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- November 8, 2001 -
X B O X
- Morgan Stanley reported that Microsoft is expecting to lose $1,000,000,000 US for
XBox in the next 3 years. Due to the high manufacturing cost of the XBox console, which is
estimated at $320 - $400, and the cost is not recovered in the retail price of the system,
which is set to $299 US. They further pointed out that the maximum cost to Microsoft could
increase to 2 billion dollars due to inflation and competition from other console systems.
- Microsoft has officially confirmed the XBox launch titles on November 15, there will
be a total of 15 titles, including 5 first party titles:
- 4X4 EVO 2
- Air Force Delta Storm
- Cel Damage
- Dark Summit
- Dead or Alive 3
- Fuzion Frenzy
- Halo
- Mad Dash Racing
- Madden NFL 2002
- NFL Fever 2002
- NHL Hitz 2002
- Nascar Heat 2002
- Nascar Thunder 2002
- Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee
- Project Gotham Racing
- Shrek
- Test Drive Offroad: Wide Open
- Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2X
- TransWorld Surf
- Here are six XBox teaser movies released by Microsoft:
A R C A D E / O T H E R S
- Capcom announced that they are expanding their PC business, a new subsidiary
Capcom-PC will be established to handle PC and network specific business. Capcom consider
PC an important platform to their multi-platform strategy. Capcom-PC will be publishing
several US PC titles in Japan, as well as porting popular console titles to PC, here are
the confirmed titles:
- Empire Earth English version (Nov 22, 2001)
- Alien Vs Predator 2 (Jan 28, 2002)
- Empire Earth Japanese version (Feb 1, 2002)
- Nascar Racing 4 (Winter)
- StarCraft - Low Price Version (Winter)
- Dino Crisis 2 (Winter)
- Rockman X5 (Winter)
- Renegard 2 (TBA)
- Empire Interactive announced that they are porting Sega's Crazy Taxi and Virtua
Tennis to PC. Both games will be developed in house. Crazy Taxi for PC will be
released in April 2002, while Virtua Tennis is aiming for a February 2002 release.
- Aruze, the parent company of SNK, mentioned that the stockholders of SNK has filed a
lawsuit at the Osaka District Court of Japan, against Aruze and 5 executives of SNK. The
stockholders request a damage compensation of 27.5 billion yen in total, because they
believe Aruze has incorrectly increase the third party allocation capital of SNK, which
caused the company to go bankrupt.
- Infogrames announced their quarterly financial results, the revenue has increased by
over 2 times from $39.6 millions to $81.7 million, and the net profit of $552,000 ($0.1
per share). Infogrames is planning to release 5 PlayStation 2 titles in the holidays and 3
XBox launch titles on November 15.
H A N D H E L D S
- GameArts announced that they are porting the classic RPG Lunar: Silver Star
Story to GameBoy Advance, the GBA version will be scaled down due to limitations
to portable system, such as movies; but there will be new features not found in the
original version, including a new Special Attack system in the battles. The game is
scheduled to release in Japan in February 2002 in Japan.
- Culture Brain will release a new board game for GameBoy Advance called Sweet
Cookie Pie in Japan in December, for 4980 yen. In this game you play as find
baking ingredients and bake cakes & cookies, in the format of mini games. Up to 4
players can play the game simultaneously.
 
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- Marvelous Entertainment announced that they will release a GameBoy Advance hardware
bundle with their GBA fighting game The King of Fighters EX: NeoBlood.
The bundle will be sold for 15,600 yen, and 5800 yen for just the game. The King of
Fighters EX: NeoBlood is scheduled for a January 1, 2002 release in Japan.
- Destination Software announced its software lineup for 2001 - 2002. They
are developing several exclusive GameBoy Advance titles, as well as GameCube titles: (From
GameSpot)
- GameBoy Advance
- Smuggler's Run (Q4 2001)
- Midnight Club Street Racing (Q4 2001)
- Medal of Honor Underground (Q1 2002)
- Tiger Woods 2002 PGA Tour (Q1 2002)
- Supercross (Q2 2002)
- Formula 1 Racing (Q2 2002)
- Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed (Q3 2002)
- Road Rash Jailbreak (Q3 2002)
- ThunderStrike (Q4 2002)
- Snood (Q4 2002)
- NBA 2002 Basketball (Q4 2002)
- GameCube
- Snood (Q3 2002)
- Road Rash Jailbreak (Q3 2002)
P L A Y S T A T I O N / P L A Y S T A T I O N 2
- Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Kaz Harai mentioned that they are planning to
increase the production of the PlayStation 2 from 1.8 million units to 2 million units a
month, to meet the increasing demand in the holidays. Sony is expecting to ship 10 million
units of PS2 in North America by the end of March 2002. He also mentioned that there are
no plans to drop the price of the system this year.
- Sony announced that the Limited Edition PlayStation 2 were all sold out in the Sony
PlayStation website within 5 minutes, despite the retail price of 50,000 yen. The Limited
Edition of PlayStation 2 was created to celebrate the shipment of 20 million PS2 units
worldwide, which are available in 5 different colors, including white, silver yellow, blue
and red.
- Sony is planning to ship a total of 300,000 copies of the playable demo version of
their upcoming PS2 action game Jax and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy in
Japan, to the nationwide game shops, they are hopping the game to catch the success of the
past Sony Crash Bandicoot series. The game is scheduled to release in Japan on December
20.
- Konami will release ESPN Winter X Games Snowboarding 2002 for PlayStation 2 in
Japan on November 29, for 6800 yen. The game will have 3 play modes: X Games Mode, Duel
Mode and Snowboarder Mode. Up to 6 players can play simultaneously in the X Games Mode,
which includes events such as Superpipe, Big Air and Slopestyle.
- Here is a new Konami TV Commercial (Real Media)
for Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty:
- NewKidCo International announced that they will release a new PS2 title based on E.T.
next year, the game will be developed by Warthog.
- ArtDink announced that they will release the PS2 HDD compatible add-on A-Train
2001 Perfection Set for the PS2 game A-Train 2001 in Japan on January 1, 2002.
This append disc will contain new trains and track features, the data will be saved to the
PS2 HDD unit.
- Namco announced a new sports image girl for their future racing and sports games, her
name is Hitomi Yoshino. Hitomi Yoshino is 18 years old, born in September 6, 1983, 162cm
tall and blood type is A. She will show up in Namco's upcoming PS2 racing game Moto
GP2 and skiing game Alphine Racer 3.
G A M E C U B E
- Ubi Soft has confirmed that they will release Batman Vengeance for
GameCube as a launch title on November 18 in US.
- Gaming Target reported that Konami has confirmed the development of a new exclusive
Castlevania title for Nintendo GameCube.
D R E A M C A S T
- Sega Sonic Team announced that they will be posting a new quest "Face the
Future" for Phantasy Star Online Ver 2.0 on November 16. In this
quest all the enemy bosses will have governor-general settings, you can find the new
"Strictly Confidential Armor and Weapon" in the quest.
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