News

Week of February 14- February 20, 2000

[Friday, February 18, 2000]

Pre-Order Crash
Japanese gamers eager to make the jump to Sony's Playstation 2 caused a crash of the company's online sales system. According to Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi, the first day of pre-orders for the March 4 Japanese Playstation 2 launched generated as many as 500,000 hits a minute, and caused the site to fail. "The orders were beyond our imagination. We are doing our utmost to get the site back up," said Kutaragi.

Acclaim Adds VP
Acclaim has announced the appointment of Joseph Gilbride to the position of vice president of finance and corporate controller. Gilbride joins Acclaim from The Lowe Group, a subsidiary of the Interpublic advertising group, where he served as chief financial officer. Gilbride will oversee Acclaim's financial practices and policy and internal and external reporting functions.

Nova Logic Patented
Nova Logic's Voxel Space 3D engine has been granted another patent. The new patent, issued February 1, covers the second and third generations of Nova Logic's Voxel Space technology. The company was granted the original patent on the technology back in 1996, though the engine itself debuted in Comanche Maximum Overkill in 1992. "A patent is a good way to share ideas with academia without losing any business advantage," said Voxel Space creator Kyle Freeman, "Not having to maintain our unique processes as high-level trade secrets allows for a more open development environment and makes investing in long-term research and development more rewarding."

Sega Sued
Though a patent infringement suit has been filed against Sega America by Media Optik, Inc., Sega says that it has yet to contacted about it. Further, Sega denies that any of the technology used in the Dreamcast console infringes on any patents. Sega faced similar accusation when the Sega Saturn was released, but no legal action was taken. "We are confident that there has been no patent infringement in this case," said a Sega spokesperson. Reports of the suit caused Sega's share price in Japan to fall more than 10 percent.

[Thursday, February 17, 2000]

3D Labs Fourth Quarter
3D Labs has announced financial results for the fourth quarter and for 1999 as a whole, as well as marking the company's return to profitability. Revenues for the fourth quarter totaled $14.2 million, up 173 percent from $5.2 million in the same quarter last year. Income increased to $449 thousand from last year's fourth quarter loss of $4.9 million. For the year as a whole 3D Labs managed an slight eight percent increase in revenues, to $46.2 million in 1999 versus $42.7 million the year before, but managed to slash losses from $32.2 million in 1998 to just $2.8 million this year. "We announced two significant relationships in the last few months with Intel and Creative Technology Ltd., which resulted in additional funding of $15 million for our business," said company president Osman Kent, "With this additional funding, we plan to expand our reach and leverage our technology in high growth markets beyond our core professional business."

Sega.com on Nasdaq
Sega Enterprises has announced it intention to list Sega.com Inc. on the Nasdaq stock exchange in November. The move is part of plan by Sega and partner CSK to put a greater focus on Sega Internet activities. In addition to listing Sega.com, the companies plan to 11 group business, dealing with e-commerce, internet hosting, and digital networking, on the Tokyo Stock Exchanges second section.

Crave Gets Irrational
Irrational Games has entered into a worldwide publishing agreement with Crave Entertainment. Irrational Games, founded by Looking Glass veteran Ken Levine, is working on a new RPG strategy games for a next generation console. "Crave is the ideal publishing partner for Irrational because we share a similar vision. We look forward to a great collaboration," said Irrational's Levine. The company's first title for Crave will be previewed behind closed doors at Crave's E3 booth. The game is scheduled for release in 2001.

Take-Two for Palm
Take-Two Interactive Software will be bringing games to Palm OS users. The company's recently acquired Global Star division is starting with the release of a greatest Palm OS games compilation, and has plans to add more dedicated Palm games to its roster in 2000. "Palm has enjoyed a remarkable mass-market consumer penetration in the past eighteen months, and our Company is excited to be able to beginning supporting the massive installed base," said Take-Two's Ryan Brandt.

[Wednesday, February 16, 2000]

ATI Buys ArtX
ATI Technologies has entered into a definitive deal to acquire graphics chipmaker ArtX for approximately $400 million in ATI common shares and options. The acquisition helps move ATI into new consumer markets; in addition to developing graphics solutions for DVD players and internet terminals, ArtX is the provider of graphics technology for Nintendo's upcoming Dolphin console. Effective immediately, ArtX founder Wei Yen will join the ATI board of directors. Current ArtX president Dave Orton will take the newly created title of president and COO of ATI Technologies, while ATI's K.Y. Ho will continue as CEO and chairman.

Nvidia's Record Fourth
The introduction of the Ge Force and Quadra bands, as well as cross licensing agreements with S3 and SGI, have led Nvidia to record revenues of the fourth quarter. The company recorded fourth quarter revenues of $128.5 million, an increase of 96% percent from last year's fourth quarter mark of $65.5 million. Net income also nearly doubled, to $14.6 million for this year's fourth quarter versus $7.7 million in the same quarter last year. "Fiscal 2000 was a milestone year for NVIDIA. We strengthened our technology leadership," said Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, "And most importantly, we've built a strong foundation to drive our continued growth."

3dfx Demonstrates Voodoo 5
3dfx Interactive is planning to put its latest graphics opus to public scrutiny at three upcoming trade shows. 3dfx will display games running on the Voodoo 5 graphics processor, first chip using the company's new VSA-100 technology, starting this week. The chip will make its first appearance at the Intel Developer Forum on February 17, followed by bows at Mac World Tokyo from February 17-19, and CeBit 2000 in Germany starting February 24.

CGDA Spotlight Awards
The Computer Game Developers Association is looking for nominees for the annual spotlight awards. Anyone is free to nominate any game released in 1999 that they feel demonstrates outstanding technical or creative innovation. Nominated games will be on display and winners will be chosen by popular ballot at the CGDA's Spotlight Pavillion at the Game Developer Conference, March 10-12, in San Jose. Nominations can be sent directly to the CGDA.

[Tuesday, February 15, 2000]

Infrogrames Revenues Up
Infogrames Entertainment announced that an increase of 66 percent for sales in the first half of their 2000 fiscal year. Second quarter revenues, which include the consolidation of revenue from GT Interactive as of Infogrames November 1999 takeover, were up an 111 percent from the same period last year. Excluding GT revenues, Infogrames second quarter would have racked up a 59 percent gain over the pervious year. Infogrames attributes much of their current gains to a string of successful products, notably the introduction of Infogrames first Dreamcast titles. The company plans to release more than forty titles over the course of the fiscal year.

U.S Games at Tokyo Show
The Commercial Service of the American Embassy in Tokyo is looking for games to represent the American entertainment software industry at the Tokyo Games Show. The Commercial Service, a division the United States Department of Commerce, is organizing a U. S. Computer Game Station exhibit to provide American game makers with a cost effective way to introduce their product to the $5 billion Japanese game software market. For a modest fee, the Commercial Service will arrange display space, demonstration machines, Japanese speaking attendants, publicity, and product information in Japanese. Deadlines for participants are drawing near; interested parties can contact the Commercial Attaché at the American Embassy in Tokyo.

Check Six Makes Games
Check Six Studio, developer of the Maya Real-Time SDK, has announced the creation of the new game division. The company has named three industry veterans to lead the effort. Jack Mamais, previously involved with Activision's Mech Warrior series, will head up the game division as vice president of interactive entertainment. Jean-Marc Morel, who worked on Activision's Dark Side engine, will serve as technical director. Rounding out the three new hires is Tim Hoffman, previously technical director for Foundation Imaging's Roughnecks computer animated series, will lead the art department. The company will focus on Playstation 2 development.

[Monday, February 14, 2000]

Lithtech for Playstation 2
Monolith Productions have joined Sony's middleware program, making a reengineered version of the Lithtech 3D engine available to Playstation 2 developers. Though the PC and Playstation 2 engines will share many key design and interface components, the systems designers have optimized it for the new console by features like NURBs, displacement mapping, and parallel processing. "Monolith strongly believes a direct port will not provide game developers with a comprehensive, specialized set of tools," said Monolith's Jason Hall, "LithTech clearly provides PlayStation2 content developers with a solid technology platform."

Sony Picks ATI
ATI has been chosen to power the graphics and video of Sony's next generation interactive set-top boxes. Sony will equip the boxes with ATI's Rage XL and Rage Theatre chips to add new interactive features like photo-realistic 3D graphics and animations to household cable services. "ATI is proud that Sony has chosen ATI's graphics for its new set top box. This design win further positions ATI as a key player in the future development of consumer electronics devices, an important emerging market for us in the years ahead,'' said ATI vice president of OEM sales Vince Win. ATI's share price closed up 19 percent on news of the Sony deal.

PC Data's Console Top Ten
PC Data has ranked the best selling console games of January 2000 in a easy to read top ten format.

1.Gran Turismo 2, Sony Playstation
2. Pokemon Yellow, Nintendo Game Boy
3. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Activision Playstation
4. Donkey Kong 64, Nintendo Nintendo 64
5. Pokemon Red, Nintendo Game Boy
6. Pokemon Blue, Nintendo Game Boy
7.Gran Turismo, Sony Playstation
8. Spyro the Dragon, Sony Playstation
9. Crash Bandicoot: Warped, Sony Playstation
10. Medal of Honor, Electronic Arts Playstation

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