Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Maybe Sega can just sell Ulala by the hour... Don't say we didn't warn you.

Hello all, your expected DA has come down with a case of the flu, so I'll be stepping in for a bit. Sorry for the late-ish column, but things have quickly ramped up again post-holiday, and you're still in for a nice dose of vitriol as the Xbox's step into the spotlight inspires offhand analysis of the gaming industry.

That being said, let's start with a nice healthy letter before everyone's attention span dwindles to zero.

I'm disappointed by your letter -- your first statement about the SNES launch had me giddily expecting dozens of blatant mischaracterizations that I could bash you senseless for. Unfortunately, you began to make sense, leaving me only to point out that F-Zero and Pilotwings were revolutionary games that you forgot about. Though SMW was more an evolutionary title (though a fantastic one at that), the latter two took gaming places it had never been before. Only Super Mario 64, probably the greatest launch title ever seen, was a greater leap forward.

As for the PS2, while I admire your optimism, where exactly are these worthwhile games going to come from? Nearly every major publisher besides Square that supported Sony exclusively or nearly exclusively in the PSX era has moved towards a broader strategy for this round of consoles. Namco has announced that there will be in-house projects for Xbox and GameCube, something the N64 didn't get until Namco Fricking Museum Vol. Whatever. Capcom is sending RE4 to every major platform and Konami is sending MGS and Silent Hill to at least the Xbox. Sony is now under extreme pressure to keep a lid on the DQ/FF dynamic duo, while Square is under pressure to get enough users from anywhere feasible to make PlayOnline profitable. A single-platform strategy in today's market borders on moronic.

And yeah, I keep finding excuses not to buy a DC either despite the great line-up and fantastic go-go dancers at E3. We'll miss you, Ulala... (sniffle)

Let me be the first person to publically predict that Gran Turismo 3 is going to save Sony's ass. It's their strongest first-party license by leaps and bounds, and is matched sale for sale by critical acclaim while filling a niche only Sega GT came close to doing as well. EA saved their ass at launch, and GT3 will keep the system's reputation afloat between now and fall, along with fan favorites like NBA Live (EA again). It's those high profile releases you speak of that will keep Sony going until the Xbox and GameCube hit.

But, after that, Sony is going to have to find a new killer app and do it fast. All the franchises that helped them supplant Nintendo commercially - EA Sports, Crash, Spyro, etc. - will be avilable elsewhere. Any ideas?

The basic rule goes like this: country of development is where the game will be released first, at least in terms of Japan vs. America. We sometimes get NTSC versions of games by developers in PAL countries (think GoldenEye) before those countries due to market considerations, but when language barriers apply, expect to wait a bit for your Square and Capcom games.

Your joke at the end of the e-mail is a crucial point, though, and just as valid for the Xbox as it was when I raised it in the last reply for the PS2. Where are the exclusive titles that will sell systems? The demos shown for Xbox where of Munch's Oddysee and Malice, a 3rd person adventure game that developer actually promised would have "the depth of Zelda but with more action." Who the hell is he kidding? The demo had a chick running around crushing cockroaches with a giant mallet. It's great they know which games to aspire to, but Malice isn't a killer app. And while the WWF or Tony Hawk games announced are great commercial successes to flesh out the line-up, they aren't killer apps either.

It's time people realized that the true seismic shift of the last console generation was not 3D games or optical media, but a shifting of leverage business-wise to the third-parties of the industry. Where publishers once begged at the feet of console manufacturers to give them marketing and production assistance, now the manufacturers must aggressively and relentlessly court publishers in the wake of more and more heated competition. Sure, this began in the 16-bit generation with games like Street Fighter II, but there were fewer overt struggles for loyalty until the PlayStation freed developers from constrictive business models. It was also much easier to develop a game for two cart formats than for a cart and a CD, and it's a long way from a lack of blood in Mortal Kombat hurting Super Nintendo sales to choices by EA and Square to ignore the Dreamcast playing a large role in destroying the console commercially.

As Sega dies, the true killer apps are in fewer and fewer hands, most specifically Nintendo's and Square's/Enix's for their flagship franchises, and the latter have lost ground as of late with FFIX selling less than its predecessor in Japan and DQ7 not even confirmed for U.S. release. The system Sony used of drowning Nintendo in third-party supporters will not work in the face of the Xbox and Nintendo's move to optical media. It's a whole new ballgame, and the scramble for increasingly scarce killer apps will be key.

The PS2 launch was mediocre in creative terms and a disaster in business terms. Hell, Sony had to air mail every single one of the initial 500,000 consoles just to get them to the U.S. in time for October 26th. Can you imagine how much sending 500,000 consoles by air mail costs? Sony barely got the shipment through and could have sold two or three times what they did without coming close to saturating the market. Demands at retail is still strong on the basis of hype - the Washington Post ran a pathetic story at launch on how the PS2 can download music and allow people to surf the web through their televisions, and then they ran another one in late December on people who had trouble finding the console at launch!

Things will certainly get better for the PS2, but it's amazing how people can learn to live without something they drove all over town for just a few months previously. The PS1 outsold all other consoles in December, and the N64 nearly outsold the PS2 and did narrowly outsell the Dreamcast. That's not exactly how the launch was supposed to go.

The use as a DVD player is a truly double-edged sword and one that has nicked Sony plenty thus far. There is now a shelf full of DVDs next to the shelf of PS2 games at my local EB, something I never would have imagined before the PS2. In fact, the DVD shelf is bigger and regularly gets more consumer attention than the dusty PS2 games. In Japan, the system has basically become a glorified DVD player, with remote control + system bundles selling well while software languishes. The Bouncer, after all that hype and a drought of PS2 titles that weren't associated with Gundam somehow, didn't even debut at #1. The latest two monster breeding sequels, one Pokémon and one not, both topped the charts.

The problem with that explanation is that Uematsu, or any other game composer for that matter, shouldn't just arrange a game's songs and then head off on vacation. I can tell you that nobody here writes a review and then simply wanders off while it's critiqued, edited, and posted - once you put your name on something, you are accountable for the final product no matter how many hands it passes through in the meantime. This is certainly true more for renown composers than largely anonymous game journos.

And as long as FFX has at least a touch of the imagination and charm which made FFIX such a pleasure, it can have the irritating teen characters and futuristic boarding school locations of FFVIII.

I'd hate to call VGS a gang of idiots for making that choice... but it's a choice that can only be made by a gang of idiots. Then again, this is the site which declared Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge a better game than Shenmue... before putting its tail between its legs and changing the score after every holiday shopper had already seen it! So, let's not act too surprised. In fact, it has long been the topic in the GIA's staff channel when a new game came out that was ranked better than the 6.3 that Shenmue received, but when I went to find the URL for a link tonight, the score had suddenly changed by a full point and a half.

Now you see why we exist in the first place.

I'd also like to address the ridculous nature of the holiday awards given at some sites, especially those which feel the need to write dissertations on why a game had the "best puzzles" of the past year. Our holiday awards should be up tomorrow, and instead of duplicating the bloated format that marks offline award shows, each staffer chose three games and gave a simple blurb. We also don't waste time posting creatively photoshopped wacky pictures of ourselves or crude graphic signatures while failing to maintain a halfway decent news archive. Cough.

Closing Comments:

If you aren't inspired by any of the above letters, than tell me what exactly you want out of year-end awards - do they serve any actual purpose or just serve as transparent ego boosts for the staffers involved?

-Ed McGlothlin, eagerly awaiting Matsuno's first PS2 game