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Just so as Sega doesn’t get too big-headed (which was, of course, the primary cause for its last few years of misery), it is worth mentioning that there have been numerous reports of malfunctioning hardware and software -- primarily TV cables and Sonic Adventure. At the moment though, the problems don’t seem to be any more serious than those that accompanied the US launch. There have also been problems supplying peripherals to the market, making extra controllers -- particularly the official steering wheel -- almost impossible to buy Finally, the eternal bug bear for the European market -- shoddy PAL conversions -- seems to be remarkably well under control. After the appalling Euro conversions that appeared on the Saturn, Sega certainly learned how to do PAL the hard way. Currently the only serious problem is with Virtua Fighter 3tb. The PAL conversion suffers from serious slowdowns and large borders, which (thanks to the competition from Power Stone and the Dreamcast’s other top-notch beat ‘em-ups) will ensure it ends up in the bargain bins sooner rather than later. So, all in all, something close to top marks for the Dreamcast’s launch. The only serious problem at the moment is what appears to be a relative lack of big releases in the short term, although there certainly doesn’t seem to be any sign yet that the machine is going to "do an N64". As long as Sega doesn’t try to release a 128X or a DreamcastDVD, it looks like Sony has got a long-term rival at last. Titus Takes A Virgin
While Titus is forging ahead with its new relationships, its Parisian rival, Infogrames, is having a bit of trouble. Following the mass exodus of 31 DiD employees to Rage Software (as reported in the previous EuroSpeak), Infogrames decided to ditch DiD entirely, and the buyer is, surprise surprise, Rage. £5.5 million ($8.8m) bought Rage what remained of the flight sim specialists, and Infogrames seems to be pleased to see the back of them, after purchasing DiD only four months ago themselves. This all seems to have been part of some larger master plan though, with Infogrames UK’s David Ward commenting, "Our purchase basically represented a re-structuring of the company’s equity to put it on a sound financial footing." Which is very kind of them, seeing as DiD suffered its biggest failure (the stupidly named Wargasm) with its first Infogrames-published game. Anyway, Infogrames needn’t worry - its just posted net yearly profits of FFr135 million ($22m) and there’s not much you can say against that. Grand Theft Auto Kerfuffle It sometimes seems as if British developers keep producing ultra-immoral driving games purely to upset the ratings people. This time it’s Take 2’s Game Boy version of GTA 2 that is causing all the kerfuffle. It seems that the VSC (Video Standards Council) took exception to such an unpleasant game appearing on a console with such a large child audience. Take 2 maintains it took all the necessary steps to ensure that the originally 18-rated game fulfilled the criteria for an 11-14 rating, as requested by Nintendo. Nevertheles, the VSC still isn’t happy and it’s demanding a 15-certificate. Their reasoning seems to revolve around the continued use of the word "dealer" in the game. In an unusual move, Take 2 is challenging the ruling and will go to court within the month.
In other related news, DMA Design’s founder, David Jones, has resigned from the company following the (most recent) purchase of DMA’s– this time by Take 2 Interactive. Although he has no concrete plans at the moment, Jones has already indicated he will stay within the industry in some capacity. Les Edgar is another industry stalwart on the move. A co-founder, together with Peter Molyneux, of Bullfrog, Edgar has been gradually edging away from Bullfrog (or more specifically EA) and has in recent months been acting merely as a consultant. Now it seems he has settled down as a chairman of VIS Interactive. Edgar will be responsible for "diversifying the studio’s activities into areas such as online gaming". Somewhat oddly, he will also be looking into ways games can attract a female audience, although what his particular qualifications for this job are remain unclear. According to him "VIS wants to get onto the next level and we seemed to agree on a lot of stuff with regard to online programmes and mass-market games, especially for female consumers." Whether Les just fancies talking to a lot of all-female focus groups or wants to get more in touch with his feminine side, only he can say. Except he obviously isn’t going to. |
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