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Kanji, Kan You? Tokyo Game Show - Sega Suckers Sony The biggest story of this particular report is the latest of the twice-a-year Tokyo Game Shows, which started on March 31st. The story of the show, at least from a Western perspective, was the relative impressiveness of the Sega booth over Sony's meager offerings. Although it can definitely be argued that this was a tactical move by Sony, I think it comes down to the fact that they weren't really pushing, since.. they don't need to. With the PS2 already successfully launched, they had no need to show all their just-started PS2 titles which may be in a state of roughness. Also, they may be trying to emphasize their own shows, such as the Playstation Festival, and get away a little from the multi-format shows like TGS (they didn't even show titles such as Gran Turismo 2000 properly, which had been shown at the PS Fest.) Sony - All Quiet On The Eastern Front.
For the record, Sony showed Fantavision, IQ Remix, and (for its biggest push) TV-DJ, the 'Parappa'-esque videoclip-splicing game that seems a little 'simplistic' to Western eyes. It's also true that Western journalists may have been jaundiced by the big PS1 push given to Spyro 2, which hasn't been released in Japan yet -- there's nothing worse than going to Japan for the hot new import releases and seeing something showcased that you've already bought and completed in the States! Sega - Guns A-Blazin' So, as you may have gathered from the title of this section, Sega really showed off the best collection of games at the show. From the playable and extremely fun-looking Jet Set Radio (great pseudo-cel shading!), through Grandia II, which now looks to be almost as eagerly-awaited an RPG as Final Fantasy IX, through Eternal Arcadia and Phantasy Star Online, both looking gorgeous, Sega showed an impressive batch of games. Also worth noting were more good, mass-market network games which will be invaluable when the free Dreamcast offer starts to kick in towards the end of this year, since attracting non-traditional gamers will be vital. Dee Dee Planet (a bit Worms meets Scorched Planet-ish) and an excellent version of Tetris both showed. But as always, much like Nintendo, Sega lack the depth of third-party software titles that PS2, like the Playstation, will . Nonetheless, it was a good, even great showing. Square - It's Not Hip To Be?
Then again,
you can argue that the press attention mainly focused on Sega because
a lot of the other companies decided to focus on the products they had
that were out in the coming weeks, as opposed to months. Square hardly
even showed in-game footage of Final Fantasy IX, or indeed Bouncer.
They preferred to stick to already announced PS2 titles like their wrestling
and baseball games, neither of which got particularly complimentary comments
from Western journalists. Square also showcased the now-released and apparently
dodgy-controlling Driving Emotion Type S, but a lot of time was
spent just tittle-tattling about the states of their unshown products
(sure, Namco - PS2 Launch Titles Leave Them Spent?
There was a similar no-show of any new PS2 stuff from Namco -- unsurprising, perhaps, since it's too early after all their effort into completing Tekken Tag Tournament and Ridge Racer 5. But again, for those who'd trekked thousands of miles to catch the action, a wacky PS1 Point Blank-style gun title (Oh! Bakyuuun) seems scant reward. Well, ok, that's not strictly true - they also showcased Tales Of Eternia, which looks like a sound Playstation 1 RPG, but other than that, unless cute puzzle games called Mr Driller are your bag, baby -- not much to speak of. Konami - Kojima + Bemani = $$ Still, the other major players showed some interesting things. Names to watch for? On the Konami stand, Z.O.E. for PS2 was obviously very early, but with Hideo Kojima trailed as a name behind it, you know you'd better stand up and take notice. The demos made the game seem very mech-action styled, but if there's really RPG elements too, as the press suggested, then we could be in for a real treat. Shame giant robots aren't quite as sexy as stealthy ninjas in the West, mind you. Needless to say, the rest of the giant Konami stand was very Bemani-orientated, with their giant music game franchise continuing to provide them significant sales for multiple iterations of the same title with very little software change, surely a dream situation for any publisher. Keyboardmania and a BeatMania (with more buttons!) title were both confirmed for PS2, though, meaning the true Bemani-freak will be spending literally hundreds of dollars in custom peripherals over the next few months. Capcom - Marvel, Stone, Scissors! A reasonably
strong showing from Capcom included more information on the eagerly awaited
PS2 title Onimusha, which they're now broadly hinting may be delayed
from this summer towards autumn (or even further?). Oh, and if you've
seen some people postulating that over 200 people are working on Other News Sega of Japan have announced the Dream Library service, coming to Dreamcast owners with modems in Japan at the end of May. Through licensing with such companies as Hudson, Capcom, and Irem, you'll be able to download and play Genesis and Turbo Grafx (PC Engine) titles on your Dreamcast. They'll be kept in memory until you turn your machine off, and you can download at any time within a 2-day period in case your cat turns your DC power off during that time. With a price of only 150 yen per title, it'll be tempting to play a few classics -- let's see what the line-up is before we start drooling too uncontrollably. (Expect a similar service to this for the US Dreamcast this Autumn, incidentally - not that it's been announced, but it's a neat idea and with Sega up-playing their Net angle massively, I can't see it being ignored.) Only just reaching the online news services, apparently Nintendo have pushed back their next-gen Gameboy until next year in Japan. Meaning even later than that in the US and Europe, then. Considering the continuing spectacular sales of the Pokemon franchise on existing hardware and the lack of real competitors, it's hardly surprising. And besides, a Nintendo hardware launch on time? That just wouldn't be cricket. An amusing TGS footnote -- Bandai's "Wonderswan" had the rather cool (and potentially Star Trek-libellous?) 'Wonderborg' on show, a little beetle-shaped robot you could program with your Wonderswan. The digital age provides you with ever more sophisticated ways to scare your grandma, right? (You'd better hope she doesn't take a broom to it, though; it'll cost about 10,000 yen!)
The first thing to mention here, obviously, are the PS2 titles now starting to permeate the Top Ten, even so early in the shelf life of the console. Ridge Racer V (although only at No.5 this time round) was at No.1 the previous week and has already sold 450,000 copies. Needless to say, that's pretty impressive going. Even not entirely 'mainstream' strategy titles like Kessen (albeit with graphics showcasing the PS2) have already sold 250,000 and are still in the Top Ten. Given the trouble Sony has had with console shortages, the software sellthrough on the top games is still pretty spectacular. And it's only going to get much, much bigger. But who'd have thought, less than a month after the PS2 launch, that the two top titles in the charts would be from Nintendo?
Kirby 64 shows once again that Kirby is a massive franchise in Japan, with a gigantic 335,000 cartridges sold in the first week. Again, remembering that the Nintendo is much more of a family/kid-orientated console in Japan, even more so than in the US, perhaps, this makes more sense. There's relatively little high-profile Nintendo games out as of late, so anything good that comes out is much more likely to capture a lot of sales. It's still darned impressive, mind you. Oh, and Warioland 3 shifts 100,000 units just like that for Gameboy. Otherwise, wrestling games, basketball games (from a US developer, no less!), golf games, and that old chestnut Pokemon round out the rest of the Top Ten. Watch for the story being very different next time round, though, with PS2 Tekken Tag Tournament and PS2 Dead Or Alive 2 (which hasn't been released on Dreamcast in Japan, nor will be until Autumn) doubtless streaking to massive sales. 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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