News

Bandai, the manufacturer of the SwanCyrstal, WonderSwan Color and WonderSwan, announced that they will stop mass production of the SwanCrystal (their latest version of the handheld device).  Furthermore, they have no future hardware plans as of now.

http://www.gamesarefun.com/cgi-bin....,30952,

While it was never brought over to the North American market, the WonderSwan was able to establish a nice little niche market over in Japan.  Sales have really sagged in recent weeks though.  Bandai is to the point where they are only moving 800 to 1,000 units weekly.  

The WonderSwan Color garnered much of its attention through ports of popular game made to the system, particularly those by Square and Capcom.  Square ported Final Fantasy I, II and IV, and Romancing SaGa to the system while Capcom brought its Ghouls 'n Ghosts, Pocket Fighter, and Mega Man and Bass.

Bandai handheld plans are now to develop software for the GameBoy Advance, hoping to release a game this coming fall in Japan.  

Source: GamesAreFun
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This is just one less competitor to Nintendo's dominance in the handheld market.  As already stated up above, it was never released in the North American market and only established a niche in Japan.  Every bit of competition against Nintendo helps it though.  On the positive side, this will result in the GameBoy Advance getting another quality developer in the form of Bandai.  

Next up for Nintendo (about a year or so away though): Nokia's N-Gage.

Nokia, a company usually noted for its cell phones, unveiled a portable gaming device in London yesterday.  

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870,2910373,00.html/

Dubbed the N-Gage, it appears to have few influential companies lined up to publish games for the system. Representatives from Sega, Activision, Eidos, Taito, and THQ all were present to show their support for the system (and to display some of their demos).

The N-Gage works as a cell phone, but is meant to be used for games.  It is powerful.  Eidos had a playable demo of Tomb Raider running on it already that looked to be a port of the original Playstation version. The unit also features multiplayer support via Bluetooth.

Here is list of publishers the games that each has planned thus far (as taken from Gamespot:)
Eidos
Pandemonium
Tomb Raider
Nokia
Bounce
Kart Racing
Virtually Board Snowboarding II
Sega
Puyo Puyo
Sega Rally
Sonic N
Super Monkey Ball
Virtua Tennis
Taito
Puzzle Bobble
Space Invaders
THQ
Major League Baseball
Moto-GP
Red Faction  


Nokia currently plans on the N-Gage being released sometime next year. Pricing for the system and games is not yet known.



Will the N-Gage challenge Nintendo’s dominance in the portable gaming?
-No, I don’t think it will.
Is it a good idea?
-Maybe.  
Is it good for gaming?
-Most definitely.  

Competition, in my opinion, is a good thing. I honestly know next to nothing about Bluetooth, but if this system has a chance to be successful, it will probably be through it.  If the N-Gage can make a niche in multiplayer games, it just may survive. And I think its survival would be good for gaming.

Hopefully, there will be a good deal of competition between Nokia and Nintendo.  Many have criticized Nintendo recently ignoring customers’ requests for a backlit GameBoy Advance and then announcing the GameBoy Advance SP (which boast the feature of being backlit) after the market has already been saturated with the regular unit.  One can only hope that business practices like this will fall by the wayside because of each companies struggle for dominance. With any luck prices will fall with them.

This is just a dream though probably. Nintendo holds such dominance over the market already for it to seem unrealistic for the N-Gage to be anything but a minor success. Here’s hoping the N-Gage doesn’t go the way of the Game Gear though (not that the Game Gear was a good portable system ^_^ ).




Source: Gamespot

Corda just brought to us a little bit of fun new media from Fierce Legends' upcoming FF VI: Forgtten Story game. This stuff is so new, that his own site doesn't even have it up yet.

This is an MP3 being used in the group's first Flash promotional video, out soon.

fffsintro.mp3 (just under one MB)

We've also got an unfinished MIDI piece that will be used in the actual game. Corda says it will be used "when two of the main characters are debating the power and temptation magic can offer."

themeofmagic1.mid (about 2 kb)

Corda suggests that you all try to find the throwbacks to the original FF6 musical score in these pieces.

Finally, a proviso: CoN's forte is not hosting music. If the file is broken for you, kindly let us know so we can host it elsewhere.

Yes, it's true - if you just shelled out $70 for a GBA, plus another whatever for an Afterburner, and then took your GBA apart to install it, et cetera, you shafted yourself. Sorry.

The GBA will soon be accompanied by a backlit, foldable version that will cost $99 and play all existing GBA games. No longer will you need to suffer through a dark screen, or the worry that accompanies performing major surgery to install a light. Now you can get it straight from Nintendo.

The unit is shaped much like the original Game Boy, only with a hinge right in the center. This allows the unit to fold into a shape three inches square and only an inch thick. At a premium of only $30 over the original GBA, I see the new GBA SP overrunning sales of the original within three months.

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/tech....y_x.htm

Gamesarefun.com Article

According to Bloomberg Japan (care of gamesarefun.com), Sony holds 82% of the Console market in Japan, selling 1.6 million PS2s and 110,000 PSOnes in the first half of this fiscal year, which is April 2002 - September 2002.  Nintendo's Game Cube only garnered 14% with 304,000 consoles, despite the fact that the GameBoy Advance owned the handheld market with 1.8 GBAs sold, 89% of that market.  Microsoft, however, is failing miserably in Japan, holding only a meager 4% of the market and selling 88,000 consoles.  They have struggled to unseat the Japanese gamemakers, and their games don't appeal to Japanese audiences.  However, I wouldn't count Microsoft out of the mix yet - after all, the great foriegn power Nintendo did unseat the Atari back in the 80s, and Sega gave Nintendo quite a run for their money as well in the early 90s, so who knows.  A corporation like Microsoft is capable of anything.

http://www.gamesarefun.com/newspro....,73286,

Michael Crichton, author of many famous sci-fi books like Jurassic Park, Lost World, Sphere, Airframe, and also the executive producer of ER, has partnered with Sega to develop a game.  No details are mentioned about the premise of the game, but most likely it will be Sci-fi like many of his creations.  In fact, the only details that are available are that the game will be available for release sometime around 2004.  When one of the greatest storytellers and one of the greatest video game manufacturers join hands, who knows what great things they can accomplish together?

Source:  Gamesarefun.com