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I guess the reason why Bio Hazard games (Resident Evil) failed miserably in sales is because the "Japanese have a lower tolerance for pointless violence than we do in the west?"

Eh, the actual original Wing Commander game didn't really have much in the way of a plot, it was pretty generic with a couple of interesting characters that you talked to a few times. There was the ongoing war storyline, but there really wasn't anything involving the characters. The neat plots didn't really start to show up until the Secret Missions addons.

Beyond this, though, word 'on the street' is that EA doesn't feel particularly comfortable licensing out the original games, since they aren't always clear on what rights are owned by who, and what people they might need to pay off. Before the sale to EA, Origin's records weren't exactly well kept. However, Raylight's definitely capable of a Wing Commander 1 or 2 style game, as Star Giants, the game they were developing before they came upon the WCP license and then scrapped and took some of the basics from for Prophecy, was a blatant Wing Commander clone. I mean, there's a frickin' Dralthi in one of the early screenshots they released.

Maybe if Prophecy sells well, they'll go back and port something else. The probable ones are Secret Ops, as they already have the basics down with Prophecy, or possibly the original game, if they can somehow get EA to let them, since there's already an SNES port that would be easier to convert.

It should be pointed out to all the people complaining about the Dreamcast being "dead" that it's still actively in commercial development, even if no more physical consoles are being made. There's actually still about a dozen games left to be released this year, as shown here.

So it's ALMOST dead but not quite. ^_^

That's why anyone who can sell one million albums gets a platinum record embossed by the RIAA.

Michael Jackson is the only artist to go platinum many numbers of times. "Thriller" sold over 21 million copies, a world record.

An average band sells maybe 1/5th of that # of copies if they are famous.

Super Mario Bros. 3 is special because it sold almost 8 million copies of that game in the individual package and in the collections (source). It's very rare that games actually sell that many, and the recording industry is supposed to clear more titles because the albums themselves are usually 1/4th the cost of a video game.

So, no, there is no such fiction as a large number of sales which allow anyone to survive on the small fraction of a royalty they actually receive from one purchase.

For those who don't want to click, in 2002 the PSOne sold 200,000+ units and Xbox sold 300,000+ units. It's obviously still lagging far behind the PS2, Gamecube and GBA, but it's beating the old stuff.

Nintendo is listed at nearly 800,000 this year alone, which does not include nearly 500,000 sold after its launch in Japan, September 12th, 2001. Needless to say, not many people were interested in buying video games that day.

Hey, here's a good question! Do you know where the best video games come from? It ain't America! It's Japan! Wow, ain't that cool? And do you know where the best developers are? Japan again! And do you know what happens to systems that fail in Japan? Oh, you don't know any? How about the Atari Lynx, Atari Jaguar, 3D0, Atari 2600, and TurboGrafix 16? That's right! They go extinct!

Enjoy your 9 lb doorstop that can play Halo.

According to The Magic Box:

"The new chairman for Square Enix is Keiji Honda, the president and representative director of Enix; and Square's Wada Youichi will become the vice president of the company."

I wonder which one is correct, now. Btw, the names are inconsistently written: it should be Keiji Honda and Youichi Wada or Honda Keiji and Wada Youichi (as purists usually prefer).

Looking at the sales of consoles in Japan makes it pretty clear there is a PS2 version. The PS2 is outselling the GameCube 4:1 and outselling the xbox 20:1 (Most weeks the obsolete PS1 outsells the Xbox!) according to the magic box Actually the PS2 has more consoles sold in each market (Japan, US, Europe) than its combined compeditors do worldwide! Nintendo or MS would have to be doing some big behind the scene deals to keep it off the PS2.

Nihilistic (which just hired their 18th employee according to their webpage) only has PC experience. My guess is they're making a GameCube and Xfx-box version and having another company port it to the PS2. Development for the GC is almost as nice as Xbox development (My opinion, I've worked with both systems). Development on both systems in parallel is quite possible. The PS2 is a real pain to work with, a small studio like this won't have the resources for all three consoles IMHO. Heck I don't know if they could pull off a quality PS2 exclusive version that looks like other company's 2nd and 3rd gen products. Unless most of those 18 guys are programmers, or they've got one super programmer without a life outside of work.

And cube.ign.com covered the story in their GameCube and Xbox previews section, not in their PS2 section.

The chances of anyone making money out of the wireless hotspots could be dented by the fact that many community groups and well-intentioned individuals are setting up networks anyone can use for free.

This is how just about everything works on the internet, aside from most broadband connections. Regardless of what corporations are offering, someone else is offering it for free. The record industry wants to sell you CDs, but hundreds of people are willing to just send you a copy online. Subscription news sites, especially gaming ones like IGN and GameSpot, want to sell you their news and content, but Gameforms, The Magic Box, and GameFAQS are all giving the same stuff away for free. And now wireless internet companies are trying to sell you wireless internet access when the same people that are using P2P services are willing to just give internet access away for free.

There simply isn't any way to compete with people that are giving away the same product as your company for free, at least not for a small startup industry that doesn't have the financial and political clout to legislate against the people giving it away for free or strongarm the supply side of the market.

Thought some people might be interested that there's an (admittedly less sophisticated) sword fighting game from Konami out in arcades which uses a motion-sensor sword controller. It's called Tsurugi (apparently Blade of Honor is the US). Here's some pics and information from the Magic Box.

Thought some people might be interested that there's an (admittedly less sophisticated) sword fighting game from Konami out in arcades which uses a motion-sensor sword controller. It's called Tsurugi (apparently Blade of Honor is the US). Here's some pics and information from the Magic Box.

What? Check magic box, in Japan the Xbox is being outsold about 3:1 by the obsolete PS1!! I mean, seriously, how many people are buying a PS1 these days when the PS2 isn't *that* much more expensive and plays all the PS1 games as well. GameCube is killing the Xbox in Japan, which in turn is being killed by the PS2.

In the US Nintendo's GameCube and the Xbox are selling about equal (GameCube was selling better, but the recent price drops helped SOny and MS more than Nintendo). Both are far behind the PS2. In Europe the GameCube is outselling the Xbox.

In fact the worldwide sales of the GameCube and Xbox combined don't equal the sales of the PS2 in just one of the three major sectors (Japan, US, Europe).

There are no Xbox/PS2 wars. The PS2 is the clear winner. Maybe some GameCube/PS2 wars. Definatly some GameCube/Xbox wars. The Xbox is stuggling to keep up with the GameCube for the distant 2nd in terms of market share.

I saw this news reported at The Madman's Cafe and Magic Box, where it was described as an arcade board, based on the Game Cube architecture. I don't really know where the poster got the idea that it is "targeted towards new game consoles". The Madman's Cafe article has links to the (Japanese) press releases from Sega, Namco and Nintendo.

"I expect Gamecube to outsell all systems this year and Next year and perhaps be the console to Dominate. If the Marketing remains at this level, and Xbox doesnt get some good games fast, I dont think Gamecube will have any serious competition. PS2 is still in the picture, but they better have an ace up their sleeve or they will go the way of the Dreamcast."

I don't have any hard numbers for Gamecube sales in North America because the system hasn't been out that long and no site really tracks them, but Magicbox has lots of info on the numbers in Japan, which has traditionally been the most important region for gaming.

According to their news on 11/23: "Nintendo of Japan announced that they have sold 510,000 units of GameCube in Japan since its launch on September 14, approximate 710,000 units of software were sold."

The first warning sign there is the small number of titles sold. The system shipped with 3 games there, but it also seems that no one has been buying the new ones. Even Pikmin, the only fun innovative game on the system IMO, has only sold a mere 143k copies. Gran Turismo 3 on the PS2 has sold ten times that many!

Gamecube's launch in North America was full of sub-par remake titles (a few fun multiplayer games, but no system sellers), which are now having to compete with a very impressive PS2 selection. The Gamecube started off poorly in Japan, fairly bad in North America, and has nothing special on the horizon. Sony already has top-tier titles out on the shelves; Nintendo doesn't even have them in the making.

Suffice to say, I don't share your optimism for the Gamecube. I'm not sure how the XBox is going to fit into all this, but it looks like another win for Sony.