| DC
Guilty Gear X Confirmed |
Legacy |
Capcom
rules the 2-D fighting game market with an iron fist. Through the past decade, it has
refined and honed it's craft from a fairly straight-forward Street Fighter 2 to a myriad
of evolutions. Recent accomplishments such as Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Street Fighter EX3
show off with new technique, characters and appeal to the broad populace. Sure, SNK has
succeeded as well and has it's own devoted following but to a lesser degree. Through all
this, a little known publisher named Sammy hit the streets with a little 2-D fighting game
called Guilty Gear in 1998. It outclassed anything from Capcom and SNK on the Playstation
and gained a large following in Japan. Japanese periodicals gave it accolades.
Two years later, Arc System builds Guilty Gear X on Naomi
hardware and looks to put some fear into Capcom again. Sammy confirmed overnight that
Dreamcast Guilty Gear X will ship on December 7 in two
versions, a regular edition and a limited edition. The standard game prices at Y5800 (US$53)
and the special edition swoops in at Y6800 (US$65). A music CD is included
with the limited edition and if the first Guilty Gear is any indication, the music in GGX
will provide aural bliss to fanboys the world over. Pre-orders are welcome via e-mail request or through the on-line store. |
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. No adage is more suitable for
Capcom's legendary Street Fighter series. Instead of botching about with 3-D engines and
polluting it's brand with polygonal imagery, Capcom has forged ahead with the same style
for years and years. Tweaking and making adjustments for sure, but never changing the meat
and potatoes platter that is the Street Fighter heart and soul. In the early years, many
attempted to challenge the throne. Some were embarrassingly bad, others took the ball and
ran with it. In the end though, Street Fighter remains, strong as ever. |
| Thursday
Arrivals |
Sports Day |
| Today is
Columbus Day in the United States and tomorrow will be Taiiku no Hi in Japan. Both are
holidays and both will disrupt normal business operations at NCS. No postal packages will
be processed today due to the shuttering of the Postal system. UPS and Fedex shipments
will be processed normally. All expected import shipments originally expected on Wednesday
of this week will shift over one day to Thursday. This affects our shipments of DC 18
Wheeler Pro American Trucker, El Dorado Gate, and Silent Scope,
which will now arrive on October 12. Also expected on that day are Moto GP
and the special Moto GP Controller from Namco for the
Playstation 2. Otherwise, everything else remains the same this week and normal business
hours will be observed today. Thank you. |
October 10 marks the opening day of the 1964
Tokyo Olympics, the first Olympics to be held in the Asian Pacific region. The event
helped to fuel Japan's infrastructure build-up and construction. As such, the Japanese
government made it a national holiday called Taiiku no Hi (Sports Day) where businesses
and schools hold sporting events and programs. |
| Sega
Tetris |
Puzzles |
Sega has
moved the ship date for Sega Tetris from October 26 to November 22, 2000.
Essentially Pazhitnov's original Tetris at heart, a floating slots machine is added to the
upper right hand corner of the screen for the 1 player mode. Complete a line and a cherry
appears in the slot machine. Blast two more single lines and the cherries will fill up and
you win a jackpot. Smack three times for two-lines and you win an orange fruit jackpot.
Single player mode is fine but it's the two player mode where things get
hairy. Complete line patterns and you'll send obstacles and ballistics over to your
opponent's side to foil any line combinations that he's attempting. A number of different
attacks may be used depending on your skill at creating line combinations and patterns. |
Nintendo
made Tetris the pack-in game for the original Gameboy when it was released in 1989. The
decision to buy the rights for the console versions of Tetris by Nintendo probably put the
game in more homes than any other version of the classic puzzler. It also made for an
interesting legal battle between Nintendo and Tengen back in the NES days. |
| Playstation
2 December Imports |
Mighty |
A massive
PS1-like assemblage of Playstation 2 imports expected in December was faxed to NCS
overnight by multiple vendors. No specific ship dates for any of the titles were listed,
only a warning that pre-orders would close tonight. In any case, we list all of the games
that are expected below. Dates will be added once they are disclosed.
 |
| Blood the Last Vampire Vol. 1 |
SCEI |
DVD |
| Blood the Last Vampire Vol. 2 |
SCEI |
DVD |
| Bouncer |
Square |
Action |
| Choro Q HG |
Takara |
Racing |
| Choro Q HG Limited Edition |
Takara |
Racing |
| Colorio Postcard Print |
Seiko |
Art |
| Cool Boarders Code Alien |
UEP |
Snow |
| Crazy Bumps |
Syscon |
Racing |
| Dark Cloud |
SCEI |
RPG |
| DNA Dark Native |
Hudson |
Action |
| DOA2 Hardcore |
Tecmo |
Fighting |
| Dog of Bay |
Marvelous |
Music |
| Dream Audition 2 |
Jaleco |
Karaoke |
| F1 Racing Championship |
UBI |
Racing |
| FIFA 2001 World Championship |
EAS |
Soccer |
| Game Select 5 Yo |
Yuki |
Table |
| Golf Paradise DX |
T&E |
Golf |
| Happy Boarders in Hokkaido |
Atlus |
Snow |
| Hresvelgr International
Edition |
Gust |
Racing |
| Kengou |
Genki |
Action |
| Kurikuri Mix |
From |
Sim |
| Lake Masters EX |
Dazz |
Fishing |
| Mobile Suit Gundam |
Bandai |
Action |
| Neo Atlas 3 |
Artdink |
Sim |
| Present of Angel |
Japansoft |
Music |
| Present of Angel Limited
Edition |
Japansoft |
Music |
| Seven |
Namco |
RPG |
| Sidewinder Max |
Asmik |
Flight |
| Top Gear Dead |
Kemco |
Racing |
| Truck Action Love |
Metro |
Racing |
| Victorious Boxers |
ESP |
Boxing |
|
|
From December's PS2 listing, it appears that
Sony have the full faith and dedication of Japan's console software publishers behind
them. All this despite generally lackluster sales for PS2 games. It will be interesting to
see how the holiday season fares for the PS2 and DC in Japan but with such a strong
software schedule, it's hard to vote against the PS2 juggernaut.
Tecmo adds DOA2 Hardcore for the Japanese PS2 in December.
Perhaps special bonuses and another Digital Venus Photo-File will be options in the
upcoming version to make it worthwhile for Japanese buyers.
Bouncer appears to be scheduled for December but then again,
it was also listed as a launch title in the USA, which has since been removed. FIFA
2001 should do well since EAS produce a fine product but we're curious about Hresvelgr
International since the first game didn't exactly warrant a sequel. Everything
else looks like standard fare at this point but NCS will filter out the chaff over the
next couple of weeks when we receive more details on the games. We also don't think that
all of the games on this list will ship in December, especially since none of them had
ship dates. More details soon. |
| Neo Geo Update Originally Posted on 10/04 |
| Neo
King of Fighters 2000 Confirmed |
Retail |
| It's on.
SNK of Japan has served up the ship date for Neo Geo King of Fighters 2000 and
it hits on December 21, 2000. All pre-orders that have previously been submitted to NCS
are on hold and we'll send out e-mail confirmations for this game about two weeks before
the game arrives. This early December mailing will serve as a reminder to our customers
and also settle shipping arrangements. New pre-orders are welcome via e-mail request for
addition to our reservation schedule. Final pricing for the game will be posted on October
17 and we will be able to fulfill all pre-orders received up until the game ships. New
orders after the release date should also be okay as we will bring in a large quantity of
this product. |
SNK's retail pricing for King of Fighters 2000 sits at a hefty 38,000 yen or
roughly USD347 at this morning's forex ratio. NCS expects our own pricing to be listed at
USD319 or lower when the cartridge is released in December but this will be finalized in
about 2 weeks. There will only be one production of this game. |
