It's also worth noting that the game is being developed by 1.5th party Retro Studios, formerly known as Iguana. Iguana is best known for developing the console ports of NBA Jam for Acclaim.

So some ex-Acclaim employees have rendered some FMV of Samus Aran -- to put things in perspective. I'm looking forward to the game, but the trigger-happy MGS2 bashing (a completely playable game) is getting to me.

- Andrew

Will rehashes of the classics be enough to keep gamers interested, you ask? Well I think Nintendo has a time-bomb gig going on, but they're playing their hand as best as humanly possible... Sony's big flagship titles like Crash Bandicoot, Tomb Raider, and Tekken have all gotten to the point where people are bored stiff with 'em. Revision after revision came out, and now people don't see what's new; only what's been ruminated. (Though Crash Team Racing didn't drown itself, and could make a safe appearance on the PS2 as a sort of "farewell" to the series..) Nintendo, for whatever it's worth, releases their Big Hitters very rarely.. Instead of devoting themselves to sequels (ex. Crash, Crash 2, Crash 3, CrashTR), we can instead rest assured that we'll see at least one appearance of Mario, MKart, StarFox, and Zelda within the system's lifespan. The catch is that we may well only see ONE of each in that generation, and we'll have to wait bloody years for the next incarnation.

On one hand, it's hard to get tired of the games, as their appearances are so limited; but on the other hand, the long wait gives players time to lose interest and/or ruminate over the downsides. Luckily, Miyamoto's gameplay genious transcends generations, which gives players less to moan about, and more to become nostalgic about. The first real faltering I've seen is in Zelda 64's gameplay -- after Mario's extreme level of freedom, some people were kinda miffed about Zelda's control being so constrained. I just hope Mask of Majora (which doesn't have Miyamoto's 'magic mushroom' touch) doesn't accidentally add a handful of nails to the series' coffin...

They're rationing their time in the spotlight to maximize each series' lasting power. They wait 'til they are quite sure the sequel will outperform its last incarnation before releasing it. In my never-quite-humble-enough opinion, that's why we're seeing a rehash of Zelda64 instead of a new Metroid 64; they had a better chance of expanding Zelda than they had in doing Metroid justice with only 150k poly/sec and blurry textures. Regardless, most of the time you've got a guaranteed shot of outperforming a predecessor when working with hardware that is 5 to 10 times as potent as the previous platform.

Overall, G3 is a very tight system -- in both dimension and concept. 6"x4"? Rock on. The controller looks funkadelic, but I have a hunch it'll be comfortable to hold for the masses. The media format, while generally incongruous, is expansive enough for initial offerings, and cheap enough to utilize multiple discs per game later on. Graphically, it will likely surpass PS2, and rival X-Box. DC's in for some poor weather, though.. As for the Gameboy Advance, the 32bit (16Mhz) CPU can do more than the SNES, but the rez is lower, sound is worse, it's missing 2 buttons, and may be uncomfortable in American hands. Sure, it's fairly potent considering its size, but reflect for a moment that the Gekko chip is the size of a fingernail. That said, it will dominate among all handheld gaming systems, help a number of gamers relive the "golden age," and I can tell ya that I'll be importing one without question.

-Jagger~

John

I believe the attached image requires no further explanation.

Later,
Spear.

I just wanted to say that the Matsushita-designed storage disc Nintendo's using in the Gamecube won't necessarily be the element of disaster some people are declaring it will be. After all, the Dreamcast utilizes a proprietary disc format that's smaller than the average DVD, and that hasn't stopped developers from trying their hand with the system.

The two factors influencing Nintendo's decision are piracy and, yes, sexy licensing fees, but considering all Nintendo's doing in evidence of their ability to learn from mistakes, I don't see why they would screw that up with restrictive licensing costs. Just because the company is wise enough not to advertise its third-party errors doesn't mean it hasn't learned from them.

As a final note, the PS2's DVD playback abilities have only segregated the system's market in Japan. Many people are buying the system as a cheap DVD player; when developers look at the PS2's sell-through stats, they aren't necessarily indicative of the number of actual gamers composing the user base. That can frighten away game designers deciding which system to program for. And as much as some people would like to believe, someone with no interest in video games isn't suddenly going to develop that interest because their DVD player doubles as a console.

My inner-Nintendo fanboy required me to say as much.

-Drew

"The world is different now, and I doubt anyone will ever so completely dominate the market as Nintendo did, but I'm impressed with what I've seen so far. Big N may really have a shot this time around."

Well, if they can impress you with two pictures and a bunch of promises than really we won't have worry about how well Nintendo will do over here. It's pretty much got you sold already. Seriously, you haven't seen ANY games yet, just a demo picture of Samus running in 3D. So much for being 'objective'.

While I myself am usually an avid Nintendo fan, I'm not impressed at all with this badly named, misshapen box. And while the big N's franchises continue to sell whatever console they are marketed too, I think that in this new console race, we might start seeing people who no longer jump on whichever console has the next Zelda or Mario. You said as much yourself, and who knows what they're going to do to the next incarnation of Metroid. Nintendo has a lot of apologizing to do to its most loyal supporters who were burned on the N64. I'm not 'just going buy it because it has Mario' anymore. It better have some damn RPGs this time around.

-Red Raven, who is now starting to grow out of Nintendo

The penalties for using full SNES resolution:

1. Double the size of the GBA.
2. Double the cost of the GBA.
3. Double the batteries, which then leads to additional cost and additional weight.

That alone is enough to quash the idea. Why, exactly, would I want to buy a glorified Apple Newton (the old, clunky/large PDA)?

And the SNES ports are coming by the dozen.

re: Licensing Costs

Might be an idea to investigate that before you hold the fort. By your same logic I could also assume that we will have to flip over the PS2 in order to keep it from freezing.

But thats just my opinion. Anything more substantial than an opinion could be unhealthy.

Richard "KZ" Knight

The GAMECUBE modem will plug into one of the slots beneath the system, and according to J.T. Kauffman, the system won't sit any higher with it included.

My main concern here are comments made on the storage media, namely capacity and the proprietary nature. Firstly, companies have shown the space of a DVD to be completely unnecessary in making games - most Dreamcast games have come in under 800 megs in size, and most PlayStation 2 games are still appearing on normal CDs. Until there is some technological breakthrough that requires insane storage capacities, you can fit more than enough within 1.5 gigs, or simply use two or three of the cheap discs.

I have only one word regarding proprietary media: piracy. I don't think the average gamer appreciates just how much money a company like Nintendo loses in the Asian marketplace due to piracy. There are entire swaths of the continent where legit games are exponentially *harder* to find than pirated versions. I had the honor of chatting w/Howard Lincoln (former Nintendo of America chief) for a bit at this past E3, and he still saw piracy as the one issue which threatened the breakout growth the gaming industry is capable of.

Is control over licensing an issue in storage medium? We seem to forget that a console maker can exert that control no matter what format is used. It isn't as if companies suddenly are allowed to do whatever they want just because the medium itself isn't proprietary. We should've learned that by missing Vib Ribbon and other games which didn't meet SCEA's anti-2D graphical standards, non-proprietary CDs be damned.

I hate to self-promote (and you can cut this from the letter if you like), but Howard Lincoln addressed the issue of licensing fees himself in his response to the first Wiretap. If Nintendo cuts piracy as much as the GAMECUBE is possible of, it will be a great thing for everyone who plays games. The format also streams a good bit faster than normal DVDs according to people who know more about this than I do.

Sounds like a fine overall media choice to me.

-Ed M. GIA Agent

As for the storage issue, from what I've gathered, the discs are actually "CD single" sized DVDs, with an encryption scheme. CD singles in Japan are about 8 cm in diameter (I've never purchased a single over here, so I don't know if singles here also ship in 8 cm discs) and work in any CD player or CD-ROM that has the inner groove. Since CD singles are pressed in the same way regular-sized CDs are, I'm pretty confident that Nintendo's discs are "DVD singles" in terms of dimensions. They're actually cheaper to manufacture than standard sized discs, but it all boils down to how much Nintendo is charging for royalities.

-Ayla Sakura