in six weeks, and to put it kindly, it sucked. Despite its low
quality, the game sold one million copies. There was just one problem:
Atari manufactured over four million copies. Many, many ET game cartridges
ended up being buried in an Arizona desert because no one would buy them
(even at their eventual 99 cent price points) once word spread how
embarrassingly bad the game was.
Bungie has taken all of the multi-player capabilities out of its
upcoming PC game, Oni. Bungie might release an upgrade that includes
multi-player support at some point, but it won't be at the time of the
game's release. No reason was given for the removal of the multi-player
capabilities, but one could reasonably assume that the move was made in
order to let Bungie concentrate on perfecting the single-player mode. Oni
will also be brought to the PlayStation 2 at some point, and Bungie hasn't
revealed whether or not the PS2 version will have any multi-player
capabilities.
Shiny Entertainment's first game based on The Matrix will be released
for the PlayStation 2 and PC in 2002. For the record, it has not yet been
officially announced that Shiny has won the rights to the license, but it's
a known fact throughout the industry. Two movie sequels to The Matrix will
be filmed back-to-back later this year, but the first one won't be released
until 2002 (around the same time as the first Matrix game).
Acclaim is bringing Sega of Japan's racing game F355 Challenge to the
Dreamcast in the US. The "F" in "F355" stands for Ferrari, and Acclaim is
publishing the game in the US rather than Sega because Acclaim owns the US
video game rights to the Ferrari license. F355 Challenge was originally
developed as an arcade game by Yu Suzuki, the lead designer of Out Run, the
Virtua Fighter series, and the upcoming Shenmue.
Midway has signed a deal to publish several Psygnosis games in the US.
Rather than Psygnosis itself publishing the games or the company's owner
(Sony) publishing them, Midway will publish Rollcage Stage 2, Colony Wars:
Red Sun, Destruction Derby Raw, Team Buddies, and four other Psygnosis
games to be announced at a later date.
Now that Nintendo has purchased Silicon Knights, the company has
cancelled the PlayStation 2 version of its upcoming game, Too Human.
Silicon Knights' president Dennis Dyack said, "Too Human will definitely
not be coming out on a Sony format of any kind." Dyack also said that Too
Human won't be released for the N64 or Game Boy Advance, leaving the
Dolphin as the only possible system it could be released on.
Midway has announced that pop star Michael Jackson will be a playable
character in Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2, which will be released for
every system under the sun this fall. Jackson joins the NBA's Shaquille
O'Neal as a celebrity boxer in the game (I'm pretty sure that Shaq would
win in a real-life fight between the two of them). Jackson also makes a
brief appearance in Sega's Dreamcast dancing game, Space Channel 5.
NEWS BRIEFS
Not only will Final Fantasy 9 not be delayed in Japan, but its release
date has actually been moved up from July 19 to July 7. This bodes well
for the US release date of the game, which is scheduled to be before the
end of this year.
Perfect Dark is being sold a few days early at some Electronics Boutique
stores. The game will be available at retailers nationwide on Monday,
May 22.
Activision is bringing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 to the PC, not the
original game as previously reported.
The critically-acclaimed PC game System Shock 2 is being ported to the
Dreamcast by Vatical Entertainment. Most of Vatical's products are crappy
Game Boy Color games, so let's hope they don't drop the ball on the
Dreamcast version of System Shock 2.
According to Infogrames' E3 press kit, Driver 2 is coming to the
Dreamcast in addition to the previously-announced PlayStation 1 version.
Electronic Arts is bringing the Japanese PS2 game Golf Paradise to the
US for the launch of the system. The game will be re-named Swing Away for
is US release.
A memory card is packed-in with every PlayStation 2 sold in Japan, but
this won't be the case in the US. If you want a memory card, you'll have
to buy one separately for the suggested retail price of $34.
Crave Entertainment is working on a sequel to its PlayStation survival
horror game, Galerians. The sequel is for the PlayStation 2, and it takes
place six years after the original.
Microsoft has changed the punctuation and capitalization of its next
video game system. Formerly known as the X-Box, the system now has a final
name of Xbox.
A petition to bring EarthBound 64 to the US has been started at
http://www.starmen.net/pet. The creators of the petition will send it to
Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Japan once they get 10,000 virtual
signatures.
Acclaim has cancelled the Nintendo 64 version of ECW Anarchy Rulz. The
game will still be released for the Dreamcast and PlayStation in August.
German developer Blue Byte has decided not to sell any of its games to
US retailers in the future. American gamers will still be able to buy the
company's games at bluebyte.com
Eidos Interactive has announced a March 2001 release date for Legacy of
Kain: Soul Reaver, which will be for the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast. The
PlayStation 1 version of the game has been cancelled.
Nvidia's net profits have tripled in the past year, going from $6
million to $18 million.
GameSpy.com recently won the Webby Award for Best Game Site. The
acceptance speeches for the Webby Awards have a limit of five words placed
on them, and this is GameSpy president David Kosak's actual acceptance
speech: "Everyone likes the licky-licky."
Capcom has officially confirmed that it will be making games for the
Xbox.
Believe it or not, Mattel is going to publish an RPG for the PS2. The
game is called Eternal Blade, and it's being developed by Stormfront
Studios.
Sony has announced that 47 different PlayStation games have sold over a
million copies, more than double the amount of million sellers on the N64.
Also, while Nintendo dominated the top ten list of 1999's best-selling
games thanks to Pokemon, 67 of the top 100 sellers were for the PlayStation.
Nintendo expects ten million copies of Pokemon Gold and Silver to be
sold in the first six months after their US release (which is set for
October 16).
Agetec is finally going to release RPG Maker for the PlayStation this
July. Agetec shuffled their feet about whether or not to bring the game to
the US before finally doing it. Agetec's create-your-own-fighting-game
(Fighter Maker) flopped in the US.
The NPD Group did not release new sales figures this week due to the E3
show, so there aren't any sales charts in this issue of Master Gamer News.
Sources for news: Fastest Game News Online, GameSpot, GameFan, Blue's News,
GI News, Next Generation, Adrenaline Vault, The Magic Box, Daily Radar,
Sega X, PSX 2 Online, Nintendorks, IGN, MCV, The Sega Zone, Sega Otaku,
Gaming Age, The NPD Group, www.cowdance.com
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