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| DC
Sega Rally 2 |
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Rumors seem to abound with Sega Rally 2, ever since the initial delay on
01/14. For all intents and purposes, NCS has not been notified of any further delays with
this game. Distribution houses in Japan are on standby for Rally 2, which they fully
expect to ship next Wednesday. There may be chaos in the streets and bloodshed if Sega
pushes back the product once again. No one wants that. |
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| Playstation
Bloody Roar 2 |
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A reminder that Hudson's sequel to Bloody Roar will ship next week. The fighting gets fast
and furious when your warrior uses metamorphic force to change into a bigger, faster,
stronger alter-ego. NCS will take delivery of the game on January 26. Additional
pre-orders are welcome. |
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| Pocket
Station |
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Sony's new weapon in the console wars will ship this week in Japan (January 23). Initial
supplies appear to be very limited with no additional stock available for new pre-orders.
Existing pre-orders may be cut drastically although we have not received final details
yet. Call us cynical but "tight supplies" have been a Nintendo tactic for years
to raise initial demand and create ready buyers for subsequent shipments of product. Of
course, this is only our opinion and there may really be a short supply of the Pocket
Station. |
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| Shining
Force Premium Disc |
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Sega's special bonus for
Shining Force fans arrived today. This Premium Disc offers a rich library of data and
graphics from the series. A feature on the disc allows the player to choose a character,
vehicle or creature and then view, rotate and perform an action with the target. A
portrait gallery is also included where you can view a color rendering of all the major
characters from the series along with a black & white pencil sketch. Our favorite
section on the CD is the cinema option where you can view the intro movies from all three
games along with interviews with the creators. The video here is interspersed with
animation from the original Shining Force games on the Mega Drive. Three short television
commercials are also included, one of which starts out in a Japanese disco. Although this
disc is not for sale, NCS may be able to source minute additional quantities through
conventional channels in the future. We'll update accordingly if we are able to import a
few more pieces of this disc. |
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| Additional Imports in
March |
| Gaton Gaton from Konami has been
added to the Playstation roster for March 11. Gaton is a train simulation game that is set
in a 1/150 scale world with mini buildings, trees, streets, etc. Jikkyou Powerful
Pro Baseball 6, also from Konami, was announced overnight for
the Nintendo 64 to ship on March 25. Japanese college baseball teams will be featured this
time around instead of professional teams. The game is compatible with the Gameboy
transfer pack for moving data from Powerful Pro Kun Pocket which was
announced for the Color Gameboy to ship on March 18. Pre-orders for any of these new
additions to the March schedule are welcome. |
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| Restock Situation |
| In the past, NCS has been perfectly willing to bring in large amounts of
restock on a weekly or a bi-weekly basis just to keep in our inventory. In most cases, we
have restocked goods under our own discretion and our perception of what would sell in the
American market. The recent strength of the yen has made this restock process unfeasible
due to much higher costs on all of the desirable product in Japan. We view the retail
pricing of imports as inelastic; there is a narrow range in which we can price import
goods and still move stock to retail in volume. NCS will resume the bulk restock process
should we ever see a weaker yen and a stronger dollar. In the meanwhile, NCS can still
accept special orders for older stock but please note that prices will be higher than what
we would normally sell an item for. Recent releases that we are in the process of sourcing
include: SATURN Girl Doll Toy, Langrisser Tribute, Elan Doree, and
Friends. On the N64, we are ordering Pikachu Genki and on the SONYPS,
we have Deep Freeze, Gundam Char's, Eretzvaju, Ehrgeiz, Thousand Arms and Beatmania on the
way. Pre-orders are welcome. |
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| Carriage Ineptitude |
| NCS is having one of those days again. A shipment of
much needed Dreamcast S-Video cables, additional copies of Evolution, etc was misrouted
yesterday morning. We figured that it would be routed correctly today. No such luck.
Instead of routing the shipment to JFK airport, the cartons have been misrouted yet again
this morning to a location in Meadowlands, New Jersey. Sigh. |
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| Capital
Markets |
| The action yesterday was exceedingly bearish. The darlings of Wall
Street, the internet stocks, were crushed with bellweathers YHOO and AMZN logging steep
losses. Further weakness will make for trading opportunities both long and short. It is
days like yesterday that the internet bears pile into unboxed short positions and prime
themselves for their own slaughter. We have seen it too many times and have profited by
watching and timing the declines and subsequent, unexplicable bull runs on these stocks.
Imagine shorting YHOO at 90 and then watching it run all the way up to 440. Even a small
player with a 100 share short is looking at a loss of $35,000 if he opens the position
without a box, or hedge. A shark with a 1000 share short will be down by $350,000. We will
initiate preliminary call positions for the March contracts (+50 strike) if our downside
levels are met today. We'll add to this core as the position builds. Our hedge is to sell
uncovered calls and then use the proceeds to buy puts that are 10 points off the call
strike. Tech has led this market higher and any break of the generals: MSFT, INTC along
with a weaker banking sector may ring the death knell of the bull. We continue to look to
Brazil for cues since it will dictate the short term direction and sentiment. |
| NCS
posts our equity trades to fill up space in today's website update. That is all. The
observations and rants posted above are not trading recommendations - our company engages
in high risk transactions that may not suitable for everyone. NCS is a nimble trading
company - we cut losses quickly and flip positions 360 based on market sentiment. |
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Send e-mail to ncs@escape.com
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