Topics

51

General Gaming / The people who made/make up Rareware

« on: April 30, 2004, 08:32:45 PM »

With Zoonami being in the news lately (having announced their first game), I was sort of wondering about the scope of all those "defections" we heard about.

I found an archive of game credits at MobyGames, so I started looking up who was who in the Goldeneye/Perfect Dark credits, and wrote up a small list of what other stuff they've been credited with at Rare.

I know that this probably won't do justice to some people's contributions to things, but it's the best I can come up with. If you know more, just chime in.

Anyways, here's the people who were known to have left Rare.

Martin Hollis:
Perfect Dark - Project Leader
Goldeneye - Produced By
Goldeneye - Directed By
Killer Instinct (arcade) - Technical Programmer
- Left Rare to start Zoonami

Steve Ellis:
Perfect Dark - Programming (with Beau Chesluk and Mark Edmonds)
Goldeneye - 2nd-Unit Director
- Left Rare to start Free Radical

David Doak:
Perfect Dark - Design (with Duncan Botwood)
Goldeneye - Original Screenplay
Donkey Kong Country 3 - Network Support
- Left Rare to start Free Radical

Karl Hilton:
Perfect Dark - Graphics/Artwork (with Ross Bury, B Jones, and Lee Ray)
Goldeneye - Scenic Art Director
- Left Rare to start Free Radical

Lee Ray:
Perfect Dark - Graphics/Artwork (with Ross Bury, Karl Hilton, and B Jones)
Banjo Kazooie - "Strange Noise Makers" (with Eveline Fischer and Chris Seavor)
Blast Corps - Voices (with other people)
Donkey Kong Country 3 - Backgrounds (with Phil Dunne, Carl Tilley, and C. Woods)
- Left Rare to start Free Radical

Graeme Norgate:
Perfect Dark - Music (with Grant Kirkhope)
Perfect Dark - Sound (with Martin Penny)
Goldeneye - Original Music (with Grant Kirkhope)
Goldeneye - Sound Effects
Jet Force Gemini - Music (with Robin Beanland)
Blast Corps - Music
Blast Corps - Sound
Diddy Kong Racing - Sound
Killer Instinct (arcade) - Music/Sound (with Robin Beanland)
- Left Rare to start Free Radical


And then here's the other people credited with Goldeneye and Perfect Dark (and still working for Rare, as far as we know).

Simon Farmer:
Perfect Dark - "DD Sniper"
Goldeneye - Production Manager
Grabbed by the Ghoulies - Production (with Andy Wilson and Leigh Loveday)
Starfox Adventures - Rare Production Director
Conker's Bad Fur Day - Rare Support
Jet Force Gemini - Production Manager
Banjo Kazooie - "Paper Pushers" (with Eileen Hochberg)
Blast Corps - Project Manager
Donkey Kong Country - Scheduling
Donkey Kong Country 2&3 - special thanks

Duncan Botwood:
Perfect Dark - Design (with David Doak)
Goldeneye - Production Designer
Starfox Adventures - starring as Andross

Mark Edmonds:
Perfect Dark - Programming (with Beau Chesluk and Steve Ellis)
Goldeneye - Director of Photography
Jet Force Gemini - Thanks To

B. Jones:
Perfect Dark - Graphics/Artwork (with Ross Bury, Karl Hilton, and Lee Ray
Goldeneye - Costume Designer

Grant Kirkhope:
Perfect Dark - Music (with Graeme Norgate)
Goldeneye - Original Music (with Graeme Norgate)
Grabbed by the Ghoulies - Music & Sound Effects
Starfox Adventures - Additional Musicians
Donkey Kong 64 - part of "Development Team"
Banjo Kazooie - "Big Noise Maker"
Blast Corps - Live Guitar
Donkey Kong Land 2 - Music

Martin Penny:
Perfect Dark - Sound (with Graeme Norgate)
Goldeneye - Rare Testers (with other people)
Starfox Adventures - Sound Effects
numerous credits as a game tester


Perfect Dark had a large amount of what appear to be "gag credits" (like in Banjo Kazooie), but it also had some "serious credits", which I mostly focused on. I tossed in a few of the gag ones though, in quotation marks.

It looks like there are still a lot of key people with lengthy careers left at Rare, but listing them looks like a much bigger job, and I almost don't know where to start. I might add more some other time if I'm bored.  

52

General Chat / Proper "Dragon Quest" games possible in America now

« on: April 29, 2004, 07:08:37 PM »

I spotted this little tidbit in the middle of an RPGFan editorial.

As most of you probably know, the "Dragon Quest" series is the grandfather of Japanese console RPGs. When it came to bringing the games over to America, Enix found that there was already a pen-and-paper RPG over here with that name. So Enix was forced to come up with a new name, and decided on "Dragon Warrior" (Although I've heard some stuff about Nintendo of America actually being the one to come up with that particular name for Enix).

The company that made the pen-and-paper Dragon Quest was bought up by TSR.

Well, it seems that TSR hasn't made a "Dragon Quest" game in over 10 years, so the US Patent Office declared their trademark on the name to be "abandoned".

The name was immediately dived upon, and trademarked in America by a little company you might know called Square-Enix.

Personally, I'm not convinced that the "Enix side" of Square-Enix gives a damn about Dragon Quest/Warrior in America anymore, but it seems possible that Enix might use this as an opportunity to give the series one more try. At the very least, if Dragon Quest 8 comes over to America (and isn't prohibited by SCEA for being "niche"), it might be as "Dragon Quest 8".

So "Dragon Warrior" is probably a piece of history now. Well, it kinda was before. But now there's more dirt being piled on it.

53

NWR Feedback / Another PGC pop-up spyware concern

« on: April 25, 2004, 05:16:32 PM »

I've been using Mozilla Firefox as my standard web-browser for... probably over two months now. Not because I feel that it's required (or that is should be required), but I just like being safe, and felt like giving it a try (by the way, it is pretty sweet, and easy to use, for anyone else who's thinking of giving it a try).

Well the other day, I downloaded the English Tales of Symphonia demo. I tried to play it earlier today, and it didn't work (looking at the talkback thread, I think it probably timed out, as it was downloading pretty slowly, last I had seen). So I decided to try re-downloading it. I cracked out Internet Explorer, "just to be safe", and to make sure it wasn't a Firefox issue.

I hit PGC. Hit the ToS English demo page. And a pop-up tried to launch. But it didn't fully launch. It just crashed IE (how typical). I control-alt-deleted IE, reopened it, and my homepage was hijacked, to something spawning endless respawning pop-ups. I didn't look at what the page was long enough to get you any useful info before I nuked IE and fixed my homepage. Sorry about that.

I checked AdAware and it said that I had gotten some "malware" described as an "IE Hook" on my system. I didn't get any more details than that before I killed it. Sorry again. I'm in the process of giving my system a good cleaning with Spybot and Norton as well. If they come up with anything more specific, I'll let you know.

I'm not too worried about it, personally. It seems like just a simple page-hijacking. But I thought I'd let you know. And I know that you don't really have any control over the ads.

BTW, I don't think it was due to anything existing on my system, as the last time I checked it was about a week ago, and this is only the second time I've EVER gotten anything on my system. (The other time was a page-hijacking pop-up encountered at PGC as well.)

54

General Gaming / New Stephen Kent Articles!

« on: April 14, 2004, 06:13:10 PM »

GameSpy

Stephen Kent, the occasional CNN contributor, and a guy known as "the only reporter in the mainstream media who has any clue about anything related to videogames" was recently in Japan, doing research for a new book about videogames, and wrote a series of articles for GameSpy.

The ones lower down the page are the ones that he's done already.

You may recognize the "Nintendo's New Direction" interview with Iwata, where he revealed the N5's latest name of "GCNext".

His interview with Hideo Kojima is pretty cool. Mostly about MGS3, but covers some other stuff. I liked Kojima's quotes of:

Quote
"What we did to create the experimental environment was that we went to islands like Yakushima, Amami Oshima, and even places in Canada. These are places with a lot of vegetation, like Japanese jungles. Well, obviously not Canada."

and

Quote
"People on my team are masochistic. They enjoy the difficulty of working with PlayStation 2 and we assume that PlayStation 3 will be even more difficult. We know nothing about the system; but it's from Sony, so we assume so."

And I found this line (about the Xbox) in the interview with Famitsu's Editor in Chief interesting:

Quote
"It could have reached 2 million. If it reached that much, publishers like Square-Enix would have taken notice and the situation would have changed … drastically. But Microsoft did not reach the critical 1 million sales.

Dragon Quest was a big title in Japan. Executives at Enix said that if Microsoft sold 3 million Xboxes in Japan, it would release an Xbox version of Dragon Quest."

55

General Gaming / Teh Billeh's E3 Predictions!!1!

« on: April 12, 2004, 01:26:10 AM »

Bloodworth or SuperTy will probably move me to teh E3 board. Or maybe General Chat.

So find and follow da tread!!!1!

Unless dey delete me. Then don't follow.

Anyways, here's da link to Game Informer!

Some things are obvious. But some are not. He seems to know things. Or makes things up good. Click the link, and wait until E3 to find out!

56

General Chat / P2P downloading, and now UP-loading, currently legal in Canada?

« on: April 01, 2004, 01:42:53 AM »

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4639920/

Basically, it had previously been interpereted that Canadian copyright law allowed Canadians to make copies of things, as long as they were for personal use.

Like having a photocopier in a library. Nothing wrong with making some copies of things, as long as you're not gonna try and compete with the book's publishers by selling the copies.

When applied to mp3s and P2P networks, it was considered that Canadians had a right to download, but not to upload.

The Canadian Recording Industry Association took some ISPs to court to try and get some info to sue 29 major mp3 uploaders, and not only did the judge shoot them down, but he basically said that an uploader has no clear reason to assume that the person getting the file will do anything illegal with it, like how the librarian doesn't know exactly what you plan on doing with your photocopy.

We're probably gonna get some additional new "international-stage compliant" laws on the matter sometime soon, like how the US got the DMCA, but if you remember, the DMCA supposedly had that special clause in it saying that it didn't apply to "abandonware".

57

Nintendo Gaming / PSP vs NDS: Capcom Support Rumors

« on: March 31, 2004, 02:03:06 AM »

On the GameFAQs boards earlier, a Capcom VIP was "unofficially" relating some things he's been hearing from their R&D departments.

Basically, Capcom apparently thinks the NDS will pwn the PSP.

They think the PSP is some extremely-powerful hardware, but with the size of the PSP and NDS's screens, the PSP could have a LOT more polys on the screen that the NDS, and it would be tough to tell the difference. It's just too hard to see the details on the small screen.

And that's the way Sony's going. They're pushing for high-polygon 3D games, and PS1 ports. While Nintendo doesn't want developers to overreach with the NDS. So there probably won't be many direct PSP/NDS comparisons, but if there were, the NDS would probably do a pretty good job of holding it's own.

Also, there is currently no financial model that allows hardware makers to sell the system at a loss. They think that the PSP will be horribly overpriced, while the NDS will be about par for a Nintendo handheld.

Supposedly the NDS is really well designed. Clean, simple, and a dream to develop for. Previous GameBoy experience makes it even better. The PSP... ummm... isn't.

And here's one I haven't heard before. The disk media of the PSP is a horrible mistake. Sure, Sony can make minidisc players that almost eliminate disk skipping, but they only REDUCE the chance of skipping. And when you're playing an mp3, and it skips, the song might stutter. If you're playing a game, it will crash. Combined with Sony's infamous quality reputation with the PS1 and PS2, the disk media is a flat-out mistake.

So umm yeah. That's pretty much what they think is wrong with the PSP. The guy didn't even bring up anything about the possible new gaming applications of the NDS.

He was saying that the "PlayStation brand" will obviously sell a fair number of units, especially if Sony tries to market the system to older people who might be able to afford it, but their high-price and possible alienation of the younger markets will make it impossible for them to go beyond being a "niche" market.

But he says that Sony's planning on "pulling a Microsoft", and sticking with the handheld industry, even if it's a "failure", just so they can keep creeping in, with more and more marketshare, until they've been there so long that people are used to seeing them.

Apparently Capcom's planning to fully expoit the PSP's market, and has multiple PSP games in the works (not all of which will be launch titles, of course), but their REAL favored system is already clearly gonna be the NDS, barring any unforseen hurdles, like year-long hardware launch delays.

58

Nintendo Gaming / New North American (NPD) Sales Thread

« on: March 06, 2004, 11:35:15 PM »

I've decided to make another North American sales thread.

The last thread was locked because it spun into an argument about sports games. So let's try to stay on topic this time.

Here are the numbers from the first thread, plus some new ones.


- January 2003 -

PS2: 443,334
XBox (Holiday Bundle): 154,604
XBox (System): 9,724
GCN (Jet): 26,741
GCN (Platinum): 20,735
GCN (Indigo): 14,283

Cumulative Installed Base
PS2: 15,204,853
XBox (Holiday Bundle): 1,709,679
XBox (System): 3,026,672
GCN (Jet): 1,487,732
GCN (Platinum): 321,352
GCN (Indigo): 1,181,624


- February 2003 -

PS2: 484,000 (+8% over January sales)
XBOX: 197,000 (+20%)
GCN: 164,000 (+103%)
GBA: 282,000 (+6%)

Cumulative Installed Base
PS2: 16,802,000
XBOX: 4,962,000
GCN: 3,828,000
GBA: 12,441,000


- March 2003 -




- April 2003 -




- May 2003 -

PS2: 288,127
Xbox: 123,614
GCN: 84,408
GBA: 402,662

Cumulative Installed Base
PS2: 17,735,608
XBox: 5,378,727
GCN: 4,179,083
GBA: 14,124,184


- June 2003 -




- July 2003 -




- August 2003 -




- September 2003 -

PS2: 334,000
Xbox: 172,000
GCN: 165,000
GBA: 410,000

Cumulative Installed Base
PS2: 19,139,000
Xbox: 6,002,000
GCN: 4,695,000
GBA: 15,909,000

Tie Ratios
PS2: 7.19
Xbox: 5.91
GCN: 5.79
GBA: 3.18


- October 2003 -

PS2: 300,000 [-10% over September sales]
Xbox: 176,000 [+3%]
GCN: 254,000 [+54%]
GBA: 401,000 [-2%]

Cumulative guess?
PS2: 19,439,000
XBox: 6,178,000
GCN: 4,949,000
GBA: 16,310,000


- November 2003 -

GCN - 1,325,108
PS2 - 1,123,167
Xbox - 775,897
GBA - 2,124,690

...or maybe:
PS2 832,000
GCN 748,800
Xbox 491,400

(the math looks to support the second set more)

Backwards cumulative guess?
PS2: 20,318,000
XBox: 6,711,000
GCN: 5,705,000
GBA: 17,689,000


- December 2003 -

PS2: 1,940,000
GCN: 1,160,000
XBox: 1,080,000
GBA-SP: 2,260,000
N-Gage: 15,000

Backwards cumulative guess?
PS2: 22,258,000
XBox: 7,791,000
GCN: 6,865,000
GBA: 19,949,000


- January 2004 -

PS2: 338,000
Xbox: 192,000
GCN: 131,000
GBA: 299,000

Cumulative Installed Base
PS2 - 22,596,000
XBox - 7,983,000
GCN - 6,996,000
GBA - 20,248,000


- February 2004 -

PS2: 363,000 [+7% over January sales]
Xbox: 204,000 [+6%]
GCN: 137,000 [+5%]
GBA: 353,000 [+18%]

Cumulative Installed Base
PS2: 22,958,000
Xbox: 8,187,000
GCN: 7,133,000
GBA: 20,601,000

Tie Ratios
PS2: 8.10
Xbox: 6.58
GCN: 6.09
GBA: 3.42


- March -
PS2: 294,437
Xbox: 198,445
GCN: 163,028
GBA: 496,614


- April -
PS2: 188,669
Xbox: 297,351
GCN: 96,050
GBA: 292,570


- May -

PS2: 253,454
Xbox: 216,997
GCN: 77,827

Cumulative Installed Base
PS2: 23,602,719
Xbox: 8,817,578
GCN: 7,464,696

Tie Ratios
PS2: 8.4
Xbox: 6.8
GCN: 6.4


- June -

PS2: 427,000
Xbox: 262,000
GCN: 109,000
GBA: 521,000

Tie Ratios
PS2: 8.43
Xbox: 6.88
GCN: 6.55
GBA: 3.60


- July -

PS2 - 290,000
XBOX - 245,000
GAMECUBE - 93,000
GBA - 400,000

or maybe...

PS2: 305,000
Xbox: 202,000
GCN: 93,000
GBA: 395,000

Cumulative Installed Base
PS2: 24,433,000
Xbox: 9,367,000
GCN: 7,672,000
GBA: 22,579,000

LTD Tie Ratios
PS2: 8.52
Xbox: 7.01
GCN: 6.68
GBA: 3.67


- August -
PS2: 211,690
Xbox: 216,911
GCN: 108,953
GBA: 312,568


- September -
PS2: 253,295
Xbox: 265,067
GCN: 114,789
GBA: 527,133


- October -
PS2: 289,000
Xbox: 217,000
GCN: 110,000
GBA: 464,000


- November -
PS2: 694,000
Xbox: 708,000
NGC: 350,000
GBA: 1,100,000
NDS: 479,000

- December -
   

59

Nintendo Gaming / Pokemon R/S: Infinite Jurachi trick?

« on: March 01, 2004, 12:47:27 PM »

I don't have Pokemon R/S or the bonus disc that can give you a free Jurachi to test this, but I just thought up this trick, and if I'm right, it should work.

The bonus disc can give one, and only one, free Jurachi to any Pokemon R/S cart you hook it up to, at the same time as it gives you a fix for the one-year-bug that stops time-based events from happening one year after the cart was assembled, right?

The bonus disc knows if you've already gotten a free Jurachi, even if you trade it away, or start a new savegame, because your bug is still fixed.

But IIRC, there was a low-tech way around the bug.

If you got a gamebit screwdriver, opened the cart, removed the battery for a few seconds (making sure to trade your Pokemon off first), and then put the battery back in, the cart would be reset to it's original factory specs, and you'd be able to ward off the bug for a full year.

So, you can fix your cart and get a free Jurachi. Trade him off, remove the battery, and let your cart reset itself. Fix the cart again, and you can most likely get another free Jurachi. Trade him off again, and continue the process for as many free Jurachi as you'd like.

Should work, no?

[could]

60

Nintendo Gaming / Transferring save files... with carts.

« on: February 23, 2004, 06:38:23 PM »

My older brother (who moved out and lives elsewhere) was playing my younger brother's copy of Metroid Zero Mission earlier, and totally got hooked.

After a number of hours, he said "Crap, I really need to stop playing this. Because I really need to go get my own copy of it now. And I'm gonna be stuck replaying all these first levels again if I keep on going further."

Then he thought of something. "Hey, GBA games are all designed to link together, and you can play multiplayer games with only one cart, and stuff like that, right? So can you link two GameBoys together, and copy save files back and forth between them? Like, they always give you a number of save slots, and an option to copy one of them to another spot. If you linked the games, would it let you access the other game's save files? Then I wouldn't need to worry about whose cart is whose."

As an educated guess, I'd say that nobody is doing that. Although I suppose it could be done, if someone wanted.

So, why isn't it being done? Do you think they should make games that can do that?

I figured I'd ask this in this board, as a kind of "technology idea" for any possible cart-based future systems, but it could probably be implemented right away, on the GBA.

61

General Gaming / Roms MIGHT be slightly legal now... maybe...

« on: November 10, 2003, 02:09:18 AM »

Here's hoping I don't get booted for even bringing this up. But I think it looks interesting.

Apparently "circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works" is normally illegal, but the government just came up with some special exceptions that don't qualify for legal protection. One of them looks interesting.

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/

Quote
(3) Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.

I think basically it means that if the hardware needed to play your game isn't being made anymore, you're legally allowed to try and circumvent the technological measures that control access to your game, so you can play it on something else.

Like, they don't make TurboGrafx CD units anymore, so you're allowed to find ways to play your TGCD games on your computer.

I guess it depends on "interperetation", but I think it might apply to something like SNES games. Since new SNES units aren't being made anymore, and our units might kick the bucket any day now, and any preowned replacement units we buy might not be any more reliable (just pretend I'm not talking about Nintendo here ^_^;; ), we might be legally allowed to use something like an SNES game copier to upload our games to our PC's, so we can play them as ROMs.

I should probably point out that it doesn't look like anyone's allowed now to distribute ROMs or CD images to people over the internet because of this. You have to own your own game. And create the ROM by yourself.

But to some level, ROMs might be allowed to exist. And of course, once you have the games in ROM form, you can do stuff like add translation patches to them (like how you're allowed to use Game Genies and GameSharks). That's the part that interests me. It may now be legally possible to play Dragon Quest 5&6 in English. Just import the Japanese versions, and get yourself a Game Copier. Maybe. I think.


Does anyone else who maybe knows more about the law have any thoughts on this?  

62

NWR Feedback / Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide: Stairway to the Destined Duel Review

« on: July 21, 2003, 02:41:42 PM »

Hmm, well, the #1 thing I have to say about the review would be that you reviewed the wrong game.

"Stairway to the Destined Duel" is the GBA game that came after "Eternal Duelist Soul". They are the best Yu-Gi-Oh games made to date (or so I've heard, but I haven't played all of them). But Stairway is like the sequel to Eternal, and nobody should have to just jump into Stairway. Konami should really do more to illustrate that, but then again, they want people to stupidly buy games like "Dungeon Dice Monsters", "Dark Duel Stories", and "Duelists of the Roses". Of course, Nintendo never stopped anyone from picking up "Hey You Pikachu" when they could've gotten "Pokemon Yellow".

Anyways, "Eternal Duelist Soul" is a much better game for a beginner. Even one who's watched the anime a lot (since the anime often uses various "customized" rules, to put it mildly). The game starts you off with weak cards, and all your opponents have weak cards too, and you learn the basics that way. As you get better monsters you can add them to your deck. You get to see how they work, and you learn about them, one at a time. If you cheated, and just tossed a few Blue Eyes White Dragons into your deck at the start of the game (you can do that, with passwords), you would completely wreck the balance of your deck, and probably not be able to play those cards.

If you can, please put down Stairway and try to find Eternal. Play Eternal, and then go back to Stairway and do a follow-up review. Many little Yu-Gi-Oh fans will probably thank you for it.

Just a warning though. When Konami made Eternal, they focused entirely on the card game. Which is apparently why they got it right, and why people consider this to be one of the best Yu-Gi-Oh games. The complaints you had about stuff like "story presentation" are even more pronounced in this game (they were already Eternal complaints that Konami slightly addressed for Stairway). But the game being more playable will probably make up for them. I mean yeah, when someone pulls out a terrain modifier card, it doesn't look like much (brick background changes to something like sand), but you're more supposed to be awed by the devestating effect it can have on your well-laid plans.


Oh and, here's a little bit about the anime. I've heard Yu-Gi-Oh described as having part of the "Incredible Hulk effect", for adolescents. A little kid (Yugi Moto) gets possesed by the spirit of an ancient Egyptian Pharoah (known as "Yami Yugi", or "Dark Yugi") which was trapped inside a puzzle, who's a master gambler (or more precicely "King of Games"), and makes Yugi taller, stronger, oozing with confidence and power, and able to speak with an over-the-top elequence in a much lower voice.

In the anime world, the cards of the "Duel Monsters" game were recreated as vessels for the souls of giant monsters that once served people like the spirit of the puzzle. As a result, some duels are infused with magical powers.

So Yugi and his friends spend most of their time in tournaments, defending the world in ways they don't entirely understand, in over-the-top card matches where they end up drawing cards in combinations that are seemingly impossible.

At first I thought the anime was utter crap. Just a 30 minute advertisement to sell cards to kids. But a friend of mine told me that if I really gave it a chance, it'd grow on me. It was on before DragonBall Z (in Canada), so I ended up watching it a fair bit. And it really did grow on me. Right now, I'd actually say it beats Pokemon and Digimon. And that's before you factor in that I'm kind of tired of those two. If you can appreciate the style and escalating power levels of a show like DBZ, then I'd say the Yu-Gi-Oh anime is a good match.

63

NWR Feedback / Free Avatar Picture Host

« on: May 02, 2003, 09:18:59 PM »

I put my own Avatar picture up on the webspace that came with my brother's ISP, but for all of you who don't have your own webspace and have been asking if anyone can host these pics for free, I did a little bit of search-engine legwork for you.

www.sigup.com

Apparently you can upload one single picture to them, as long as it's smaller than 300k (which is good because PGC doesn't want anyone using anything bigger than 20k anyways) and use it as a message board avatar, for free.

I make no promises about how good they are. I don't even use them. I only just heard about them two minutes ago. But, I guess this is a good place to start looking. If anyone knows of anything better, feel free to mention it.

64

General Gaming / Another XBox price cut in the UK

« on: April 10, 2003, 12:05:20 PM »

From Computerandvideogames.com.

After another €50 drop, it's now €199.99 (or £129.99), which is the same as the GameCube's (official) European price.

It's obviously in response to European retailers forcing Nintendo's hand and giving the GameCube it's first price cut since it's launch (it did have one before the launch though), and seeing GameCube sales leap out ahead of even the PS2.

It's really a far cry from the XBox's €480 (£300) launch price. And it comes with free stuff too.

65

Nintendo Gaming / Square/EA is gone now.

« on: February 20, 2003, 02:10:49 AM »

I called this one on the same day that the news of the Square/Enix merger hit the net.

They were saying that the Square/Enix merger would help them compete with companies like EA in particular, but I didn't see how that would've been possible if they were still linked to EA.


http://cube.ign.com/articles/386/386607p1.html

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870,2911168,00.html


It doesn't really make sense to me that Enix of America was dissolved to go join the half-dozen people who make up "Square of America" as they move out of their EA offices.

I mean, Enix was saying they wanted Square's "North American strength", but all Square had was EA (and Eidos before that, and Sony before that). Enix at least had an intact company. All Square has is their name. They could have just changed the sign of Enix of America easily enough. But no, they have to try and move an entire company from Seattle to Los Angeles and accidentally lose 1/4 of their personell to companies like Microsoft (and hopefully NOA) because they like Seattle and don't want to move.


Anyways... I figure this HAS to impact any Square games coming out in America for the next while. PS2 owning RPG fans are probably gonna feel it (if they haven't already *looks at FF11*). Nintendo might be lucky because FF:CC and FFTA are published by Nintendo in Japan. It increases the chances that NOA might publish them in the US. Of course, if NOA doesn't pick them up, we might be screwed too.