News

There is a price drop rumoured to occur during the upcoming E3 convention.

The new prices that each console is thought to be selling for after the convention are (all prices in US Dollars): Sony's Playstation 2 for $149.99, Microsoft's Xbox also for $149.99, and Nintendo's GameCube for $99.99.

Remember that these are just rumours and that the E3 convention is still a few weeks away.

Source: Games_Are_Fun

/******/

Good news for gamers.  I would assume that the price drops would be occurring everywhere, but the Games_Are_Fun only had the US prices.

$100 for a GameCube?  That's looking damn good from where I'm standing.  I wonder if they are still going to have the deal that if you buy a GameCube you get Metroid Prime, Star Fox Adventures, Resident Evil 0 or Mario Party 4 for free after the price drop have occurred.  If they do, that will be quite a steal.  

Anyone want to buy a console now?

The Caves of Narshe has expanded again, this time offering one of the most complete and innovative Final Fantasy Tactics sections available on the net.  I could write all about the different sections that are available in the new section, but it's probably best for you to check it out for yourself.

http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/fft/

The CoN staff is extremely proud of this section, and we'd like to ask you to post your comments and reactions to it right here, as well as beginning discussion in the newly-opened FFT section.  Enjoy!

And there will be even more added once all of NP's awesome caricatures are finished.  Enjoy two pieces of fanart each from Kame and Narratorway, and one each from seventh and Hikaroo!  

Visit http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/fanart/new.php for all the newest fanart.
Visit http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/fanart/ for all fanart!

Nintendo has finally released new info and screenshots (news and screenshots both courtesy of Games Are Fun) for the lastest incarnation of the Mario Kart series for the the Gamecube, titled Mario Kart: Double Dash.

Changes have been made in this versions since the N64 and Super Nintendo games.  One of significance is that there will be two riders on each kart now.  The idea being that the front character drives and the one located in the rear controls all of the power-ups and weapons.    The cast of characters has also changed.  Included are Mario, Luigi, Peach, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Yoshi, Birdo, Wario, Waluigi, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Bowser, Bowser Jr., Koopa, and Paratroopa.  Poor Toad must have come down with a case of SARS or something because he seems to be in quarantine for this title.

One more tid bit on the gameplay for now.   As mentioned, each kart has two characters.  You can switch the two characters mid-race for different effects to change balancing and such during turns and going up hills.  

Source:  Games Are Fun

/~~~~~~~/

It is games like these these that make me wish I had a Gamecube.    The screenshots look pretty fantastic and it looks like the game could be a lot of fun, especially when played with friends (for those of us who actually have those anyways .)  And it is nice that they are making some changes in the gameplays while keeping the basic Mario Kart formula intact.  Even though it was one my favorite N64 games, I've heard that it was a disappointment to many after the SNES versions.  Hopefully this will make it up to those who viewed the N64 Mario Kart in this manner.

Thoughts, opinions, flames? Toss them at me (or the game)

It may be in Japanese, and the game it's from still way out of reach from our Canadian and American hands (further out of the reach for you folks in the UK and beyond) but here it is. The Intro Movie for FFX-2, courtesy of www.rpgamer.com

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ffx-2/ffx-2mov.html

That link will also take you to a few other tasty bits of footage.

For the intro itself, I liked it well enough. It first opens up into an arena that I was sure was going to be blitzball. Instead, we get Yuna, first in her summoner's outfit. She changes classes, into her pop singer costume. While she sings a song in Japanese that is catchy, but sounds like the same sentence over and over, Rikku and FFX newbie Paine cause mischief in the audience. An interesting, colourful intro (though Rikku's braids still look very very fake, even in FMV) leaving the viewer with lots of questions (one of which may be "Why??" for those of you still against FFX-2 on principle).

Courtesy Gamespot
http://www.gamespot.com/gamecub....21.html

Capcom, one of the top video game developers, suffered 19.5 billion yen ($163 million) in losses in 2002.  This happened because many of their games which they expected to be big sellers fell short of what they expected.  For example, three of their main sellers combined to sell 760,000 less copies than they expected.  This accounts for much of the loss, which was explained by the president, that the market was moving in a different direction than their titles.  Capcom's loss caused them to shelve 18 of their games that were in development, which is a huge hit to the company.

------------

It's interesting to think about other reasons why things fell so flat for the company in 2002.  The American economy, at least, was suffering for much of the year, but it seems to easy to blame it on that when there are many markets around the world that are buying the games.  It would also be nice to know if any other companies had losses to their sales to see if the video game market is in a slump right now.  I think market confidence needs to be up before people will start buying more.  I can safely say that I only got two video games last year, Wild ARMs 3 and Suikoden 3, and neither of those are Capcom titles.  If Capcom wants to get back into the market, they'll probably need to start developing different types of games, and maybe that's the aim in the cancellation of so many games.  What does everyone else think?