News

Week of November 29 - December 3, 1999

[Friday, December 3, 1999]

Loki's Quake III
Loki entertainment has announced an exclusive worldwide deal to publish, package, and distribute the Linux version of id software's Quake III. Loki expects to ship the Linux version of the massively anticipate shooter on December 27, just weeks after the Windows and Mac versions. "id Software went to great lengths to assure a near simultaneous multi-platform launch for Quake III Arena, assuring that no gamer will miss out on the action," said id CEO Todd Hollenshead. Linux Quake III will ship initially in a collector's tin box, and will be packaged with the SuSE Linux 6.3 operating system.

Pokemon Bust
Nintendo's New York investigators assisted the Hackensack Police, in what turned out to be the biggest counterfeit Pokemon bust to date. Acting on a tip from Wizards of the Coast, officials on November 30 confiscated printing equipment and illegal cards from a New Jersey operation that was estimated to be producing $500,000 worth of bogus product each week. Police also made 13 arrests in connection with the raid. Said Nintendo of America anti-piracy manager Jodi Daugherty, "This criminal action exemplifies Nintendo's policy to combat the growing international problem of product piracy. On behalf of Nintendo, Wizards of the Coast and Pokémon fans everywhere, we congratulate the Hackensack police department on a significant and successful raid."

Interactive Achievement Nominations
Interactive Achievement Awards Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences president Jim Charne has announced that the year 2000 Interactive Achievement Awards have been scheduled for May 11, 2000. The awards coincide with the first day of the E3 Expo. Nominations for the award will open on January 3 and will close promptly at 5pm Pacific Standard Time on February 25. This year's program will feature the addition of a Best Console Childrens/Family category. "The Console, Computer, and Online Games of the Year each recognize the top game in their respective arenas. Overall Game of the Year honors the best game, no matter what the platform," said Charne, "The Academy has added a new Award for Console Children's/Family Game of the Year [that] will recognize the wide range of high quality games and titles intended for younger children and families on the gaming console systems." To be eligible for Interactive Achievement honors, games must have been publicly available between March 1, 1999, and February 29, 2000.

[Thursday, December 2, 1999]

Sony's Workstation Plans
In an interview with Nikkei Electronics, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Ken Kutaragi laid out Sony's plans for entering the workstation market. Sony hopes to use the development of workstation technology to drive the development future Playstations. "I don't think that the workstation business will be able to turn a profit, but we will supply the funds for development work there from the game machine side of the company," said Kutaragi, "One of the reasons is that we want to maintain our position as a technology driver in order to be able to develop the PlayStation3 and other future products." Sony also feels workstation competitors like SGI will be unable to keep up with Sony's technological pace in the future. "For 2000, we are preparing workstations with capabilities ten times better than the development tools currently available - and in 2002, they will be a hundred times better," explained Kutaragi, "I doubt that there are any other companies that can afford to invest in semiconductor manufacturing technology on the scale necessary to maintain that kind of pace, most companies would go out of business trying to keep up." He added, "Anyway, SGI doesn't have enough strength remaining to go on competing at the very cutting edge of technology."

N64 Fade Out
British retailer MVC has become the first major sales outlet to concede that it is planning to eliminate the Nintendo 64 from its stock following the holidays. The chain, currently in the midst of expanding from 80 to 100 stores, hopes to use discounts to move out its remaining stock before its competitors do the same. The retailer began the discounting last week, and is selling games at cost plus VAT. Nintendo rejects talk of death for the N64 and is gearing up for a major holiday push in the United Kingdom. Added Dick Francis, managing director of Nintendo's UK distributor, "Do not underestimate the power of Pokemon."

Tribes Extreme Cancelled
The Tribes Extreme add-on to Starsiege: Tribes has been cancelled. The game had been intended to give a single-player element to the successful multi-player only game as well as providing additional multi-player content. In a note of explanation on the Tribes Extreme website, designer Nels Bruckner explained, "The single player component has taken us much longer to wrap our heads around than we originally anticipated and we just don't feel we have anything close to finished that would be worth charging for or releasing." The Tribes Extreme team will merge with the group working on Tribes 2. Tribes Extreme's loss is Tribe 2's gain. That game, which had been planned as multi-player only, will now feature a single-player element.

PC Data Top 10 Games November 14-20
1. Pokemon Studio, Blue Mattel Interactive
2. Pokemon Studio, Red Mattel Interactive
3. MP Roller Coaster Tycoon, Hasbro Interactive
4. Microsoft Age of Empires II: Age Of Kings, Microsoft
5. Barbie Generation Girl Gotta Groove, Mattel Interactive
6. Deer Hunter III, GT Interactive
7. MP Roller Coaster Tycoon Corkscrew Follies, Hasbro Interactive
8. Microsoft Flight Simulator, Microsoft
9. Cabela's Big Game Hunter 3, Activision
10. Sim City 3000, Electronic Arts

[Wednesday, December 1, 1999]

Gen Con Moves Indiana
Starting in 2003, America's largest game-play convention will move from its traditional home in Wisconsin to a new site in Indianapolis. The Gen Con Game Fair, founded in 1968 by Dungeons and Dragons creator Gary Gygax with a focus on roll-playing paper games, has grown in scope and now attracts 20,000 attendees annually. The show has also grown in importance computer game developers. The change in location follows the sale of conference managers Wizards of the Coast. Gen Con will remain in Milwaukee through 2002. "After careful consideration, we chose Indianapolis as the future site of Gen Con because it offers an ideal setting to accommodate the growth of the convention and foster our ongoing efforts to improve the quality of the show," said Gen Con events manager David Wilson.

Labtec Buys Back Stock
Buoyed by stronger than anticipated sales and earnings, peripheral manufacturer Labtec is initiating a stock buy back. The company is also planning to restructure its debt. After announcing that third quarter earnings would beat analysts' expectations, the company announced that its two largest shareholder had agreed to convert almost $2.3 million dollars in debt into common stock. Labtec also authorized an open market buy back of up to 200,000 common shares. Both moves are intended to help Labtec meet NASDAQ listing requirements. "The culmination of our efforts was a strong improvement in top- and bottom-line results for the six months ended September 30, 1999. We are pleased to report that the first two months of the third quarter preliminarily indicate that we will have another record quarter, with double-digit growth in all of our product lines," said Labtec president and CEO Bob Wick.

Digital River Sells on Fox
Visitors to the Fox Sports website will now be able to purchase their favorite Fox Interactive sports video game titles. Through an agreement with Fox Sports Interactive and Fox Interactive, e-commerce provider Digital River will begin online sales of Fox Interactive game titles on both the Fox Sports and Fox Interactive websites. Digital River will handle sales and fulfillment under the terms of the agreement. "We expect video games will be a top seller this holiday season. Everything is pointing to a record-breaking year for online retailers, '' said Digital River CEO Joel Ronning.

Customized Demos
Holiday shoppers can visit Gamespot for customized game demo disks. For a $4.99 fee and $3 shipping and handling, gamers can spare themselves hours of downloads be having all the demos of their choice put on a custom CD and mailed to their homes. Gamespot has contracted with EZCD.com to create the customized disks which will hold between 15 and 20 demos and be manufactured and shipped within 24 hours. "Providing this audience with more of their custom entertainment needs is a natural fit. And now, long download times won't prevent anyone from trying games they are interested in," theorized EZCD.com president Jerry Kagan.

[Tuesday, November 30, 1999]

Square Reduces Forecasts
Despite huge sales of Final Fantasy VIII, Squaresoft has downgraded it earning forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2000. The company is looking at a 72 percent dip in profits to a forecast 13.8 billion yen. Square is expecting Final Fantasy VIII earnings to push profits back up in the next fiscal year to make up the shortfall. Square also announced that it would be delaying the release of Final Fantasy IX to avoid competing with Enix's Dragon Quest, which itself has been delayed until February 2000.

Consoles to Overtake PCs Online
Market analysts Datamonitor are projecting that console gamers playing online will overtake PC gamers by the year 2002, and by 2004 consoles will dominate the online games market. The projection calls for 45 million console owners in the United States and Europe to be enjoying online games by 2004 compared to just 28 million PC players. Datamonitor senior analyst Frederic Diot believes,"The console phenomenon is coming online and console user-friendliness will bring an increasing number of gamers to play online." The Datamonitor report, titled "Online games and gambling in Europe and the US, 1999-2004", further projects that the games software market will continue to grow quickly in the coming years, reaching $17 billion by 2003. According to the report, $12 billion of that sum will be spent in the console market.

3D MAX Milestone
Autodesk reports that its Discreet division has shipped 100,000 copies of 3D Studio MAX, strengthening its claim to be the most popular PC animation and modeling software. "It has been extraordinary to see 3D Studio MAX become the industry standard for creating 3D content on Windows NT systems,'' said Gary Yost of 3D MAX designers The Yost Group, "We're thrilled to see 3D Studio MAX reach this milestone."

Fantasy Graphics League
Mirroring the success of online fantasy leagues for baseball and football, computer graphics fans now have the Fantasy Graphics League. Based on and around SIGGRAPH 2000, artists are priced according to their participation in papers and sketches at SIGGRAPHs past, Fantasy Graphics League punters can put together a team of up to twelve artists but must take care to stay under the salary cap. The payoff comes in the form of a score based on the number of papers and sketches accepted for this year's event. There may even be a prize.

[Monday, November 29, 1999]

Losses Mounting, Sega Restructures
Citing the cost of promoting its products overseas, Sega of Japan on Friday announced big losses for the first half of its business year. Despite increasing sales by 25 percent and reaching the 1 million mark for American Dreamcast sales, losses reached $182 million dollars. The company recorded a profit of $11.5 million in the same period last year. Sega also announced a major restructuring that will focus the company more on internet gaming. "We are a believer in the Internet, so we will focus on entertainment on networks," said Sega president Shoichiro Irimajiri, "We are now aiming to provide our services on the Net ... we aim to become a network entertainment kingdom." Sega plans to list its internet related business in Japan and the United States at the beginning its next fiscal year, starting in April of 2000. Sega will also split its research and development, home games, and arcade games units into separate companies as it looks for ways to better focus on internet development. Included in the planned listings will be ISOA Corporation, the joint venture company created to handle Dreamcast online services. Sega will also set up more than 10 new spin offs from its development business. Sega of America's Peter Moore welcomed the announcement, "[Shoichiro Irimajiri's] statements reinforce Sega's commitment to delivering dynamic content to consumers through Dreamcast, and more importantly expanding upon the systems forward-thinking gaming and network functionality."

THQ Joins S&P Small Cap
THQ has announced that the company has been added to the Standard and Poor's SmallCap 600 index. The S&P SmallCap 600 Index consists of 600 domestic stocks chosen for market size, liquidity, and industry group representation. Companies listing in the SmallCap index are weighted in porportion to their market value. THQ's addition to the index was effective November 24th.

EA Looks to Marimba
Electronic Arts has entered into a licensing deal that will give EA access to Marimba's Castanet technology. EA's first use for Castanet will be to create a seamless patching system, but the company also sees potential uses down the road within its growing internet business. "As we became increasingly involved in this market segment, we realized that the overhead required to maintain and enhance the patching system could be better spent developing new content and improving our existing games," explained EA vice president and CTO Chris Yates, "We were also looking for a solution that provided advanced bandwidth management features and improved reliability."

Video Game Report Card
The National Institute on Media and the Family has released its annual video game report card. The NIMF granted a A grade to box ratings after failing to find any games without ratings and a B for ratings accuracy after encountering a few games that the NIMF found to be unsuitable for their teen and children ratings. Lower grades went to retail and rental outlets for failing to properly educate consumers about the ratings system, while the NIMF found the lack of ratings on online sites offering downloadable game demos worthy of an F.

Previous Weeks :
Week of November 8-14, 1999
Week of November 15-21, 1999
Week of November 22-28, 1999

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