Back To News
News Archives
June 30, 2000 In a surprising move, Sony has filed a voluntary dismissal of its lawsuit against Connectix just one day before a dismissal hearing was scheduled to take place. Sony claimed that Connectix violated several of Sony's patents and trademarks by selling the Virtual Game Station, a PlayStation emulator for the PC and Macintosh. Connectix's CEO Roy McDonald was typically optimistic. He said, "We hope that at some point, Sony will recognize the merits of cooperating with us in giving added flexibility to fans of the PlayStation." Sony's lawsuit against Bleem (the makers of PlayStation emulators for the PC and Dreamcast) is still pending, but Sony may as well drop that lawsuit as well because its case against Bleem has had even less success than its case against Connectix. Id Software's legendary game designer John Carmack has announced his company's support of the Xbox. Carmack says, "Last I heard, Nvidia was going to be providing OpenGL for the Xbox. If they do, we will probably do some simultaneous development for the Xbox. If not, it would have to wait until the game ships to be ported." So either way, Id's future games will be released for the Xbox, the only question is whether they will be released after their PC counterparts or at the same time. On a more personal level, Carmack says, "I'm pulling for the Xbox. If you need to pick a feudal lord in the console market, I would take Microsoft over Sony, Sega, or Nintendo any day." Carmack also mentioned that he thinks the Xbox is "a larger leap over the PlayStation 2 than the PS2 is over the Dreamcast." Microsoft has purchased Bungie for an undisclosed amount of money. As part of the deal, Bungie's upcoming game Halo will be released for the Xbox and possibly the PC, but not the PlayStation 2 or any other video game platform. Bungie currently has two development teams located in Chicago and one in San Jose. All three development teams will soon move to their own sub-section within Microsoft's offices in Redmond, Washington, where they will have a limited amount of input into the evolution of the Xbox itself. Bungie's online games will continue to be playable on Bungie.net rather than being assimilated into Microsoft's Gaming Zone. When asked if Bungie sold out to Microsoft simply because it was running out of money, Bungie's Peter Tamte said, "Unequivocally, let me tell you no. We have enough resources to ship Oni and Halo ourselves, and we could have sold out for more money earlier if we wanted to." However, Tamte did admit, "Over time, it is more difficult to be an independent company." Bungie's co-founder Jason Jones said, "The Xbox is the first non-sucky architecture for a console." Before Microsoft bought 100% of Bungie, Take-Two Interactive owned a 20% stake in Bungie, and it took some convincing before Take-Two was willing to part with its 20%. In exchange for giving up its stake in Bungie, Take-Two now has the future publishing rights to Bungie's cult hit Myth series. Also, Bungie will finish developing Oni for the PlayStation 2 and PC, and it will still be published by Take-Two. After that, all of Bungie's games will be published by Microsoft on the Xbox and possibly the PC as well. In another perk that Take-Two gets for giving up its 20%, Take-Two now has the rights to make two games based on the Halo engine. Eidos recently confirmed rumors that the company is up for sale when the following statement was sent to Eidos shareholders: "The company is currently in the early stages of discussions which may or may not lead to an offer for the whole of the issued share capital of Eidos." Numerous companies are rumored to be in discussions to buy Eidos, including Infogrames, Havas, Electronic Arts, and Microsoft. In the past week, two of these four companies have publicly denied that they are in negotiations to buy Eidos. Infogrames' CEO Bruno Bonnell says, "We have many targets, and Eidos is one of them, but I am puzzled by this news because I didn't know they were in serious conversation with anyone. We'll talk with them if they would like us to, but nothing is happening right now." Havas Interactive's managing director Christophe Ramboz says, "We have no part in any Eidos deal." Following Imagine Media's recent closure of the brilliant PC Accelerator, the video game industry has lost another one of its greatest publications in MCV Now. MCV Now served as a valuable online resource for video game news since February of this year, but it has been shut down along with the rest of Computec Media USA, which includes Incite Video Games and Incite PC Games. Incite took a big gamble by targeting extremely casual gamers and even non-gamers with a huge marketing campaign, extremely cheap newsstand prices, and celebrity-focused content. The obvious argument against this business model is that if a gamer is really that casual, they're not going to want to read a video game magazine, whether it costs $1, $2, or $6. Incite's readership and advertising sales were low enough that Computec USA's German parent company decided to pull the plug, resulting in over 60 people losing their jobs. Although these employees were given good severance packages, many of them will not be welcomed back to the companies they left in order to join Computec, including Imagine, Ziff-Davis, and IDG. In a deal that could have major implications on the video game industry, Seagram has been purchased by Vivendi is a stock deal worth over $30 billion. The reason this affects the video game industry is because Vivendi owns Havas Interactive and Seagram owns Universal Studios. In theory, this could give Havas control over Universal-owned franchises like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon. However, this deal will not affect Universal's contract with Konami, which includes Konami making games based on Universal movies like The Mummy and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Havas Interactive also owns Blizzard and Sierra. The latest absurd rumor to hit the Internet is that Microsoft is increasing the Xbox's RAM total from 64MB to 1,000 MB, or one gigabyte. Microsoft's Seamus Blackley says, "That's just ridiculous. A gigabyte of RAM would generate as much heat as 23 or 24 hair-dryers inside the console and would melt everything." Infogrames has finally made the official announcement that the PlayStation version of the original Unreal has been cancelled. Console owners who don't have a high-end PC will get their first taste of Unreal when Unreal Tournament is released for the PlayStation 2 this fall. By the way, Unreal Tournament for the PS2 will be fully-compatible with any USB mouse and/or keyboard you plug into the PlayStation 2's USB slots, although it will still work just fine with the standard PlayStation 2 controller. The developers of Unreal 2 are the latest to endorse 3D Realms' strategy of not saying much about games before they are released. Matthias Worch is the designer of Unreal 2 at Legend Entertainment, and he recently told FGN, "We don't want to see Unreal 2 hyped before it is ready for the public eye. A lot of features and plans might still change, so telling everybody about this won't do any good." ABC is going to air 13 episodes of a TV show based on You Don't Know Jack at some point in the future. Paul Reubens (also known as Pee-Wee Herman) was scheduled to be the host of the show as of last fall, but now the show will be hosted by someone else. The new host of the show has not yet been revealed. The PlayStation 2 will cost $300 at most retailers when it's released this fall, but some retailers are going to be selling the system for more than $300 due to the short supply of the system. KBkids.com is the first retailer to officially announce plans to charge more than $300 for the system (KBkids will be charging $330). Microsoft is taking the conservative route when it comes to estimating how many games the Xbox will have initially. Microsoft Games boss Ed Fries recently told Forbes magazine that he thinks 30 Xbox games will be released in its first year of availability. This is in stark contrast to Sony's bold claim that there will be over 100 games released for the PlayStation 2 in its first six months of availability. Despite the big difference in numbers, the fact of the matter is that more and more developers are becoming more excited about developing for the Xbox than the PlayStation 2, mainly because the Xbox is much, much easier to work with while also being much more powerful. Acclaim is going to change the name of its upcoming sequel to Re-Volt, which was to be known as Re-Volt 2: Pocket Rocket. An Acclaim spokesperson said, "It seems that 'pocket rocket' is a British name for a popular sexual device. Because the product will now fall under the Club Acclaim kids brand, we thought it would be wise to change the name quickly so we don't upset those younger fans of this new brand." Because if anyone is going to have an intimate knowledge of adult British sexual slang, it's gotta be American children... Broadband Studios has signed a deal with MTV to make games based on non- sports MTV shows like Celebrity Deathmatch, Road Rules, Beat Suite, and The Real World. What about The Tom Green Show? A game based on Celebrity Deathmatch could be really cool, but a game based on The Real World? That's just what the gaming community needs... a game about a bunch of punks in a big house whining about the most insignificant thing they can think of... Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor recently said that he's interested in providing music for Id Software's Doom 3, which would seem to contradict some statements he made last December. Compare Reznor's comments last December with the comments he made last week and you'll find a startling contrast: Trent Reznor, December 1999: "Id Software asked me to work on Quake 3, but it was kind of like rock songs and it didn't interest me. I told them if you're ever going to do a real soundtrack, then let me know. I would not do another lost highway. I'm tired of that. There's a whorish nature to putting music on a soundtrack just to make a compilation record to sell." Trent Reznor, June 2000: "I would do something like that (working on Doom 3) mainly because it's a hobby of mine, I appreciate the technology, and it's fun to work outside Nine Inch Nails once in a while." Master Gamer News Archive- From May 1999 At the 1999 E3 show's Interactive Achievement Awards, former Presidential advisor Ben Stein delivered a stirring speech in which he defended the video game industry from politicians and the mainstream media. Here is a transcript of Stein's speech. "Before I begin with the teleprompter, let me just tell you a little story. My very best friend in the whole world passed away in a rafting tragedy about three years ago and he left behind a 12-year-old son. He (the friend) was not at all well-to-do. He was divorced, and the little boy lived pretty much by himself. I think his life would have been completely ruined after his father died, but he did have a computer, and he did have several video game consoles, and he played them all the time. They were his friends. And he plugged into them and he plugged into people all over the country playing video games and computer games. He had a little circle of friends in his small town, San Point in north Idaho, and they talked about their video games, and his whole life became video games, and the connection to the community came through video games. And he decided he was going to become an engineer, and he has now become the best student he ever was in his life because of his video games." "And I think of this often when I read the criticisms of video games. I'm much older than most of the people in this room, so I remember when the culprit for every social ill was television. Then the culprit for every social ill was rock and roll music. And now the culprit for every social ill is video games and computer games, and what I keep thinking is, 'There's no evidence whatsoever, of any documented, reputable form from any medical source that video games are really harming young Americans.' On the other hand, there is clear evidence before the eyes of any person who cares to look that video games provide sources of amusement, sources of stimulation, sources of connection with a larger community, a source of a subject that binds a child to another child and provides a community of shared interest, which I can see from my 11-year-old son's group of friends is their primary shared community in the whole world." "I keep thinking, 'How many children live for their video games,' which in the best sense, gives them something to think about, gives them a goal to work for, gives them something to wake up for in the morning, makes their lives happier and more fulfilled. I cringe when I see people from the interactive game industry acting defensive about computer and video games. I feel that the evidence is entirely in favor of the proposition that these games have a pro-social and healthy influence, and I wish people from the interactive games industry would stop apologizing for it." NEWS BRIEFS Rare has delayed its entire fall lineup until early 2001. As of last week, Dinosaur Planet, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Banjo-Tooie, and Mickey's Speedway USA were all scheduled to be released this fall, but they have all slipped into next year. Sega has re-named its upcoming RPG Eternal Arcadia yet again. The game was originally known as Project Ares, then Eternal Arcadia, and now it's known as Skies of Arcadia. Massive cut-backs are taking place at Midway, where at least 75 people have been laid off in the past week. Agetec has named Kevin Sullivan as its vice president of sales and marketing. The last I heard of Kevin Sullivan, he was relieved of his duties as WCW's head writer so that Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff could take over, although this might be a different Kevin Sullivan... Koei is bringing Romance of the Three Kingdoms 7 to the PlayStation 2, at least in Japan. Koei and its new publishing partner Electronic Arts have not yet decided whether they will bring the game to the US. Tecmo is still planning to release an updated version of Dead or Alive 2 for the US PlayStation 2 this fall, but now the game is going be called Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore, not Dead or Alive 2 Platinum. Infogrames posted a net loss of $141 million in its latest financial quarter, which is worse than the $91 million net loss they posted in the same quarter last year. In addition to the previously-announced Starlancer, Crave Entertainment is bringing another popular PC game to the Dreamcast later this year: Soldier of Fortune. This first-person shooter has made a name for itself by being one of the goriest and most violent games ever created. Tecmo has delayed its PlayStation 2 update of the classic NES game Ninja Gaiden. The game was previously scheduled to be released this fall, and it's now scheduled to be released in late 2001. RedOctane.com has become the first US-based company to offer Japanese PlayStation 2 games for rent. RedOctane is the site formerly known as WebGameZone. Sega has announced plans to merge its Heat.net online gaming service with another popular gaming site, but Sega has not yet revealed which site it will be. Infogrames released Loony Tunes: Duck Dodgers for the Nintendo 64 this week, but only to rental outlets. The game won't be available for sale at retailers until August 15. I'm sure lots of people are crying themselves to sleep every night over not being able to buy Duck Dodgers... Diablo 2 has finally been released, and Blizzard has already received about 1.5 million orders for the game worldwide (700,000 in the US and 800,000 in the rest of the world). 3D Realms' co-owner Scott Miller recently told PlanetXbox, "We'd like to see Duke Nukem Forever on the Xbox, and we will try to make that happen." Sony has informed retailers that they will be charged $291 for every PlayStation 2 system, leaving retailers a profit margin of just $9 per system. Barnes & Noble has completed its purchase of video game retailer Funcoland, putting Funco in the same corporate family as Babbage's, Software Etc, and GameStop. SALES CHARTS The following sales charts are based on unit sales for the week of June 11 to 17. I think it's safe to say that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater is kicking ass at retailers. It was #1 on the Dreamcast this week and #2 on both the PlayStation and N64. Dreamcast 1. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. Gauntlet Legends 3. Rainbow Six (click the blue text for Master Gamer's review of the game) 4. Space Channel 5 5. Resident Evil: Code Veronica launch game still in the top ten: Sonic Adventure PlayStation 1. Legend of Dragoon 2. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. Spec Ops: Stealth Patrol 4. WWF Smackdown 5. Legend of Mana old game still in the top ten: Syphon Filter Nintendo 64 1. Perfect Dark 2. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. Pokemon Stadium 4. Excitebike 64 5. Mario Party 2 old games still in the top ten: Super Smash Bros., Goldeneye 007, Super Mario 64, and Mario Kart 64 PC 1. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire: 2nd Edition 2. The Sims 3. Vampire: The Masquerade- Redemption 4. RollerCoaster Tycoon 5. Shogun: Total War old games still in the top ten: none other than RollerCoaster Tycoon 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, The Sega Zone, Sega Otaku, Gaming Age, The NPD Group, www.cowdance.com
© 2001 ivan@mastergamer.com