Tokyo Game Show! Obviously, by far the biggest event since the last issue of the MGT Report has been the Tokyo Game Show, which was set in the massive Makuhari Messe exhibition hall just outside the city. I was fortunate enough to attend the TGS, along with about 160,000 other lucky visitors, so I can give you a first-hand account of what went on there.

Dreamcast Dying Gloriously? It appears, sadly, that Dreamcast is dying a sales-death in Japan right now. Quite apart from the poor Dreamcast showing in the charts, conclusive proof of the system’s poor sales came as we were shown round an Akihabara electronics retailer. The merchant indicated that since the Playstation 2 announcement, sales have been way down and the Dreamcast is practically being ignored. European and US publishers had already backed away from developing for the Dreamcast format. Now even Japanese publishers seem to be getting cold feet.

Yet, at the show in Tokyo, it was Dreamcast that had the lion’s share of quality products. If it weren't for the Playstation 2 announcement, Sega would be streaking ahead by now — it appears that Sony executed its strategic announcement with perfect timing.

Nevertheless, here are details regarding some Dreamcast titles that really stood out at this year’s TGS.

Shen Mue Serendipity. Sega's own Shen Mue is an obvious place to start — there were playable terminals all the way around the Sega booth. The game really looked astounding, with perhaps the best graphics quality and detail of any console game to date. The game play is still a little puzzling — the parts where the player has to press buttons Dragon's Lair-style are excellent fun, but don't hold much long-lasting value. Plenty of other areas of the game offer exploring and fighting, though, and the RPG element will keep people playing.

There are also straight-ahead battle modes as part of the game, separate from the story mode, with the fighting playing somewhat like Sega's own Spike Out or the force mode of Tekken 3. These are, at least graphically, way ahead. The whole title still feels a little weird to me, though — if you consider how leftfield Nights was and the fact that Sonic Adventure wasn't quite there, I don't think success is guaranteed. But, looking out of this world, and with a very strong story-line, it's bound to be a massive hit.

A final note — the game, much like the Saturn Shining Force titles, will be coming out in parts. The first part, Shen Mue Chapter 1 : Yokosuka, is out August 5th in Japan and will be extremely cheap at 2800¥ (£14, $20). This is a little unexpected, but the low price point can only help the game sell more.

Other Dreamcast Hits. Namco's Soulcalibur, the sequel to Soul Edge, was shown on DC for the first time, and it looked frankly phenomenal. Namco seem to have dipped their toes into Sega water with a relatively minor product compared to the rumored Tekken’s of this world (which will now clearly come on Playstation 2), but nonetheless it's a real killer app. Personally, I find the weapon-based Namco fighters a little lacking in subtlety for my tastes, but I'll still be buying Soulcalibur the second it arrives in Japan — and I think that's a major recommendation.

The other obvious draw, and confirmed alongside Soulcalibur as one of the launch titles in the States, is Capcom's Power Stone. Since it's already released in Japan, it only had a presence on Capcom's booth, but the crowds of people playing it stood testament to the fact that it really is one of the best fighting games ever, and a brilliant twist on the genre. An anime series featuring the Power Stone characters has just started in Japan, so the cross-media pollination that Capcom has worked so well in the past is continuing.

But quite apart from this, Sega's booth had a healthy chunk of classy product. Marvel Vs. Capcom and King Of Fighters Dream Match 1999 are both much more suited to the Japanese market, but are nevertheless brilliant 2D fighting titles in their own right. Get Bass may be Japan-centric, but it's got amazing graphics and the fishing controller is sturdy and addictive. Blue Stinger looked competitive but was no world-beater, unfortunately, with the 3D camera being an issue. But there were some surprise titles that more than made up for this. Frame Gride from From Software is a beautiful-looking mecha shooter in the style of Virtua On and looks ridiculously slick. Cool Boarders DC looked pretty majestic, too.

However relentlessly upbeat you get about this line-up, though, you can't help but notice what's missing. No support from Square, still relatively minor support from Namco, some support from Konami but no major titles (Konami has hinted that it’s very disappointed with sales of their only Dreamcast title so far, Pop N' Music), and just not the volume of quality product that Playstation 2 will doubtless have. Sega is still making the wrong moves with regard to some internal product, too — why on earth is the company converting Dynamite Deka 2 (Die Hard Arcade 2), a pretty marginal arcade shooter, when it hasn’t gotten round to releasing a single quality arcade racer? This is tactically weak on Sega’s part. Let's hope the company gets more good internal titles together for later this year — Virtual On 2 is rumored, for one.

Playstation TGS Highlights? Although the Playstation is clearly ending its reign, quality products existed for it at the TGS.

The Majesty Of Square. For one, Square's booth had a wealth of classy Playstation product. Front Mission 3 made a surprise appearance, and looked gorgeous in the 3D mecha RPG style — it may not be a strong contender for translation, though, and Square is notoriously selective about what actually gets released outside Japan. Racing Lagoon was also on display, and looks similar to Gran Turismo but with an RPG element. Perhaps not genre-busting, but certainly excellent fun. There were also a couple of gorgeous-looking RPGs in the 2D style, especially Legend of Mana, the 4th in the Mana series and featuring some of the best 3D effects I've ever seen on the Playstation within the 2D-based battles.

Other Top PSX Titles? Sony's booth had a relatively small amount of product ensconced within it, but the absolutely insane Unjammer Lamy (Parappa The Rapper II) was the center of attention, and there was a whole stage-show featuring the title. Also featured was the Japanese version of Spyro The Dragon and a new Polyphony (Gran Turismo) mecha product called Omega Boost, out in May. It looks very promising indeed.

The Namco booth was noticeably centered around Ace Combat 3, which was looking very good indeed, and is out in Japan around now. The Japanese seem a lot happier with console flight games than the West often is, for some reason.

Konami had its whole range of Bemani, Beatmania-related music games, on show and drew massive crowds. The stand-out title was Dance Dance Revolution, which is out on April 10th alongside a Playstation controller where the player can stamp on pads to control the dancer onscreen. The skill of some of the players of this title in Tokyo arcades has to be seen to be believed, and it'll be interesting to see whether Konami tries to repackage the Bemani range for outside Japan or just leave it as a niche.

There were a number of other reasonably classy titles at the show, particularly Capcom showing part of Dino Crisis on video and revealing a sequel to Rival Schools.

Handheld Wars? Finally, a brief comment on the handheld wars. Clearly, as Nintendo didn't bother turning up at all for TGS, it was more difficult to make a comparison, but I'd say that all three leading handhelds (Bandai Wonderswan, SNK NeoGeo Pocket Colour, Nintendo Gameboy Color) are actually flourishing.

The Wonderswan is benefiting greatly from a very low price point (4800¥, £25, $40 for the handheld itself) and some great licensing, including a Tekken card game forthcoming from Namco and a number of Square titles, among others. Obviously, Bandai has a lot of muscle, and even with the problem of the Wonderswan only being black and white, the software seems to be scything them into competition, at least in Japan. It may not be possible for the Wonderswan to do similarly well outside of Japan, however.

The NeoGeo Pocket Color is looking better and better, and with SNK's 2D fighters so popular in Japan, I think this handheld may be a major contender alongside the Gameboy (interestingly, SNK is running quite an aggressive marketing campaign with the slogan "I'm no boy", attacking Nintendo's kiddie-orientated marketing.) Funky color-schemes, including camouflage (!), also make this a much more fashionable handheld, and with the SNK vs. Capcom card game and a fighting game also on the horizon, SNK has done very well indeed.

The Gameboy Color, meanwhile, keeps trucking on as the originator of this whole movement. If Pokemon and similar collecting/card games hadn't been so successful, then SNK and Bandai probably wouldn't have bothered coming along to challenge, and so the franchises already set up will continue on for the foreseeable future. Nintendo also has by far the most third-party support, with plenty of games being released in Europe and America as well as many developers in Japan. So the Gameboy still has the advantage. But can the company keep it? I suspect so, but the market is going to be getting much more competitive in the future.

Also, Beat Mania makes a very serviceable conversion to Gameboy — it's surprising how funky Gameboy beats can sound. No, really! And Final Fantasy VIII still hangs in there, now with way over 3 million copies. Not bad for a franchise that goes on and on and on and on.

Finally, the bottom of the chart shows a couple of surprises, with Codemasters' British hit Colin McRae Rally turning up at No.9 with a respectable 30,000 sales in its first week, and also the first Wonderswan sighting — Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon on the handheld has now sold 130,000, half as many as Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast!

Until next time..

[Special thanks this issue to the British Government and Department of Trade and Industry for organizing the trade mission to Japan, and special thanks to my employers Kuju Entertainment for letting me tag along!]