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December 24, 1999 Sony recently announced that there have been 70 million PlayStation systems sold worldwide. The regional breakdown is 27 million in Europe, 26 million in the US, and 17 million in Japan. One of the reasons it has sold the best in Europe is because it has the least competition in Europe (the N64 was even more of a flop in Europe than it has been in the rest of the world). The PlayStation's Japanese sales can't compare with its European or US sales, and this is largely due to Japan's struggling economy. The Sega Dreamcast has been named one of the best products of 1999 by Business Week Magazine. The system has already won the Machine of the Year award from Time Digital and the "Best of What's New" award from Popular Science. The Dreamcast also dominated other video game systems in the annual CBS Toy Test. In the Toy Test, 15,500 children played 75 Dreamcast, PlayStation, and Nintendo 64 games over a period of three weeks. Seven of the top ten video games in the Toy Test were Dreamcast games, including Power Stone at #1 and Ready 2 Rumble Boxing at #2. After a shooting recently took place in Brazil, it was blamed on Duke Nukem. It wasn't blamed on the shooter, it wasn't blamed on the cocaine that was found in the shooter's bloodstream, it was blamed on Duke Nukem. Now a Brazilian judge has banned Duke Nukem in Brazil, along with Mortal Kombat, Doom, Blood, Postal, and Requiem. Anyone who is found to be selling a banned game will be fined $11,000 for every day they were selling the games. Newer games like Quake 3: Arena and Unreal Tournament were not banned. The judge also called on the Brazilian government to introduce a video game rating system within the next four months. Activision added a character to the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 game Toy Story 2 that caused a public protest to be held in Los Angeles, California. Activision offended Hispanics with a character in the game who had a thick mustache and a sombrero. This character was not in the movie, and after these protests, the character will now be taken out of the game as well. About 150 protesters in Los Angeles said that this is not enough, and demanded that Activision recall the game. Thanks to a partnership with Sega, Excite will now be the exclusive portal web site of the Dreamcast Network. Basically, what this means is that Excite's news articles and other content will be accessible through the Dreamcast Network without having to go excite.com. An Excite executive named Mark Stevens got a little carried away about the deal when he actually said that the Sega-Excite deal will "redefine TV programming and advertising as we know it today." Sure, whatever you say, Mark... Sega has introduced a $400 Dreamcast package on their web site. For the extra $200, you get all the stuff that normally comes with the $200 Dreamcast, plus Sonic Adventure, Rippin' Riders, an extra controller, multiple VMUs, a Dreamcast keyboard, and a bunch of other crap like posters and gift cards. Electronic Arts continues to hype their Create-A-PPV (pay-per-view) feature in WCW Mayhem for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. Entering a password in the game will make it replicate current WCW pay-per-views, excluding WCW wrestlers that aren't in the game and match stipulations that aren't in the game. WCW Mayhem and WCW pay-per-view events: Two bad tastes that taste bad together! To the surprise of no one, Shiny Entertainment has delayed Messiah yet again. Messiah (for the PC and Dreamcast) has been delayed just as much as Ion Storm's Daikatana over the years. Other than saying that it won't be released before Christmas, Shiny refrained from giving the game a new release date. In the meantime, Shiny's president Dave Perry is already doing interviews to promote Messiah's sequel, entitled Sacrifice. Perry says that Sacrifice will be released in the summer of 2000 (he really means the fall of 2002). When they're not brainwashing children with Pokemon propaganda, Nintendo likes to do charitable things like visit kids in hospitals. A man dressed in a Donkey Kong suit recently visited children in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Children's Hospital, and he brought bags full of gifts with him. Nintendo is also donating many Nintendo Fun Centers to the hospital. Nintendo Fun Centers are portable units containing TVs and N64s that can be wheeled directly to hospital patients' bedsides. Origin's Ultima 9: Ascension has lots of major bugs in it out of the box, which is not surprising coming from a company that released Ultima Online in nearly unplayable form and relied on patches to make the game function properly. An Origin spokesperson did not say the following, but they may as well have: "What? It doesn't run under Direct3D? D'oh!" In order to fix this problem, Origin says that it will be sending out new installation CDs to every registered user of the game "as soon as development and testing on the patches are complete." Of course, you will then need another patch to fix the new problems that came up when you installed the original patch. There's a simple solution to all of this BS: Don't release a game until it's done. And by done, I mean "really done," not "barely playable." 989 Studios previously announced that NBA Shootout 2000 would not be released this year, but they managed to release it on December 22 anyway, just in time for Christmas. The "early" release of Shoot Out 2000 may have had something to do with how well NBA 2K and NBA Live 2000 have been selling. Electronic Arts' stock price went down a lot last week when an investment firm cut their revenue estimates for the company. The decreased revenue was blamed on EA's lack of Dreamcast support and poor sales of EA's Nintendo 64 games. In EA's case, "decreased revenue" is still $625 million in their latest financial quarter. The poor guys... how can they afford to feed their families with that chump change? A new Time Crisis game is on its way to the PlayStation, but it's not being developed by Namco. Instead, Namco has acquired the services of Flying Tiger Development to develop a new light-gun shooter (not a port of Time Crisis 2) called Time Crisis Alpha. Time Crisis Alpha will not be released for the arcade, possibly because of the recent mainstream controversy about violence in games. Here are some statements that were made by Sony executives in recent media interviews: On Pokemon: "Our goal is always to showcase the variety. It's not, 'We need you to buy this game this year.' We don't try to force-feed gamers something." On whether or not Sony can afford to launch the PlayStation 2 at $299: "We could put it out there at any price we wanted to." On whether or not gamers will buy the PlayStation 2 if it's $299: "Consumers responded nicely to our $299 price point on the PlayStation at a time when the industry wasn't nearly as healthy. If they'd accept the PlayStation at $299, I think they would welcome the PlayStation 2 at $299 with open arms, but they'd be receptive to a higher price. I guarantee that we will sell every unit we can make." NEWS BRIEFS As much of a bargain as the PlayStation is at $100, you can buy it for an even lower price at gamedealer.com, where it's only $90. The lowest price I've seen for the N64 is $85 at toytime.com Former Sega president Bernie Stolar has joined the board of directors of HMG Worldwide, a company that designs in-store merchandising for video game retailers. A company that had been manufacturing copying devices for the Super Nintendo, N64, and Game Boy was recently ordered to pay over $7 million to Nintendo by a federal judge. Electronic Arts is planning on releasing two noteworthy games for the PlayStation in March: Sim Theme Park (the latest game in the Theme Park series) and Rock the Rink (a no-holds-barred hockey game in the same vein as Mutant League Hockey for the Genesis). Namco has announced that Soul Calibur has sold over one million copies worldwide. This is impressive because it's for a new system with an installed base much smaller than older systems like the PlayStation. Nintendo's owner Hiroshi Yamauchi recently said that Nintendo plans to open a theme park in Kyoto, Japan called Pokemon World. After the site of construction is approved, it is expected to take one year for the theme park to be built. Konami's first two ESPN-branded games will be ESPN Baseball Tonight and ESPN NBA Tonight, both for the Dreamcast. Let's hope that these games don't suck as much as all of Konami's PlayStation and N64 sports games... The PC version of Final Fantasy 8 will be released on January 25. If your computer meets the system requirements, you can download a demo of the game at www.ff8-pc.com Crave Entertainment is bringing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater to the Dreamcast in the second quarter of 2000 (April, May, or June). However, Crave isn't saying much about the Dreamcast version of the game other than the fact that it will feature four-player split-screen play. The Dreamcast RPG Elemental Gimmick Gear was previously scheduled to be released before Christmas, but it was recently delayed until January. This means that Evolution will be the only Dreamcast RPG on the market this year. SALES CHARTS In the two-week period between November 28 to December 11, the top ten best-selling games for all systems were: 1. Donkey Kong 64 for Nintendo 64 (click on the blue text for Master Gamer's review of the game) 2. Pokemon Red for Game Boy 3. Pokemon Blue for Game Boy 4. Pokemon Pinball for Game Boy Color 5. WWF Wrestlemania 2000 for Nintendo 64 6. Tomorrow Never Dies for PlayStation 7. Pokemon Snap for Nintendo 64 8. NBA Live 2000 for PlayStation 9. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for PlayStation 10.Pokemon Yellow for Game Boy Color On a points basis (with the first-place game earning its system ten points, the second-place game earning its system nine points, and so on), the Nintendo 64 won with 20 points, followed by the Game Boy with 17 points, the PlayStation with ten points, and the Game Boy Color with eight points. Here are the top-sellers for the PlayStation, Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, and PC (in order from #1 to #3). PlayStation: Tomorrow Never Dies, NBA Live 2000, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater Dreamcast: NBA 2K, NFL 2K, and Sonic Adventure Nintendo 64: WWF Wrestlemania 2000, Pokemon Snap, and Namco Museum 64 PC: Lego Island, Pokemon Studio Red, and Pokemon Studio Blue The following are old games that are still among the top ten best-sellers for their respective systems: Spyro the Dragon, Gran Turismo, Goldeneye 007, Glover, Frogger, and Half-Life Sources for news: Fastest Game News Online, GameSpot, GameFan, Blue's News, GI News, Next Generation, Adrenaline Vault, The Magic Box, Happy Puppy, PSX 2 Online, IGNPSX, IGN 64, Nintendorks, The Sega Zone, Sega Otaku, Gaming Age, The NPD Group, www.hamsterdance.com
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