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I'm sorry, I'm under the same opinion as IGN, that the ads cause more confusion, then the image Nintendo is trying to market through the advertising campaigns. Just take a look at how ridiculous this picture looks. It obviously doesn't look like Nintendo is aiming for the Xbox GenXer or teen. I have to say that most marketing campaigns, at least when they start out, are meant to be confusing. They are supposed to entice you with your curiosity. Let's hope Nintendo's hyped commercial changes my opinion.

IMHO, they should have marketed games themselves, not the brand.

You can't have Nintendo making money off of Mega Man or the folks at Capcom will get very angry.

Speaking of which, pick up the Mega Man 20th Anniversary disc for Gamecube this january! I think it's Mega Man 1-8 and Mega Man X 1-6 or something, all on one disc!

Wow. That was definitely an out-of-the-blue observation.

As far as I'm concerned, Marble Madness was the supreme mid-1980s arcade game. I played that game hundreds of times in high school, and won it at least a dozen times. A couple things set it apart. It had a cool 3D-style isometric viewpoint, which was done infinitely more convincingly than similar presentations like Zaxxon. Plus, given how hard you had to throw that trackball around, you could get a legitimate workout playing Marble Madness.

I think Marble Madness was sort of a smart person's Donkey Kong. It had a great subtle sense of humor, and a Steve Jobsian attention to detail. Like, fr'instance, the marble you controlled had glitter in it that would roll around as the ball rolled. And it could die in several twisted ways, from shattering to getting eaten by acid. The graphics were some of the best yet for 1980s videogames, and the music was likewise sensational.

After Marble Madness' success, a sequel was inevitable. The trouble was, some genius in marketing thought that for people to identify with our beloved marble, it had to assume human qualities. Thus, Marble Man was born.

Unfortunately, Marble Man never quite got out of testing before the crashing arcade scene made Atari withdraw it from market. I'm not sure if anyone knows where the few original ROM's are anymore. But one thing's for sure...there are thousands of Marble Maniacs out there who would buy it in a heartbeat, just to see if the original was surpassed.

One last note. The creator of Marble Madness programmed the game at the tender age of about twenty. He's since gone on to do a number of successful games, including Ratchet & Clank on the Playstation 2.

For a good review of other iRiver products, gear.ign.com reviews most of iRiver's earlier product line. They rave about the ease of use and completeness of the navigation and menu system. If their new player is anything like its predicessors, and there's no reason why they'd change a successful formula, the GUI should be the last thing people need to worry about.

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/451/451541p1.html?from int=1

Sorry about the above link. Guess it didn't like me. Here's a link to the IGN Cube story. -Trillian

Replace Dreamcast with Gamecube.

Not that I like linking to IGN, but it was the first that came up from google.

it looks to me like they're not that hard to identify (sorry, it was the first thing that came to mind)

...according to IGN.

Mentioned on the Blue's News link, but not here, since I imagine that not everyone will read all the articles. Seeing as they were all from Willits and Hollenshead's demonstrations at QuakeCon, I'm not surprised that most of the articles are similar, if not identical, in content.

Competitor? Heard of the PlayStation Portable? Sony's planning to take on the Gameboy sometime next year. They're making odd design choices, so we'll see how that goes.

Don't think they haven't thought about it.

An excerpt from the GameSpy review: "Although I was greatly looking forward to Final Fantasy X-2, I held a certain amount of apprehension because of all the changes Square was making to the game. After playing it for a spell, I needn't have worried..."

Don't like them? How about an IGN review: "Caveats aside, if Final Fantasy X-2 can manage to provide the same action, drama, and depth in its final four chapters that it did in the first, RPG nuts shouldn't have much to worry about come December..."

Still not good enough? Maybe the Gamespot review: "While we thought Final Fantasy X-2 would end up being viewed as an aberration in the Final Fantasy franchise, we're not so sure anymore."

Really, calm down. After all, you haven't actually played the game. Are ALL the reviewers wrong?

Gamespot and IGN both have had previews out for the US version of FFX-2 for weeks.

That list is wrong, since you searched by "Street Fighter". :)

It leaves out:
Marvel vs Capcom 1
Marvel vs Capcom 2
"Sammy vs Capcom" (upcoming GGXX vs Capcom game, produced by Sammy)
Capcom vs SNK
Capcom vs SNK 2
SNK vs Capcom (produced by SNK)

This list is more accurate but has too much. That being said, almost all use the SF fighting game engine. If you want JUST Street Fighter games on this list (no Darkstalkers, no Marvel-exclusive games), you'll count about 25 unique "Ken and Ryu" based arcade games (excluding the SNK-produced and Sammy-produced new Vs series games).

There was a Puzzle Fighter

here's what IGN came up with as a list of all the street fighter games.

On IGN.

As mentioned here, from IGN Wireless.

Does that mean we can finally start looking forward to some steamy action? :)

You lie! You OBVIOUSLY played Jet Set Radio Future and were inspired by it to deface property. The makers of that game should be sued! As well as anybody who makes spray paint. Those horrible horrible people, how could they support something like that.

Reuters originally reported that 80,000 figure in early August. They left off a zero. They really sold 800,000.

To quote this article: "Amusingly though, it wasn't quite as bad for Cube owners as Reuters (and subsequently most of the Western world including the surely journalistically watertight BBC) reported - with 800,000, rather than the reported figure of 80,000, Cubes shifted in the last quarter."

It amazes me how uninformed people are about the sales of the Nintendo Gamecube. I sware I think they just want to see the worst happen. Almost every article I read that says the Gamecube is in third place is referring to U.S. sales. World wide, Nintendo is selling slightly more than the XBox. But you never read about the demise of XBox.

I think the strong sales of Soul Calibur 2 on the GameCube despite the existance of an Xbox version will show third parties that GameCube titles will sell well when there is a reason to buy them. So far most of what the Xbox and GameCube get for third-party titles are warmed-over PS2 ports. Nintendo is trying to bump up the third-party exclusives because they know that people won't buy those titles in any noticable quantity because of the widely-held belief that, "the Xbox version is always better."

Or perhaps it's because there's a lack of top-notch fighting games on the Cube, while the XBox has (for example), Dead or Alive 3? What it says to me is that Cube owners want a fighting game that can hold its own and XBox owners can go elsewhere for their fighting fix. While I haven't looked, I'm sure you can get DOA3 for bargain bin prices. Take a look at 9+ ratings for the Cube on IGN. The only fighting competition is Super Smash Bros. Certainly not everyone's idea of a fighting game.

Tales of Symphonia - A full preview complements more than 20 new screens.

See here.

I suggest that games.slashdot changes the description, game sites like gametab.com are displaying this "According to a mini-interview with Valve's Gabe Newell at Nerdsahoy.com, Half-Life 2 will use a form of online product activation to prevent more than one install per copy. By Gabe Newell's own admission, it uses a system much like Windows XP..." I suggest addding "FAKE mini-interview..." and hopefully it will be changed.

So, I wonder what kind of legal action Value will take. This site just crys troll, going to the main page shows noting but this fake interview.

We need to make a game where people jump off a cliff and kill them selves
Have you ever heard of the game Lemmings??

When did America become this country of limp wristed wussies who were afraid to speak their minds because they might be sued by some big corporation? Yeah, they might sue, and you might have to defend a lawsuit if what you speak is not the truth. What one must do to speak out on any given subject, including this one, is to educate oneself!

"I think America is one of the great conformist nations of the world - maybe the world leader when it comes to conformity."
I read that in a Terry Gilliam interview, and I tend to agree with him. Americans view themselves as far more free-thinking than they are.

Ask yourself: When did you last criticize your boss? How was it recieved?
Now.. go work in a few European countries for a while and ask yourself the same questions. Those of you who have will know what he means.

I wonder how many units this acounted for. Then again maybe this acounted for some of these units as well. Buy Bush a PlayStation 2

For anyone who's looking forward to Spawn in Soul Caliber II on the XBox, or who is disapointed that Spawn isn't on the version they got, he's got his own game coming out soon. And unlike previous versions this one doesn't totally suck :) Since both Soul Caliber II and Spawn are being produced by Namco, the Soul Caliber II team helped out with the play mechanics some.

The solution is here - about halfway down the page - not a cheat but a walkthrough.(is there a difference?)
I remember taking many, many goes to get through that level but can't remember having to use the walkthrough, honest.

Personally I don't see the big whoop. Although I hope I'm still alive when the gameplay itself has graphics like that of the cinematics in these game movies. Remember the trailer at the beginning of Quake 3: Arena? I nearly shite myself a the thought of gameplay someday being that detailed and intense. Will it ever?

First of all Quake 3 was pretty good on the Dreamcast AND you could add a keyboard and mouse if you really wanted to. It also had both a modem and an ethernet adapter for multiplayer mayhem...

What do you mean by "internet games"? If you simply mean multiplayer using the internet, the the PS2 has a couple of games and Xbox has Xbox Live, where you can actually voice chat with the people you're playing with using a headset.

Oh, and I just downloaded a couple of new game modes and levels for Unreal Championship the other day on the Xbox. In MechAssault I've downloaded new levels, new units and new game modes.

What was your point again?

If I absolutely had to play using a desktop machine, I'd play using a Mac. Much less hassle getting things up and going and the "booohooo no games are coming out for the mac" is just plain wrong.

IGN: You've told us once that you think the sight of a frightened girl is one of the most beautiful images. Can you elaborate on this?

KK: I believe that human emotion is a conductive thing. We feel naturally emotionally attached to something weak such as I mentioned above. I think that the ultimate in horror is watching that weak entity, struggling against its own fear, obsessed with trying to stay alive.

Nice review, but he shouldnt show his sim card numbers in the screenshots. ;)

As a GC owner since February, I don't really understand this. This year alone, Zelda:TWW (and the OOT bonus disc), Mario Golf, F-Zero GX, and Soul Calibur 2 are all rediculously fun games. (I imported the latter two) - 2003 has been quite a good year for us GameCube owners.

While I will agree with you that by far and away, most games are bland and boring or pure shit, there are definitely some worthwhile titles out for the GC this year. The only two games I really wanted to play but ended up renting were Wario World (extremely fun, really short though) and Enter The Matrix (movie themed horseshit in a dvd-case), good rents in both cases (spent $13 instead of $100).

If Donkey Kong Racing was something you were really looking forward to, then the combo of Kirby's Air Ride and Mario Kart:Double Dash, both of which are set to hit American shores later this year, should hit the spot for your racing needs. That, or the Midway title 'Freaky Flyers', which is supposedly a good deal like Diddy Kong Racing, but without the odd (yet fun) Kong licensed characters.

Daikatana didn't do too badly on pre-orders either...

But even reusing characters is, in many ways, a cop-out. Same reason so many TV shows start with a known character from another show (you know, Joni loves Chaci (sp?) Syndrome). Perhaps it's a very novel and creative show, but the point is that people are still banking on that name recognition and brand familiarity.

To me, that's by definition not as original as creating a new game from scratch. I'll readily admit that I haven't tried Wario Ware, but just hearing Wario conjures up certain connotations -- and from the description on IGN Pocket, we do have a relatively kid-friendly, arcade action game, as random as it might be.

The bottom line is that Nintendo, even when they have something quite nearly wholly original, has to tag the game with a character simply for name recognition, aka "$$$". This is no Incredible Crisis, for better or worse.

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, what does ole johnC do from QuakeCon?

John Carmack: I thought it would be kind of neat if we took the DOOM renderer, and we had a team take previous games-don't touch the game, just revamp it graphically. Just take Quake II, and just use the DOOM engine to make brand new graphic models and everything. But don't spend time messing with the gameplay because we know that is pretty good. Just release it as Quake II Remix with brand new graphics technology and sell it at a middle-level price instead of a boutique price.

I thought that was a pretty good idea.

Super. As if updating Resident Evil for GameCube wasn't enough, now we might have the exact same freakin' gameplay from Quake 2 back again. Goldeneye, Team Fortress, Action Quake, SOCOM were all great strides over the state of current fps. Be a little adventurous! Least Carmack's fair enough that he's not looking for people to pay more than $20 or so for it.

Even if the point seems so small to you as to be useless, gaming companies simply aren't, as a whole, taking all that many risks. Perhaps the US is so steeped in capitalism that we just don't care any more, but I think the article points out fairly well that there is very little pure originality for pure originality's sake.

But even reusing characters is, in many ways, a cop-out. Same reason so many TV shows start with a known character from another show (you know, Joni loves Chaci (sp?) Syndrome). Perhaps it's a very novel and creative show, but the point is that people are still banking on that name recognition and brand familiarity.

To me, that's by definition not as original as creating a new game from scratch. I'll readily admit that I haven't tried Wario Ware, but just hearing Wario conjures up certain connotations -- and from the description on IGN Pocket, we do have a relatively kid-friendly, arcade action game, as random as it might be.

The bottom line is that Nintendo, even when they have something quite nearly wholly original, has to tag the game with a character simply for name recognition, aka "$$$". This is no Incredible Crisis, for better or worse.

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, what does ole johnC do from QuakeCon?

John Carmack: I thought it would be kind of neat if we took the DOOM renderer, and we had a team take previous games-don't touch the game, just revamp it graphically. Just take Quake II, and just use the DOOM engine to make brand new graphic models and everything. But don't spend time messing with the gameplay because we know that is pretty good. Just release it as Quake II Remix with brand new graphics technology and sell it at a middle-level price instead of a boutique price.

I thought that was a pretty good idea.

Super. As if updating Resident Evil for GameCube wasn't enough, now we might have the exact same freakin' gameplay from Quake 2 back again. Goldeneye, Team Fortress, Action Quake, SOCOM were all great strides over the state of current fps. Be a little adventurous! Least Carmack's fair enough that he's not looking for people to pay more than $20 or so for it.

Even if the point seems so small to you as to be useless, gaming companies simply aren't, as a whole, taking all that many risks. Perhaps the US is so steeped in capitalism that we just don't care any more, but I think the article points out fairly well that there is very little pure originality for pure originality's sake.

PalmExtreme

PalmExtreme

ACTUALLY, according to this link, Nintendo is going to be dropping the US price of the Gamecube to $99 by the end of September. Unfortunately, the only other place I found the info was here and there's no linkage in that "viewer mail" section to get more details. Nintendo's website was similarly not helpful at all.

Assuming the above is true, it was probably at the end of last week's news cycle and we'll probably hear more tomorrow.

Sorry for the following rant, but I've been in this industry long enough to know how it works.

First of all, saying the Xbox is the future is just fanboyism as the article totally lacks the journalism and the facts to support it.

In fact, even saying the Xbox is #2 is really the typical short-sighted american view of the market. The videogame industry is worldwide, and as such, you really need to view the market in total console and software sales. Xbox and GCN are actually exchanging #2 and #3 in total sales worldwide several times each quarter. But this is not actually the point, the point is that even if they were a solid #2, they are still a failure in terms of their own expectations.

Microsoft has made a lot of artificial gimmicks to support the Xbox in the market, and the lack of profits on the Xbox division should be enough for anybody to see that. They expected to be able to snatch most of the PS2 market within one generation and there is simply no sign of them being able to do that, even when spending billions in marketing and development, severely undercutting the price of the Xbox (losing upwards more than $150 per machine), sacrificing royalties and/or explicitely giving money to developers for exclusive games and features, or outright buying them.

I'm not saying which of the Xbox, GCN or PS2 are the most powerful, or has the best games, or yadda yadda. Pure and simple facts, see the Microsoft press releases regarding the Xbox before entering the market. You'll see that they completely ignore Nintendo, and regard Sony as their target and sole rival. The sad truth is, they are way far behind their own forecasts and they haven't captured but a tiny fraction of the supposedly huge market they would conquer in this generation. They are struggling with millions in revenue, but not a penny of profit, fighting for #2 with a company they chose to ignore.

And no, forecasts were not optimistic some long ago. It's annoying how anybody with Internet access can't even make a simple article without checking the facts.

This and this are some of the first news regarding Xbox, check that PS2 is the console mentioned as its target and Gamecube is quite simply ignored.

I ask... Is Xbox really "teh fu7ur3"? Seriously, had not Microsoft budgeted such a huge amount of money for this venture, the Xbox would never survive. And it's quite a waste of money not to be in #1 after all.

Sorry for the following rant, but I've been in this industry long enough to know how it works.

First of all, saying the Xbox is the future is just fanboyism as the article totally lacks the journalism and the facts to support it.

In fact, even saying the Xbox is #2 is really the typical short-sighted american view of the market. The videogame industry is worldwide, and as such, you really need to view the market in total console and software sales. Xbox and GCN are actually exchanging #2 and #3 in total sales worldwide several times each quarter. But this is not actually the point, the point is that even if they were a solid #2, they are still a failure in terms of their own expectations.

Microsoft has made a lot of artificial gimmicks to support the Xbox in the market, and the lack of profits on the Xbox division should be enough for anybody to see that. They expected to be able to snatch most of the PS2 market within one generation and there is simply no sign of them being able to do that, even when spending billions in marketing and development, severely undercutting the price of the Xbox (losing upwards more than $150 per machine), sacrificing royalties and/or explicitely giving money to developers for exclusive games and features, or outright buying them.

I'm not saying which of the Xbox, GCN or PS2 are the most powerful, or has the best games, or yadda yadda. Pure and simple facts, see the Microsoft press releases regarding the Xbox before entering the market. You'll see that they completely ignore Nintendo, and regard Sony as their target and sole rival. The sad truth is, they are way far behind their own forecasts and they haven't captured but a tiny fraction of the supposedly huge market they would conquer in this generation. They are struggling with millions in revenue, but not a penny of profit, fighting for #2 with a company they chose to ignore.

And no, forecasts were not optimistic some long ago. It's annoying how anybody with Internet access can't even make a simple article without checking the facts.

This and this are some of the first news regarding Xbox, check that PS2 is the console mentioned as its target and Gamecube is quite simply ignored.

I ask... Is Xbox really "teh fu7ur3"? Seriously, had not Microsoft budgeted such a huge amount of money for this venture, the Xbox would never survive. And it's quite a waste of money not to be in #1 after all.

If someone doesn't buy this game and finish it off, I might have to organize a real apocalypse.

It's sad that the questionable origins of this game overshadows the fact that this is another attempt at episodic gaming. Episodic games are one of those holy grails for small-scale developers, by cutting down on up front costs, and ensuring that revenue lasts longer than a few weeks. In another sense, we've still been looking for something to make online gaming stick -- maybe providing new content on a regular basis is the way?

Seeing how this is a more "mainstream" title than previous attempts, I will be interested to see if this works out, or if it goes the way of Majestic instead.

As a result, I have no confidence in ATI what-so-ever, and that's why to this day I won't purchase a gamecube.

As a result, I have no confidence in ATI what-so-ever, and that's why to this day I won't purchase a gamecube.

Make of it what you will.

Apparently, the next Donkey Kong will be similar in concept to Samba de Amigo on Dreamcast, but with Congas instead of Maracas (Maraci?), and there is some speculation that Nintendo will release custom Conga controllers for the occation...

From what I've read the mouse/keyboard interface looks pretty svelte. Like a fully mousable version of Final Fantasy's traditional button-press-fest (based on an OK and CANCEL button, basically FORWARD and BACK), with Left Mouse as OK and Right Mouse as CANCEL. I'd like to see fully customized controls(and sounds like there is a good chance that we will get them), but I think I could live with the setup described in the IGN article.

I'm glad to see that an FF game is finally getting a good PC port after those wretched versions of 7 and 8. I wish to hell that I could have used my mouse or hotkeys with the Draw command in 8 instead of button-pressing through 4 different menus!

There's an interview with Futurama Exec. Producer David X. Cohen on IGN

Here's the story

You do know that Nintendo had TEN TIMES the profit of Sony's last quarter, right?

Nintendo profits of $95 million

Sony's profits of $9.4 million

Nintendo is doing fine.

You've heard about Greyhawk: Temple of Elemental Evil, right? It's supposed to be using the 3.5 edition rules very faithfully. Faithfully as in being unapologetically turn-based, the way the D&D rules are meant to work, which is something of a rarity in 2003. More at Gamespot and IGN.

Disclaimer: I work at one of the companies involved, though my work isn't related to the project.