News Analysis

Mecha Godzilla Tokyo Report

Sneaky Nintendo?

Nintendo Mobile Phone "Leak." Bandai Spoiler?

The latest in network adaptation. Brought to you by Nintendo and Bandai.

In the last issue of the MGT Report, we saw Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi mention in an investors meeting (and in a separate interview to a business publication) that Nintendo was developing a link to mobile phones that allowed players to download games and play games off a network. There've been further developments. However, official spokespeople say there has been no formal announcement. So what’s going on?

(To clarify: the announcement was that Game Boy games could be downloaded and played via a mobile phone, not that a mobile phone could play Game Boy games, as I’ve seen a couple of publications misreport.)

So, five days after the Nintendo announcement, Bandai announced a near-identical system for the Wonderswan, including screenshots and more detailed specifications. The Bandai system is called the Wondergate and there will be an adapter and a cartridge which allows Internet connection and e-mailing, as well as the downloading of mini-games and, presumably, the ability to play network games.

So, my point is? Well, I think Nintendo’s announcement was another example of the company's cunning spoiler tactics, like the Dolphin announcement so close to the Playstation 2 announcement. Nintendo knew that the Bandai announcement was imminent so it "leaked" the info about its own network adaptation plans. Cheeky, but you’ve got to hand it to them. Incidentally, the Bandai Wondergate is tentatively announced to launch this December. There’s no date on the Game Boy network add-ons yet.

Square Update.

Since the last issue of the MGT Report, Square has held a shareholder conference, which detailed many intriguing developments. First, the company said that it would release 12 Playstation titles in the year to March 2000. According to Magic Box, some of the upcoming titles included Legend Of Mana, Dew Prism, Front Mission 3, Parasite Eve 2, and rumored titles include Final Fantasy IX and Chrono Trigger 2. The company is aiming to sell 6.7 million games this year (compared to 6.2 million last year.) An impressive figure, considering that’s averaging half a million copies a title. It’s a shame more games aren’t converted for the West, - probably only four or five of those 12 at will appear outside Japan. But with the advent of Playstation 2 and Square's heavy involvement, who would bet against the company's success?

In a related note: a Square game to watch for this autumn may be Vagrant Story. Newly announced from some of the team behind Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story is a move towards a fully polygonal Metal Gear Solid-style game, with battle sequences in the semi-real-time mode used by Parasite Eve. This battle system may be a little staid for Western audiences, but the graphics and possibly suspense values look pretty smart. Plus, you can combine weapon parts to make many different weapons, which is a great concept.

Sega Online. Pay-Per-Play?

Interestingly, Sega Japan has announced a scheme whereby players of Make Your Own Professional Baseball Game can play games against people across the network. This will only cost ¥50 per play, (£0.25, $0.40), and forthcoming titles, such as Sega’s literally-named Make Your Own J-League Pro Soccer Team, will also use this system. In the West, games such as Ultima Online have shown that letting people pay for network privileges is the way to making some serious profits. So, it looks like Sega is following suit. As long as Sega’s game-matching services are professional enough, I’m sure people won’t mind shelling out to play.

Other News

Pacman will be coming to the Wonderswan.

Namco will be releasing a Wonderswan version of Pacman this August. Woohoo! Pac is back yet again, and it’s another significant coup for Bandai.

Some more confirmations about which Nintendo games will be arriving on N64 and which on N64DD. Super Mario Adventure (formerly Super Mario RPG 2) and, surprisingly, Mother 3 will both be arriving on the N64, not the 64DD. With Zelda Gaiden already designated as an N64-exclusive game, the 64DD looks even more bereft of titles.

Capcom has announced the number of Resident Evil titles it expects to ship in Japan, and the figure is quite revealing about the userbase in the East. The company expects to do over 1 million units of Biohazard 3 on Playstation in Japan, but only 500,000 of the N64 Biohazard 2, and, amazingly, only 400,000 of Biohazard: Code Veronica on Dreamcast. My, oh my.

Konami’s sequel to its massively-selling hit, Duel Monsters, is out this week in Japan. With the original a million-seller, the sequel will probably do as well with its Pokemon-style collection gameplay.

Japanese Top Ten Titles (for the week ending June 20th)

Vive la difference! A number of new titles enter the Top 10. Camelot/Nintendo's Mario Golf 64 ensures that there's a new Mario-related title to feast on. It's doing exceptionally well, too. It's sold more than double the second-placed title this week, and has already topped a quarter of a million sales in less than a month.

There're some more unexpected titles hanging around, too. From Software, the company responsible for the forthcoming mech-blaster Frame Grid on Dreamcast, as well as the rather cool Armored Core series on Playstation, has launched the action title Spriggan Lunar Verse up to 2nd place. It looks to be a rather cool 3rd-person title in a vaguely MDK idiom, too. The game hasn’t found much interest in the West yet, so maybe it’s time it got some?

The bizarrely-named Sony RPG Exceed My Corpse pops into 3rd place, with some beautiful hand-drawn backdrops and a setting in ancient Japan. It's probably not a candidate for Western release. Further down the list, Square's racing RPG, Racing Lagoon, was reviewed disappointingly by Famitsu. Even so, it's still notching up regular sales, already topping 100,000.

Namco's Ace Combat 3, is still going strong, and is likely to be in the charts for a fair few weeks to come. I had a chance to check it out recently and it’s ridiculously high-quality. The planes are beautifully designed futuristic behemoths, and the plot and special effects are out of this world (you even go literally out of this world at one point!) It’s unfortunate that this particular genre isn’t quite so mainstream outside Japan, otherwise Namco would have an RR4- size hit on its hands.

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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