|
 News
Week
of March 20- March 26, 2000
[Thursday,
March 23, 2000]
Evolution
Gets PS2 Deal
Trade paper
CTW has confirmed that UK-based Evolution studios has become the first
company to sign a third-party development deal with Sony for the Playstation2.
Their first title will ship sometime in 2001.
THQ
and Fox Plan Color Gameboy Titles
THQ, Inc.
and Fox Interactive have signed an agreement that will allow THQ to publish
titles of Fox's properties for the Color Gameboy. These titles include
The Simpsons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Croc and Croc 2, and Aliens. All
of these titles are expected to hit the shelves this year.
Microsoft
Licenses VTC
Microsoft
has licensed NVIDIA's Volume Texture Compression Format (VTC) for its
DirectX APIs. VTC organizes 3D volume texture data to take advantage of
the 3D nature of the data, which increases the effective texture bandwidth
The VTC format is expected to find its way into the DirectX APIs later
this year.
[Wednesday,
March 22, 2000]
McNally
Dies
21 year old Longbow Digital Arts lead programmer Seamus McNally succumbed
to Hodgkin's Lymphoma Tuesday afternoon. He had battled the disease for
three years. McNally was the driving force behind the family run game
company that took three top honors for Treadmarks at the Second Annual
Independent Games Festival just two weeks ago in San Jose. "Seamus
was my son, my best friend, my partner in game development and business,
and a kind, gentle, and generous young man," said his father, Jim.
Seamus is survived by his parents Jim and Wendy as well as his brother
Philippe. The family is planning a internet based memorial service for
Sunday, March 26.
Interplay
Results
Interplay Entertainment's fourth quarter results show an increase
in revenue and a decrease in losses, but the numbers remain solidly in
the red. The company reports net revenues of $27.3 million for the fourth
quarter, an improvement from $20.6 million in the same period last year.
Net losses for the quarter tallied $7.8 million, less than half of the
total of $16.6 million in the net losses the company reported for last
years fourth. For the year as a whole, revenues were down and losses up.
For the twelve months ended December 31, Interplay saw revenues shrink
to $101.9 million from last year's total of $126.9 million. Net Losses
of $40 million for 1999 topped the 1998 mark of $28.8 million. Interplay
blames the poor showing on bad debt, product returns, a restructuring
program, as well as the company's inability to ship Messiah and Giants
in 1999. "We came up short of our goal of returning to profitability
within the year, but succeeded in completing key strategic transactions
with Virgin Interactive Entertainment Limited and Titus," said Interplay
CEO Brian Fargo, "Our principal operating goals for 2000 are to leverage
our strengths as new platforms are introduced, and to increase our console
focus to be more balanced as a publisher and developer."
Square
Slide
Japanese game maker Square is projecting a steep slide in profits
for the current year to March 31. The company is predicting a group profit
of just 900 million yen, a big change from the 7.8 billion yen profit
Square posted last year and the record 9.9 billion yen the year before
that. The company blames this year's slide on the delayed launch of the
last Final Fantasy title. The company is projecting sales of six million
units of its first Final Fantasy for Playstation 2, schedule for release
on July 19. "We aim to renew our group record profit next year,"
said Square executive vice president Hisashi Suzuki. Square is planning
to list it shares on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange after
settling the current business year.
[Tuesday,
March 21, 2000]
BioWare
Awarded
The City of Edmonton awarded the Economic Development Edmonton 2000 Ambassador
Award in the Emerging Industries category to local game developer Bio
Ware. The award recognized Bio Ware CEO's Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk
for their lasting impact on Edmonton's prosperity and quality of life.
"We're honored that Bio Ware's international business efforts have been
able to shed a positive light on the City of Edmonton," said Muzyka.
id
Appointment
id Software named a new director of business development. Marty Stratton,
formerly a producer at Activision, will work with id CEO Todd Hollenshead
to handled strategic partnerships as well as corporate and marketing communications.
Stratton was involved with a number of Quake related titles while at Activision.
THQ Deal
THQ announced a deal to take a minority stake in Japanese developer Yuke's.
Yuke's developed WWF Smack Down for the Playstation, and will focus on
wrestling games for the North American and European markets. "Yuke's is
one of the best developers of wrestling games in the world, as evidenced
by the phenomenal success of WWF Smack Down," said THQ president Brian
Farrell, "Our long-term agreement and investment is highly strategic for
both companies."
[Monday,
March 20, 2000]
Pipeworks
Credit
Few new game development houses have made a grander entrance into the
industry than start up Pipeworks. Founded just last November, Pipeworks
is making it known that they are the developers behind the impressive
demos used by Microsoft to launch the X-Box console at the Game Developers
Conference. "Our goal was to show the awesome power of X-Box and the ingenuity,
creativity, and technical expertise of Pipeworks," said Pipeworks president
Dan White. The first Pipeworks game title should be available in 2001.
Linux Console
Yet another competitor is joining the console fray, with consumer electronic
company Indrema announcing an entertainment system based on Linux OpenGL
and Open Stream. The system is expected for Christmas and will support
3D games, web browsing, MP3 storage and payback, and HDTV support. The
console is based on a 600 MHz processor, up to a 50 GB hard drive, and
an as yet undetermined 3D accelerator.
3dfx
PCI Sales
Though the company is currently slogging through a bout a red ink, 3dfx
Interactive's strong line up of high-end PCI accelerators continue to
translate into strong sales. 3dfx topped the sales charts for computer
graphic boards in the month of January, marking eight consecutive months
at the top. The best selling board in January was 3dfx's Voodoo 3 2000
PCI, while PCI flavors of the Voodoo 3 3000 and Voodoo 2 1000 also found
places among the top four best selling boards.
Past
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