July 11, 1999
Square has finally confirmed existence of the game that we've all been
waiting years to play: Chrono Trigger 2. Called Chrono Cross, the long-
overdue follow-up to Square's classic 1995 RPG is for the PlayStation, not
the PlayStation 2. Chrono Cross is due out this winter in Japan, but no US
release date has been set. As a matter of fact, Square has yet to confirm
that the game will ever be brought to the US, and a very real possibility
exists that never will be. Of course, if this actually happens, you may
one day read the following headline in reference to me: "Enraged Gamer Goes
Ballistic Outside Square's World Headquarters, Accidentally Shoots Self In
Foot."
Nintendo of America president Howard Lincoln has revealed that Project
Dolphin will launch at an extremely aggressive, mass-market price point.
Lincoln would not say exactly how much the upcoming system will cost when
it is released, but it could be as little as $150 or possibly even $99.
How can Nintendo sell the system so cheaply without going broke when it's
supposedly "just as powerful, or more powerful" than the PlayStation 2?
Well, the system's PowerPC-based architecture will be much, much cheaper to
produce than the PlayStation 2's revolutionary Emotion Engine and Graphics
Synthesizer. To make the system even more cheap, Nintendo is also cutting
out all the extra stuff like the ability to play DVD movies on the system,
the ability to play music CDs on the system, and maybe even the ability to
connect to the Internet using the system. If you want to do anything with
the system besides play games, you will have to buy a more expensive
version of the system which will be manufactured and sold by Panasonic and
perhaps other electronics companies as well. All versions of Project
Dolphin (whether they're manufactured by Nintendo, Panasonic, or other
companies) will be able to play all Project Dolphin games, the only
difference is whether or not they will be able to perform additional tasks
like playing DVD movies and connecting to the Internet. Project Dolphin is
scheduled for a worldwide release in late 2000, although it could (and
probably will) be delayed.
Sega and Hollywood Video have confirmed the Dreamcast rental promotion,
which is about to begin at over 1,000 Hollywood Video locations nationwide.
Starting on July 15, gamers will be able to rent a Dreamcast system, Sonic
Adventure, two controllers, and an RF cable all for $20. However, the
system will be due back just two days later (as opposed to Hollywood's
usual five days), and extra days cost an additional $20. In addition, you
have to give the store a large sum of money ($350 at most locations) before
you can rent the system, and you get the money back when you return it
(this way they know you're not planning to keep it). Sonic Adventure will
initially be the only game available in the rental promotion, and Ready 2
Rumble will be the next game to follow when it becomes available for rent
sometime in August. More Dreamcast games could also be made available for
rent before the system's retail release on September 9. Sega and Hollywood
Video are also letting the video game retailer Electronics Boutique in on
the promotion. Everyone who rents the Dreamcast at Hollywood Video will
receive a coupon good for $10 off any Dreamcast product at any EB location.
It was widely expected that the Dreamcast's slumping sales in Japan
would increase when the hardware price cut of over 30% went into effect,
but the Dreamcast's recent sales have surpassed all expectations. The
latest sales figures available are for the week of June 21 to June 27, and
in that week the Dreamcast was the #1-selling system in Japan. Dreamcast
sales in this week were up over 1,000% (11 times greater) than the previous
week. Here are the approximate hardware sales figures for the
aforementioned week:
1. Dreamcast: 45,000 units sold
2. Sony PocketStation: 30,000 units sold
3. Sony PlayStation: 26,000 units sold
4. Game Boy Color: 15,000 units sold
5. Nintendo 64: 9,000 units sold
6. Bandai Wonder Swan: 7,000 units sold
7. Neo Geo Pocket Color: 2,000 units sold
8. Game Boy Pocket: 2,000 units sold
In the category of Top 30 software sales, the PlayStation still dominated
with a 68% share of the software market, thanks largely to the sheer number
of PlayStation games available for purchase in Japan. The Dreamcast came
in second place with 21%, followed by the Nintendo 64 with 9% and the Game
Boy with 2%. No other systems had any games in the Top 30.
Sega has acquired the services of Digital River to handle the Dreamcast's
online store. The web site will let you pre-order or purchase Dreamcast
games, hardware, merchandise, and peripherals. In addition to creating and
maintaining the online store, Digital River will process all orders made
through the store and will be responsible for customer service. In other
Dreamcast news, Sega has begun to ship American Dreamcast systems to
retailers nationwide for demo purposes. Many of the demo stations will
feature playable demos of Sonic Adventure.
Electronic Arts has revealed that Chris Jericho will remain in WCW
Mayhem despite his recent signing of a multi-year contract with the World
Wrestling Federation. Considering that The Big Show's signing with the WWF
was considered too recent for Acclaim to add him into WWF Attitude (despite
the fact that he debuted with the company in February and agreed to join
the company months earlier), it is extremely unlikely that Jericho will
appear in WWF Attitude. By the way, Chris Jericho could appear on WWF
television as early as the August 9 Raw.
Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) has signed a national television
deal with The Nashville Network (TNN). Starting on August 13, ECW will
broadcast a nationally televised show every Friday at 8:00 Eastern Time on
TNN. The signing of this deal is significant to the video game industry
because it greatly increases the chances of Acclaim signing ECW to a video
game deal. With or without the ECW license, Acclaim will continue to make
wrestling games after it releases its last WWF wrestling game, WWF Attitude.
Sony has announced that Final Fantasy 7 has joined the PlayStation's
Greatest Hits promotion. The smash hit RPG now comes with a suggested
retail price of $25, and many retailers are currently selling it for $20 or
less. If you haven't already purchased this classic game, here's your
chance to finally do it.
Capcom has set a US release date for Dino Crisis, which is from the
creators of Resident Evil 1 and 2. The highly anticipated survival horror
game will be released Stateside on September 9. Hmm... let me think...
what else is due for release on September 9?
In the least surprising story of the week, more Nintendo games have been
delayed. The US version of Pokemon Stadium (for the N64) has been delayed
from its previously scheduled October 25 release date to March of next
year. Pokemon Yellow (for the Game Boy, and starring Pikachu) has also
been delayed and is now set for an October 25 release. In addition, Mario
Artist and Mario Camera, which had previously been the only two games
scheduled to be released for the dead 64DD, are now set to be released on
regular N64 cartridges.
Former industry giant GT Interactive is up for sale. In the most full
of crap press release quote in recent memory, GT's CEO Thomas Heymann said,
"While we have successfully initiated management action, the company is
seeking a re-capitalization, merger, or sale because management believes
that in this consolidating industry, GT would benefit from greater capital
resources to achieve our long-term strategic objectives and to maximize
shareholder value." In other words, "We ain't got no money! Somebody give
us some money!" Heymann also announced that GT is shutting down One Zero
Media, which was led by Heymann's predecessor as GT's CEO, Ron Chaimowitz.
It took place many years too late for anyone to really care, but someone
has finally recorded a perfect score (3,333,360) in Pac-Man. The person
who did it is 33-year-old Billy Mitchell of Weirs Beach, New Hampshire.
Mitchell is also the world record holder in Donkey Kong.
Microsoft has announced that Windows 2000 will allow parents to easily
control what kinds of games their kids can and cannot play on their PCs.
The Windows Game Manager will allow parents to block out games with
violence, strong language, or anything else they deem inappropriate.
Fortunately for mature teenagers everywhere, the Game Manager can only
block out games which include the required source code. What this means is
that any developer who chooses not to support the Game Manager can make all
their games immune to it. It is not yet known whether anyone has come up
with a program to block out buggy, unstable, over-priced operating
systems...
USA Weekend, a magazine packaged in with over 500 newspapers nationwide,
recently polled 1,005 adults on the topic of video game violence. A
whopping 89% of respondents said that parents (not the government) should
be responsible for shielding their children from violence. However, 67% of
respondents said that the amount of violence allowed in video games should
be limited.
Eccentric billionaire Richard Branson is set to set sail on a ship named
"PlayStation" this October. Branson, who has failed on five occasions to
be the first person to circle the world in a balloon, will depart on the
PlayStation from New York as he attempts to break the world record time for
sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. The current record is about six and a
half days.
Square has struck a deal with Toyota to promote Final Fantasy 8 and
Toyota cars. Everyone who pre-orders Final Fantasy 8 between July 30 and
August 31 will have a chance at winning a 2000 Toyota Echo. In total, four
of the vehicles will be given away. Final Fantasy 8 is scheduled to ship
to retailers on September 7.
The commercial PlayStation emulator Bleem has been shipped to over 500
retail stores across the country, the biggest of which are Electronics
Boutique and CompUSA. The device lets you play most PlayStation games on
your PC, and it is attractively priced at $30. Sony's efforts to block the
release of the emulator have been unsuccessful thus far, but then again so
were their attempts to kill Connectix's Virtual Game Station at first.
Sony finally got a court order for Connectix to stop shipping the
PlayStation emulators for the Mac to retailers, and they could still end up
winning in court against the makers of Bleem.
After some concern that its sale would be blocked due to its
classification as a "super computer," it turns out that the PlayStation 2
will be sold in China, Russia, India, Israel and other countries with
potential nuclear-bombing capabilities. The Clinton administration has
decided that computer companies are allowed to sell any device to these
countries without giving any notification to the US government, just as
long as the devices being sold cannot perform over 6.5 billion floating
point operations per second (the PlayStation 2 cannot). Previously, any
device which could perform over two billion floating point operations per
second had to be cleared by the US government before it could be sold to
these countries.
Delphine Software has filed a lawsuit against Electronic Arts. Delphine
is the developer of Moto Racer 1 and 2, both of which were published by EA.
Delphine claims that EA took knowledge gained during the development of the
Moto Racer series and put it to work in EA's own motocross game, SuperCross
2000. Delphine also claims that EA has and is continuing to systematically
destroy the Moto Racer series by shipping a pathetically low number of
copies of Moto Racer 2 in Europe, and by dedicating minimal marketing
resources to the series worldwide.
On game CDs for Star Ocean: The Second Story, Sony's 1-900 hint line is
listed as being 1-900-993-SONY, but in fact, the number is 1-900-933-SONY.
As a result, those who call the number listed on the CD will come across a
phone-sex line, not Sony's hint line. Regarding the typo on the CD, a Sony
spokesperson reportedly stated, "D'oh!"
The top-selling video games from June 13 to 19 were:
PlayStation
1. Star Ocean: The Second Story
2. WWF War Zone
3. Syphon Filter
4. Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete
5. Triple Play 2000
Nintendo 64 (same exact rankings the past three weeks)
1. Star Wars Episode I: Racer
2. Super Smash Bros.
3. Superman 64
4. Mario Party
5. Goldeneye 007
PC
1. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
2. MechWarrior 3
3. Star Wars Episode I: Racer
4. Might and Magic 7
5. RollerCoaster Tycoon
The best-selling games that are over a year of age were (in random order):
WWF War Zone, Namco Museum Volume 1, Frogger (PlayStation version),
Goldeneye 007, Super Mario 64, and Mario Kart 64. The most-rented game was
Star Wars Episode I: Racer, with Super Smash Bros. coming in second place.
After the French publisher Titus bought controlling interest in
Interplay, they chose to sell Kingpin's publishing rights to Activision.
Developed by Xatrix (best known for Redneck Rampage), Kingpin is an ultra-
violent game with very graphic language. A game retailer in my area is
ruffling some feathers by refusing to sell the game unless you have an ID
to prove that you're 17 or over. When asked whether this was the
retailer's own doing or the publisher's decision, a sales clerk at the
retailer told me that Activision is instructing all retailers not to sell
the game to anyone under 17.
Eidos Interactive is getting a quite a bit of free publicity for its
biggest franchise, as the Tomb Raider logo is prominently displayed on the
cover of this month's Playboy magazine. The issue features a pictorial of
Nell McAndrew, who until recently was employed by Eidos to appear publicly
as Lara Croft.
Electronic Arts is negotiating with sports agent David Falk to land one
of the most prized sports licenses of all: Michael Jordan. If the deal is
signed, EA will be able to feature Jordan's name and likeness in a series
of games focusing either on basketball or golf, which is currently Jordan's
favorite hobby.
At the recent International Advertising Festival in England, the
advertising agency TWBA won first place in the print and poster award
category for their creative PlayStation ad. The ad depicts a teenage boy
and a teenage girl wearing tight shirts, and they have PlayStation
controllers where their nipples should be. This is not a joke.
Sources for news: Fastest Game News Online, GameSpot, GameFan, Blue's News,
GI News, Next Generation Online, Adrenaline Vault, The Magic Box, Happy
Puppy, PlanetQuake, PSM Online, IGN 64, Nintendorks, The Sega Zone, Sega
Otaku, Gaming Age, Weekly Famistu, www.hamsterdance.com
Back To The Main Page
Master Gamer News- June 26, 1999
Master Gamer News- May 21, 1999
Master Gamer News- May 9, 1999
Master Gamer News- April 27, 1999
Master Gamer News- April 10, 1999
Master Gamer News- March 29, 1999
Master Gamer News- March 17, 1999
© 2001 ivan@mastergamer.com