News: Price Drops

 
   Nintendo's Gamecube joins the "Pre E3 Console Price Drop Action" with a US$50 descent to US$149 in the United States. A similar move took place in Japan overnight with retail hitting Y19,800. As such, NCS' price for a modified USA Gamecube now stands at US$205. Modified Japanese Gamecubes in Spice or Black are now US$225. 
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   What happens when price drops are announced? Distributors usually have some sort of price protection arrangement with the manufacturer but smaller retailers (yours truly) take the losses in stride and accept it as a cost of doing business. We took a big hit last week with the Xbox and PS2 price drops at US$100 each but the GC smack down was only US$50 per, which is a positive negative... 
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   USA Xbox and Playstation 2 consoles are now priced at US$205. Please wait for updates from NCS on modifications for the Xbox to play Japanese software. If offered, our service fee for the Xbox modification will likely be US$85 at the outset, which includes the mod chip.
 
Preorder: Playstation 2 [JPN / August 2002] 

 
   A selection of PS2 imports slated for August were opened overnight by suppliers. We'll post more details on each game within the next few days as additional information and specifics filter in. 
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  • Air  [NEC / 08.01 / Y7200]
  • Mobile Suit Gundam Senki  [Bandai / 08.01 / Y6800]
  • All Star Baseball 2002  [Acclaim / 08.08 / Y5800]
  • G-Breaker: The League Strikes Back  [Sunrise / 08.08 / Y6800]
  • Virtua Cop Rebirth  [Sega / 08.08 / Y5800]
  • Project Minerva  [D3 Publisher / 08.22 / Y6800]
  • Robot A-D  [Enix / 08.22 / Y5800]
  • Adventure of Toruneco 3  [Enix / 08.30 / Y5800]
  • Xigo  [SCEI / 08.29 / Y5800]
 

 

News: Microsoft to invest a billion 

 
   In active pre-E3 combat mode, Microsoft unveiled Xbox Live on Monday, which seeks to push the gaming platform onto the internet.  Committing a war chest of US$1 billion towards the initiative, a number of titles were announced including Project Gotham Live, NFL Fever 2003, Phantasy Star Online, Half Life, and Midtown Madness 3. Not part of the Live experience, Microsoft also announced Xbox editions of Ninja Gaiden and Panzer Dragoon for later in the year. IGN-Xbox posted an impressive Ninja Gaiden Quicktime movie (26 megs) online. Spiffy. Links of interest:
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IGN BBC News
Forbes  CBS Marketwatch
 
Update: Final Fantasy XI 

 
   Thanks to everyone who sent in help and hints yesterday. It appears that FFXI is playable by users outside of Japan as long as you enter a valid Japanese address. Foreign credit cards are okay, according to our old school customers in Hong Kong who have successfully registered their accounts. We haven't been able to authenticate an account yet to verify for ourselves. Again, this may be a problem with our new HDD kit/setup being unable to connect via the BBNavigator software. Playonline also posted some news today about necessary server maintenance being performed. We'll post more details in a few days. 
 
NCS Weekly Recap

Monday PS2 Bloody Roar 3 [Best]  NEWS FFXI madness, restock, weekly outlook
Tuesday NEWS FFXI Update, GC Price Drops, PS2 preorders for August 2002, Xbox Live
Wednesday NEWS Additional August preorder portents, NCS half-day...sort of
Thursday NEWS Domo-kun plushie pre-order, Miscellaneous updates
Friday NEWS Domo-kun update, UPS ruins NCS commerce initiatives