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News from Tokyo via Los Angeles? This time around, paradoxically, it's Los Angeles and E3 which have provided many of the answers regarding upcoming developments in Japan, as much of the world's videogame industry decamped to the West Coast of America to take in the sea breeze (and perhaps wander over to the Playboy Mansion for afternoon tea). Having a full report on E3 in a Japanese gaming column makes little sense, but a brief look at some of the previously unannounced systems and titles which come from Japan seems a-ok. Dolphin Makes A Splash
I'm sure all of you have seen the announcement, and it was made in America, not Japan, so I'll spare you the details, but a point to remark on is that Nintendo's secrecy is astounding. Even Edge magazine's highly trumpeted 'factual investigation' seems to have wrongly leaked the release date of any next-generation Nintendo console as the end of 2001, and rumors coming out of Nintendo's Osaka HQ are just about non-existent — unlike the vast majority of game companies, nobody even knows what's in development there right now! Another example of Nintendo’s secrecy is Ridge Racer 64 ‘s sudden appearance on the release schedules for E3 — we all thought it pretty strange that it had never even been heard of before, and of course, it turns out there's a new internal Nintendo team working on the title (it's not being developed by Namco.) So there's where the lack of information came from! A final piece of conspiracy theory — what if Edge’s end of 2001 date is largely correct for the Dolphin’s release? I mean, it's clear that the announcement of the next-generation Nintendo machine was largely spoiling tactics, and the N64 was noticeably on the tardy side. It's entirely possible that Nintendo has no intention at all of releasing the console at the end of next year. Nintendo hasn't had an N64 product showcase for such a long time because its Spaceworld show in Japan has been so continually postponed. Particularly exciting upcoming Japanese N64 titles shown at E3 included Kirby 64 (originally shown at the launch of the N64, the game has now totally changed — it's a side-scrolling 3D action platformmer now), and Excitebike 64 (wow! One of Miyamoto's best from the NES comes back in style with 3D and a comprehensive track editor). Capcom Insights Back to Japan, then. Magic Box has reprinted the salient details of a particularly interesting interview with Capcom in the Japanese press which investigates a number of the unclear details of forthcoming titles. This, coupled with comments reported at E3, gives a much clearer picture of a lot of forthcoming Capcom releases.
The most unexpected, if peripheral, news is that Final Fight Revenge will be out very shortly in the arcades, but on the ST-V board (basically a Saturn, as used for Sega's two Hypersport-style games, Athlete Kings and Winter Heat). This technology is obviously way out of date, and apparently the project was started three or four years ago. Ouch. I hope the result is at least competitive — it'll be a rare title, at least, because the likelihood of conversion to the Saturn is low this late in the console's life, despite the fact that the conversion would be very easy. Otherwise, a Gameboy Color version of Magical Tetris Featuring Mickey is confirmed, which is rather cool, although obviously the definite version of Tetris already exists for the handheld. And Capcom seems to say in the interview that it’s working with Nintendo on software for Gameboy Color 2, which will be out sometime in the year 2000 and feature many more colors and a TFT screen. Although this was mentioned vaguely in the Edge/Next Generation Nintendo article, this is the first more concrete suggestion I've seen. Interesting, nonetheless. Other News Sony has confirmed Wild Arms 2: Second Ignition, the sequel to the former Japanese and US No.1 hit (which strangely failed to make an impact in Europe), is now due this Autumn on two CDs. The game is now completely 3D, and the battle sequences are graphically enhanced and improved, making this a serious contender for Square, the undisputed heavyweight champion of Playstation RPGs. Tecmo has spoken a little more about Dead Or Alive 2, but there are still no confirmed release dates, with the arcade version reaching Japan in late summer and a Dreamcast version out in autumn in the East. A Tecmo spokesman did insist a US version of DC Dead Or Alive 2 would be out by Christmas, though,which adds to the raft of excellent software which may make the Dreamcast slightly less of a flop than most people thought on its launch in America and Europe. Also, Polyphony's Gran Turismo 2 is indeed not coming out in May, as I recently saw on a release list. I suspect that was an old release date that has long since been rescheduled. The latest rumors are that there are some minor technical difficulties and that the previous release date of summer has slipped back to September in Japan. Yikes, don't Daikatana us into submission, Polyphony! Some handheld sales news. Bandai has already sold 650,000 Wonderswans in Japan, including 400,000 in the first month. But Nintendo has sold six million Gameboys this year, admittedly worldwide — but that's a massive amount. The Neo-Geo Pocket looks certain to have a low-key launch in America and Europe now, and this won't help its disadvantaged position
. Japanese Top Ten (week ending May 9th)
Comments on this week's Top Ten? Well, four Nintendo titles in the top six shows that the company is still dangerously potent in the East — the fact that three of these titles are Pokemon-related does nothing to change the fact that Pokemon was a quality franchise created by Nintendo, and all the games are top-notch. Most of the usual suspects round out the chart, and it's nice to see Omega Boost still in there despite the lack of a license — but the game has only shipped 120,000 copies so far, and needs to go further to keep up with most of the other total chart sales. Dancing/music, budget, and sports games are the other perennials. Simon Carless is a game designer/project director at a UK games developer. His game credits include design on PC and Playstation titles for (amongst others) Eidos and GT Interactive. He can be contacted at h0l@mono211.com. Simon would like to thank Magic Box, Re:Tokyo, Gamespot, FGNOnline, Core Magazine, and his other Japanese sources for the information that helps to write this column. |
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News
Analysis 
Naturally,
it was the scarily secretive 
The
basic strategy that Capcom outlined was a move from arcade titles to consoles,
as the arcade market seems so weak recently. The company will continue
to produce 2D titles on its old but effective CPS-2 and CPS-3 hardware,
though, and it has a range of new technologies for 3D titles. Strider
2 apparently is running on the Playstation-related System 11 hardware,
whereas Spawn, seen briefly at E3, is an Ehrgeiz-style freeform
3D fighter running on Naomi.
