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June 16, 2000 Sony has confirmed its redesign of the original PlayStation hardware. The new unit is called the PlayStation One, and it will replace the original design of the PlayStation at retailers starting in September. The PlayStation One has the same design as the original system, only it's one- third of the size. In order to play games on the PS One, you will still need a TV screen to plug into until the spring of 2001, when a four-inch LCD screen will be released for the system as an add-on. The PS One is not compatible with battery power, a decision that was made by Sony due to the sheer amount of juice the system would require. SNK has decided to get out of the US and European markets and focus on its home country of Japan. SNK's Neo Geo Pocket Color system achieved a decent level of success in the US (over 200,000 systems sold), but it never came close to the Game Boy's mainstream level of success or awareness. SNK was preparing to launch a new print advertising campaign for the system with the tag line, "What's in your pocket?" and the system's first TV commercials were set to air this fall. Both of these campaigns have been shelved now that the company has been shut down. Just before E3, SNK shut down its San Jose, California office and opened a new one in Torrance, California with about ten employees. Problems arose when the company was only able to hire one executive for the new operation in Torrance, namely VP of marketing Joyce Corkos. Corkos was an SNK employee for just a few weeks before quitting last week. Parent company Aruze briefly considered its options (which included hiring a completely new group of executives to run the company) before deciding to shut down SNK USA and SNK Europe entirely. Sierra has expressed interest in supporting USB modems for the PlayStation 2. Sierra's president David Grenewetski says, "We are looking at how to make narrowband possible because we're doing a number of titles that would really benefit from a narrowband solution." One possibility is that Sierra could actually bundle a 56K USB modem with one or more of its upcoming PlayStation 2 games. Grenewetski wouldn't mention any specific games, but Sierra has a lot of franchises that are certainly possibilities for PS2 online play, including Team Fortress, Tribes, SWAT, and Ground Control. Sierra is the second prominent company to announce support for the possibility of PS2 online gaming this year. (The other is Unreal Tournament developer Epic Games.) Last November, Lionhead Studios announced a deal with Activision which would involve Activision publishing several of Lionhead's games, or more specifically, games from several of Lionhead's "satellite studios." That deal has now been called off because the two companies were unable to come to terms on a final written contract, despite coming close to signing on the dotted line on numerous occasions. The contractual disagreements between the two companies may have revolved around who Activision was actually signing the deal with-- whether it was Lionhead itself or Lionhead's satellite studios, Intrepid and Big Blue Box. Lionhead was founded by game design legend Peter Molyneux, who is now working on Black & White for the Dreamcast and PC. Nintendo has filed a lawsuit against the makers of SongBoy, an accessory that turns the Game Boy Color into a portable MP3 player. Nintendo claims that SongBoy "violates registered trademarks" and is causing Nintendo to "suffer irreparable injury." Hmm... giving consumers one of the best reasons yet to buy a Game Boy Color is causing Nintendo to "suffer irreparable injury"? Unless Nintendo wins in court, SongBoy will be released this fall for the price of $80. Jesse Jackson has spoken out in SongBoy's defense because the company is run by African- Americans. Jackson has requested a meeting with Nintendo to discuss the lawsuit, and he told Multimedia Wire, "I am concerned about the lack of consideration that Nintendo has given to expanding opportunities for African-American entrepreneurs and businesses. The African-American community is a great supporter of Nintendo's products, with the GBC unit selling to at least 65 percent of African-American households. We would hope that Nintendo would welcome a partnership with an African-American company." Former Id Software artist Paul Steed (who was fired by Id's top management two weeks ago) has posted a message on stomped.com responding to the controversy surrounding his departure. Steed said, "My time at Id was priceless and no doubt ranks among the most memorable of my life. However, everyone involved in this fiasco knows it's complete and utter bulls---. I hope the ones responsible for this wasteful and pointless act enjoy what they see in that mirror every day. My commitment and dedication to Id was unquestioning -- people are just blind to their insipid loyalties and petty insecurities." Steed also praised Id's lead designer John Carmack for publicly speaking out in favor of him when he was fired. Steed said, "At least John set the record straight. Time and PR crap may try to change that, but he was man enough to speak up." Actually, "PR crap" has already reared its ugly head in this situation. Id's top two owners Kevin Cloud and Adrian Carmack were the two people most instrumental in firing Steed, and Cloud has already tried to downplay the entire situation as much as possible in his .plan file. Until a couple of weeks ago, Id appeared to be immune to Ion Storm- like internal bickering. Eidos president Rob Dyer has spoken out against 3DO's Army Men series. Dyer said, "I don't want to do what 3DO is doing with Army Men. I think 3DO has over-saturated that property. We have been very particular in what we've done with Tomb Raider." Dyer also said, "To put Lara into a racing car is not going to happen. To put Lara into a puzzle game is not going to happen." Hmm... I don't remember seeing any Army Men racing or puzzle games. Those kinds of games have been released starring Mario, Crash, and Sonic, but not Army Men. And just who the hell does Rob Dyer think he is? Eidos has released "new" Tomb Raider games for the past three years that are virtually identical to the original game. Talk about being a hypocrite... Nintendo's primary owner Hiroshi Yamauchi recently told Bloomberg that "Dolphin" will not be the final name of Nintendo's next video game system. Interestingly enough, Nintendo purchased the domain name "nintendodolphin.net" in the past week despite Yamauchi's claim. Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto has gone on record in the past saying that he likes the name "Dolphin" and doesn't see why the name should have to be changed. In the same interview, Yamauchi said that the Game Boy Advance will have performance similar to the Dreamcast, which is a blatant lie because Nintendo itself has openly admitted that the GBA can't even handle basic polygons. Yamauchi also said, "If we release software for the Dolphin similar to what Sony has for the PlayStation 2, that would be a failure." The Scripps Howard News Service wrote a story this past week that was picked up by newspapers across the country with the headline, "Video game makers tone down violence, realism not as prevalent." I can't help but wonder if the author of the article has ever played Kingpin, Soldier of Fortune, or even Perfect Dark. The article claims, "Violent shooter games are one of the main forms of entertainment in the video game industry," despite the fact that less than ten of 1999's 100 top ten best-selling games were rated Mature. EA's president of worldwide studios Don Mattrick was quoted as saying, "We are the Disney of this market space." Several Sega-developed games will be playable on new Motorola cellular phones starting this fall. The games will run on Java and include golf, blackjack, and several games starring Sonic the Hedgehog. Sega is also planning on adding Java support to the next version of the Dreamcast's web browser, marking the first time that a TV-based web browser has been compatible with Java. Master Gamer's Java-based nav bar could not be reached for comment. The latest promotional item that Sega sent out to members of the press was a mock-tabloid called the Sega Globe, which headlined with, "Seaman Found On Monica's Dress, Clinton Denies Any Involvement." Next to the headline was a picture of Monica Lewinsky with the Seaman logo on her dress. The other three headlines on the Sega Globe were, "Robert Downey Finds Seaman In Jail," "Castro Demands His Seaman Returned," and "DNA Test Links Seaman To Puff Daddy." Sega and EA took verbal shots at each other in a recent article on forbes.com. The article focused on EA's business strategies, particularly their decision to not make games for the Sega Dreamcast. Sega of America president Peter Moore said, "They would never admit it, but I'm sure they regret the decision now that the numbers are out." Moore is right: EA will never admit it. EA's president John Riccitiello fired back, "Every dollar we spend on a Dreamcast game is a dollar we don't have for our online or PlayStation strategy." Microsoft is taking a year off from releasing new versions of their football and basketball games for the PC. All copies of NBA Drive 2000 and NFL Fever 2000 shipping to retailers will have updated rosters and schedules this fall, but the graphics and gameplay will be completely unchanged. The games will sell for $20, the same price they launched at last year. Versions of the games with modified gameplay won't be released until the fall of 2001, when they will presumably appear on both the Xbox and PC. Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa was recently asked by Games Business if Nintendo would consider delaying the Game Boy Advance for another year beyond its current 2001 release date if the Game Boy Color continues to sell well. To the dismay of GBA fans everywhere, Arakawa would not rule out the possibility. He said, "Anything is possible. The Game Boy Color is very strong right now, so much that we can't catch up with the demand. If the same thing happens next year, well... maybe." Duke Nukem Forever publisher Infogrames has set a mid-2001 release date for the game with the hope being that developer 3D Realms will meet that release date. Of course, that may or may not end up happening. 3D Realms president and co-owner Scott Miller told Avault, "Although we do not have a release date -- it is almost impossible to have accurate pre-alpha status release dates unless the developer is creating a less-than-ambitious game or is willing to cut out parts of the game to maintain the date -- I can say that Duke Nukem Forever is making fast and impressive and exciting progress." Links to EZGamer.com will be appearing on GameSpot in the near future thanks to a partnership between EZGamer and GameSpot's parent company, ZDNet. For the price of $10 (which includes shipping and handling), EZGamer lets you select up to 640MB of game demos, which usually ends up being between 20 and 30 demos. EZGamer will then burn these demos onto a CD have them in your mailbox in about a week through the US Postal Service. This is certainly preferable to sitting through 640MB of downloads, and it's completely legal because you're buying demos, not full games. Following the long-anticipated firing of CEO Jill Barad, Mattel has named Robert Eckert as the new chairman and CEO of the company. Eckert has already taken a verbal shot at Barad and made reference to the hefty severance package she received after being fired. He told the Chicago Tribune, "I'll make more money by building shareholder value than I will by getting fired." I'm sure Barad would be upset with that comment if she weren't currently being paid millions of dollars to do absolutely nothing. Connectix has released the latest version of the Virtual Game Station, which lets gamers run PlayStation games on a PC or Mac. To promote the newest version of the emulator, Connectix is offering a free PlayStation game to anyone who buys the Virtual Game Station on virtualgamestation.com. Read the fine print and you'll find one little catch: The free game has to be either Frogger or Space Jam. Factoring out the sale of storage device maker Opticom, Eidos Interactive's bottom line has changed drastically for the worse in the past year, going from a $3 million net profit to a $23 million net loss. Eidos' chief operating officer Mike McGarvey told the Bloomberg news agency that the company's previous mindset "was not very mindful of cost-cutting and the way we spend money." Eidos plans to cut its expenses by 20% in the next year, and it plans to do so without any employee lay-offs. The end of August will be a hot time for the Dreamcast, with four big games scheduled to be released in a seven-day period. Ecco the Dolphin and D2 will all be released on August 22, with Quake 3: Arena and Sega GT to follow on August 29. In the meantime, World Series Baseball 2K1 and the supposedly awesome Virtua Tennis will both be released on July 11. A dozen video game companies have filed joint lawsuits against the creators of six web sites that allegedly sell pirated video game software. The companies filing the lawsuit are Nintendo, Sony, Electronic Arts, Havas, 3DO, Eidos, Activision, Capcom, Hasbro, Midway, LucasArts, and Interplay. The accused parties could have their web sites shut down and be subjected to fines as high as $150,000 for every individual copy made of every individual game. Two people named John and Christine Lawrence have claimed that they own the Excitebike trademark. These people own the rights to the domain names "excitebikes.com" and "exciteminibikes.com," and they recently told Ultimate Gaming Gurus, "We currently own full rights to patents and trademarks on this name in ALL variations." Nintendo has not yet responded publicly. Shiny Entertainment president Dave Perry recently said, "It's looking like Sacrifice might very well be the last game we design for the PC." Previous games from Shiny include the first two Earthworm Jim games and Messiah, which is currently out for the PC and in development for the Dreamcast. Two more console ports have been revealed to be in the works from Sierra. The recently-released PC game Ground Control will be brought to the PlayStation 2, and SWAT 3 will be brought to the Dreamcast. Other console games coming from Sierra include Dreamcast versions of Ground Control and Team Fortress 2. Online capabilities are a sure thing in only one of the aforementioned games (Team Fortress 2 for the Dreamcast). The video game rights to the movie Chicken Run have been picked up by Eidos Interactive. Eidos will publish a Chicken Run game for the PlayStation 1 and PC to coincide with the home video release of the movie. Eidos is currently considering whether or not to release the game for the Dreamcast as well. The Game Critics Awards Committee, which includes over 50 journalists from numerous video game publications, has announced the winners of the 2000 E3 show awards. Black & White won more awards than any other game, including the Best of Show award. The runner-up for Best of Show was Jet Grind Radio for the Dreamcast, followed by Conker's Bad Fur Day for the Nintendo 64 and Halo for the PC. For a full listing of the award winners, check out www.e3awards.com Kengo: Master of Bushido (the third game in the Bushido Blade series) is the latest game to be cancelled for a current system in favor of development for a future system. The game was previously scheduled to be released this fall for the PlayStation 1. Now the PS1 version of the game has been cancelled so that the developers can focus on the PlayStation 2 version, which is due out in early 2001. Lightweight Entertainment is the developer behind the three games in the Bushido Blade series. Square published the first two games, and Crave will publish the third. The US government's pending break-up of Microsoft into two smaller companies will not affect the Xbox at all. The government is splitting Microsoft into one company that handles the Windows operating system and one company that handles the rest of the company's business affairs (like who goes to heaven and who goes to hell). Microsoft's Windows team had nothing to do with the development of the Xbox, so the break-up will not affect the Xbox in any way. Newsweek recently published a two-page story in which they wrote about the fact that Perfect Dark is a much more adult-oriented product than most games published by Nintendo. Regarding the profanity-laced Conker's Bad Fur Day, Infogrames CEO Bruno Bonnell asked Newsweek, "What is the word 'f---' doing in a Nintendo game?" Bonnell also made the following comment about the violent content in Perfect Dark that caused it to be rated Mature: "It was a mistake, and I told them that." Capcom has lent credence to online reports that the Nintendo 64 version of Resident Evil Zero has been cancelled in favor of a Dolphin version. Capcom has not come right out and confirmed that this is true, but they have changed the status of the N64 version of Resident Evil Zero to "undecided." A Game Boy Advance version of Resident Evil Zero is also rumored to be in development. The Japanese version of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 for the Dreamcast supports online gameplay, but the US version will not. Capcom has not given any official reason for this decision, but it's worth noting that Capcom president Bill Gardner hasn't been shy in recent interviews about pointing out that he's not too excited about online console gaming. DELAYS Banjo-Tooie for Nintendo 64 old release date: August new release date: September 18 Lunar 2 for PlayStation old release date: July new release date: August RPG Maker for PlayStation old release date: July new release date: September NEWS BRIEFS The future of Soul Reaver after Soul Reaver 2 is that it will be split into two separate series, one starring Kain and one starring Raziel. This is according to Eidos president Rob "Hypocrite" Dyer. Nintendo has announced that over 100 million Game Boy systems have been shipped to retailers worldwide since its launch in 1989. This figure counts shipments of regular Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, and Game Boy Color systems. Blizzard is now completely finished with the development of Diablo 2, and it will be available for purchase on June 30. Sony's Japanese PlayStation 2 web site is doing very well from a sales standpoint. Out of all the people who have bought a PlayStation 2 in Japan, 44% of them have done it online. The PlayStation 2 version of NFL GameDay 2001 is running behind schedule in development. Hopefully Sony will catch up on the development soon, but the possibility exists that the game will be delayed or worse yet, released in sub-par form. Sega is in negotiations with numerous semi-conductor companies to license out the Dreamcast's technology, in much the same way that Sony is licensing out the technology behind the PlayStation 2. Earthbound 3 for the Nintendo 64 could be cancelled in favor of a Dolphin version. An official announcement is expected at Nintendo's Space World show on August 25. Leonard Nemoy (who played Spock in Star Trek) will supply the voice of the narrator guide in Seaman. Nintendo has created a new company based in Japan that will develop a Pokemon-like game called Magical Vacation for the Game Boy Advance. Believe it or not, the name of the new company is Brownie Brown Corporation. Anyone who buys Evolution 2 for the Dreamcast (which is due out on June 28) will be able to send in their registration card to Ubi Soft and get a free Grandia 2 music CD. Ubi Soft will even pay for the postage costs of sending in your registration card. The Dreamcast will be compatible with cable modem and DSL access in Japan starting on July 7. The American Dreamcast's Ethernet adapter is still scheduled to be released this fall. SALES CHARTS The best-selling games for all systems during the week of May 15 to 21 were: 1. Perfect Dark for Nintendo 64 2. Pokemon Trading Card for Game Boy Color 3. Pokemon Yellow for Game Boy Color 4. Vagrant Story for PlayStation (click on the blue text for Master Gamer's review of the game) 5. WWF Smackdown for PlayStation 6. Pokemon Stadium for Nintendo 64 7. Spec Ops: Stealth Patrol for PlayStation 8. Excitebike 64 for Nintendo 64 9. Syphon Filter 2 for PlayStation 10.Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for PlayStation 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
© 2001 ivan@mastergamer.com