| Tokimeki
Memorial 2 Substories US$65 |
Scan |
| A lesson we
learned years ago is that Tokimeki Memorial sells. Forever. With a large installed fan
base in North America, each and every new released is gobbled up and new inductees in the
romance game hunt for older volumes to complete their collections. Konami's latest
installment is an self contained extension of the Tokimeki 2 game subtitled Dancing Summer Vacation and K has cleverly
added Dance Dance Revolution ~Tokimeki style~ to the gameplay. |
|
| Second
Millenium Batch |
Scan |
| Two new
Millenium Collection games from Square arrived on Thursday. Ehrgeiz ME and Legend of Mana
ME are in stock. NCS' shipment of the Front Mission 3 Millenium Collection appears slated
for next week due to a mis-delivery but should be forwarded to us next week. Ehrgeiz
includes a diorama figure and Legend of Mana includes a jewelled music box and two
figures. The complete line of Millenium Collection games will be added to the NCS on-line
store over the weekend. We currently have Saga Frontier, Saga Frontier 2, and Brave Fencer
Musashiden in stock. Final Fantasy Tactics is currently sold out. Pricing per: US$55.
|
|
| DC
Dead or Alive 2 |
Ship |
After
originally submitting pre-orders for Dead or Alive 2 LE a couple of
months ago, we had a bout of buyer's remorse and figured we had ordered too many. After
all, the USA Dreamcast version was already out and the PS2 version had been available for
months. We asked our vendors to cut our pre-orders by a bit to lessen the expected
overstock pain but our exhortations were repulsed. Spurned and bounced back right at us.
Cancellations were not allowed in our business lest distribution houses get
stuck with our buying mistakes. Future pre-orders from offending buyers would be viewed
with jaundiced eye and clenched teeth. In the interest of keeping things civil and
maintaining a level of trust with suppliers that we had dealt with for years and years, we
would have to bite the bullet and let the dice roll. We figured it wouldn't be pretty come
ship time.
Then the pre-orders started coming in. Fast, furious and puzzling. Was this
not the same game that we had invested hours in on the PS2? Had a secret strip mahjong
mode been announced? No, it was general interest from a game playing public that
considered DOA2 to be a cornerstone of gaming and the Japanese DC version had enough
improvements to make it a worthy investment. Most of our initial order quantity has since
been sold and a buying mistake has turned into a stroke of luck as others sell
out and we hold a healthy supply on hand. Things work out occasionally after all. |
Pre-orders for Dead or Alive 2 LE have
been fulfilled on Thursday and we tackle new orders today. All on-line orders received
over the past couple of days will be processed and shipped this afternoon. New orders are
welcome until our supply peters out. The restock shipment of DOA2 expected next week will
only be the regular edition which looks a little something like this:
|
| PS2
Start a Band... |
Rhapsody |
| Konami
announced Guitar Freaks 3rd Mix and Drummania 2nd Mix for
the Playstation 2 to ship on December 7. The two games are both Guitar and Drum controller
compatible and support up to three players for a jam session. Pre-orders are welcome via
e-mail request but this item will be added to the on-line store, along with many other
titles, this weekend. |
Konami need to make a game where all of their
"instruments" are used and call it Orchestra mania or something. Bemani must
evolve into the multi-player realm... |
| Konami
DJ Station Pro |
More |
|
Our shipment of the DJ Station Pro is in stock this morning but customer orders will not
be processed until next Monday. The six to a carton DJ Station Pro boxes have been moved
to the side for now. We are handling the volume of orders that we already have shipping
today with Tokimeki Substories and new orders for Dead or Alive 2 LE. All DJS requests
will be ready to ship by Monday however and we have a buffer quantity for new orders as
well. |
A number of other new items arrived today but
we'll update these on Monday. It's a bit busy and we won't have a chance to open and check
out all of the import cartons that arrived this morning. Sorry. |
| DC
Video IC |
PS2 Problems |
An Asian
vendor is now supplying replacement Dreamcast video chips to the market for console
repairs. The most common Dreamcast fatality next to dead GD-Rom drives are blown video
chips and/or the fuses. NCS has been able to repair a number of DC consoles using this
video chip and we will be able to offer the IC to vendors who wish to perform their own
repairs by next week. The replacement requires de-surface mounting the chip at location
IC401 and mounting the new IC in it's place. Note that the solder work involves 56 pins
but the work is fairly simple with a soldering station or even a fine tipped heat gun.
NCS is not accepting repair work from vendors or customers at this time due
to a heavy service back-log but we should be able to accept new repairs starting in late
October or early November. |
Similar to the Dreamcast, the most common
Playstation 2 hardware problems involve DVD-Rom drive failure and video chip death. Some
PS2 consoles ship DOA while others develop their handicaps over time. No solutions are
readily available but our correspondence with vendors in Asia should lead to some fixes
later this year. |
| PS2
Lame Duck |
Sayonara |
Sony
announced a couple of days ago that the harkened launch quantity of the USA PS2 would be
halved from 1,000,000 units to a middling 500,000. Sony supposedly launched a million
units in Japan earlier this year and sold another two million during the past couple of
months. The software sales in Japan don't come close to reflecting this installed base,
but who's counting....
There will be much ire and trepidation when October 26 rolls around. Any
console debut is usually marked by excitement and energy but we see rancor ahead. Vendors
and distributors will be caught short and consumers will be left in want. Retailers,
ranging from the mom 'n pop shops to the national chains, make up the channel for this
industry and it's never good to piss on the channel. NCS have little vested interest in
any domestic market shenanigans since our fortunes lie with the import market. Our
adventure with the import PS2 has come and gone this year and what we've seen thus far
doesn't measure up to the pre-release hype that was spouted months before the PS2's
Japanese launch.
Those with vested interests in the domestic PS2, whether it be publishers or
associate vendors who were hinging on the PS2 for a fulfilling holiday season, will likely
be sorely disappointed. Hype, smoke, and mirrors can only last so long before the illusion
is gone. Cya. |
Months before the PS2 launched in Japan, a
wide assortment of software was announced and touted as launch titles. The title known as Bouncer
was bandied about for a little while... When it came time to end the banter and actually
show product, a total of eight launch titles made it to market with the PS2 on March 04.
Two of them were Shogi games. The expected software roster for the USA launch stands at 26
titles as of today. Prediction: Deja vu all over again when the number of launch titles is
halved or even quartered and new dates are scrambled for most of the crop of incoming
wares. |
| Kapital |
Get Shorty |
| Smart money
went short yesterday after all the shorts were slaughtered and the moonshot caught on
fire. Those bears who went in last week on INTC's warning and then again this week on EK's
death knell, convinced of the end, were killed. It was tempting to get short on Thursday
morning, checking out the movement and weakness but all NCS casino powder is being kept
dry for a single trade later this year - the October move. In 1998 it was LTCM and
Russia's debt default that culminated in the spiralling depths of October. It was ugly
that year and fortunes were obliterated in the span of days. In 1999, rising interest
rates and AG's bubble warnings plunged October, on expiry week no less, into a hellish
month for blind-sided bulls. The shadow of Y2K and all of it's ill-founded warnings of
catastrophe didn't exactly help either. In 2000, we have wariness generated by out of
nowhere earnings warnings, rampant fuel costs, and an already nervous market spooked by
the ghost of Octobers past.. A palpable mix of fear and loathing to crush this bull, if
only for a week or two. Those who bought at or near the bottom during the maelstroms of
1998 and 1999 with select index contracts saw capital appreciate a year's worth of
movement within weeks. |
If recent history is any lesson, there may be
a day in October this year where it looks like the end of the world is upon us in the
equity markets. A day so wretched that forced margin selling wrecks accounts and men damn
the evils of capitalism. You have to be able to taste the blood on that day. That will be
the day to buy. Use both hands. Of course, if it comes again this year, it won't happen
again next year since the pattern will have asserted itself and too many will be playing
it... The market never complies to the whimsy of masses. Good day. |
