March 20, 1999

TGS pictures are now up available.

March 19, 1999 Tokyo Game Show Report

For those of you who are not familiar with the Tokyo Game Show, it is a three day event held twice a year at Makuhare Messe convention center in Chiba, about an hour outside of Tokyo.  The first day is reserved for the industry and the press and the second two days are open to consumers.  MOst of the games that are shown are either already on the market or will be released soon.  TGS is primarily a consumer show.  No deal making is done here, unlike E3.  This is where the average Japanese gamer can see what to buy in the next few months.

Don't get your hopes up too much on this one.  There was a lot to see, but not a lot worth seeing.  Once again, Sega stole the show with their Dreamcast booth.  Sony's offering was once again disappointing.  There was a strong showing by Capcom and Konami, but Namco just didn't seem to have much going besides Ace Combat 3.  The newcomer to the handled scene, Bandia's Wonder Swan, also had a good showing, better in fact than SNK's Neo Geo Pocket Color.

The Dreamcast booth was the biggest and loudest of them all.  Shemue looks just as good as everyone says.  Sega claims that each environment will be affected by weather and time of day.  If you return to a place you have been before, conditions may be very different.  Weather effects such as snowfall look more realistic than any game I have ever seen before.  It seems that items on a street such as bags of garbage or air conditioning units accumulate snow as you walk through the area.  Some scenes have many characters in them, all of whom seem to be going about their business in a fairly realistic way, rather than the traditional "patterned wandering" of townspeople in most RPGs.  There were also DC systems where you could check out the fighting scenes in Shemue as well.

House of The Dead 2 is looking good, even if the Dreamcast Gun looks terrible.  Get Bass looks good and the DC fishing controller handles well.  Maken X will be worth a look if you enjoy first person perspective corridor type games and wrestling fans will enjoy Giant Gram All Japan Pro Wrestling.

Capcom is was showing video of Biohazard: Code Veronica.  Since the game is about months away from release all I can say is it looks really promising.  Street Fighter fans will be pleased to know that Street Fighter Zero 3 will put in an appearance on the DC  as well as Marvel Vs Capcom and one other 2D fighter I missed the name of.  Namco's Soul Caliber seems to be arcade perfect.  ASCII had their Mission Stick on display, see the pictures page for details.  The mystery of the Neo Geo Pocket Dreamcast connection has also been solved, but no one knows exactly why you would want to transfer your characters from KOFR2 to KOF98 on the DC.

The rumored Saturn emulator, SatCast, was no where to be seen.

Lots of other DC titles were present including UBI Soft's Monaco Grand Prix and a video of Rayman 2, Hudson's Kita He, a handful of SD style baseball games, Seaman (I still don't know how to describe that one!), Frame Gride (not my typo), Carrier (RE/Biohazard clone?) and a showing from Microsoft about the Web TV network which DC Net surfers in Japan will be using next month.

Bandai had a large presence with Wonder Swan and their ever present glut of Gundam games.  It seems that Bandai is also testing the waters with their own fishing controller which vibrates.  Bass Rise will be PocketStation compatible as well.  If you like fishing games, this one might be worth importing for the PSX.

Konami's booth mainly featured Dance Dance Revolution for PSX with the special mat controller.  Konami is cashing in on the music game fad by showing arcade versions of Guitar Freaks and Drum Freaks as well as the home versions of Pop'n Music for PSX and DC.  No word on anything Metal Gear related or the rumored Kojima RPG for DC at the show.  Silent Hill and Beat Mania Gottamix were on display as well as a Samurai game for PSX which looks good.  It is also looking like Hybrid Heaven may finally see the light of day on the N64.  Notably absent was Dracula 64, especially considering the popularity of the Dracula series here in Japan.

Sony's Booth featured Um Jammer Lammy (Parapa 1.5) a giant robot game of some type and Spyro the Dragon.  Underwhelming to say the least.

There was a small corner of the show devoted to "foreign" games (England and Korea only) but these were all PC games.  It seems that the organizers of TGS do not welcome foreign console developers.  As a side note, most Japanese gamers do not know that Crash Bandicoot was developed in the US.

PC games had more presence this time including a PC version of Virtua Cop2 complete with light guns.  NTT and Microsoft shared a large booth.

Electronic Arts Square (the Japanese side of the joint venture between EA & Square) showed X Games and Populous.  Along with this new comer were plenty of familiar faces including Genki, Taito, Takara, Uep Systems and many others.  Most of these companies were trotting out the latest in instantly forgettable PSX software.

The one PSX game which everyone who visited the show will remember is Capcom's Dino Crisis.  This one looks GOOD!  This was only shown on video, but if actual game play is anything like what we saw today, this could be THE next big thing on every Japanese gamer's Playstation.

The one other booth worth mention was Square.  Square featured Legend of Mana (this could be Secret of Mana 4 since it is an action RPG but it looks more like Saga Frontier), Cyber Org, Final Fantasy Collection (4, 5 & 6 redone for the PSX), Saga Frontier 2, Racing Lagoon (a car racing RPG), Chocobo Racing and one big surprise: Front Mission 3.  Fans of the Front Mission series will not be disappointed.

Until fall, that's it for our Tokyo Game Show report.  Please visit the pictures page to seee some of the show for yourself.

March 12, 1999

There has been much speculation of late regarding the current battle of the ongoing console wars.  The nay-sayers of the chorus are foretelling the death of Sega, but should we treat these warnings as any more than the howling of dogs at the full moon?

Lets take a look at Sega Enterprises:

Follow the Money Where does Sega Enterprises get it's revenue?
 
 

FYI "Other" includes character licensing and goods, and sale of karaoke hardware among other things.

Based on this information, we can clearly see that home gaming accounts for only a quarter of Sega Enterprises' revenue.  Since their home use products are selling quite well in their home market and export only accounts for 15% of any given line of business, Sega is hardly "doomed".

Interesting Fact CSK Corporation is the majority stockholder of Sega Enterprises with 20% and foreign investment represents only 4.8% of outstanding shares.

Financial data obtained from the "Japan Company Handbook" Spring 1999 edition, published by Toyo Keizai Inc.  This data is re-presented for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide investment guidance.  Neither Superfami.com nor Chris Barker is affiliated with Sega Enterprises in any way.

March 7, 1999

PSX2 announcement This week Sony and Toshiba announced plans to build a new assembly line to manufacture the core chip set and CPU for the upcoming Playstation 2.  Sony will invest 50 billion Yen towards building the new plant.  That's about $416,000,000 worth of money going towards manufacturing the core of a video game system.  This will mean jobs in construction, design, administration, labor and maintenance of the new facility as well as infrastructure investment.

March 4, 1999

On February 1, 1999, the founder of the All Japan Pro Wrestling League, Giant Baba passed away at age 61 of liver failure.  While this news will not mean much to the general gaming public, Gaint Baba represented everything admirable in professional sports and his loss is a loss to us all.

When a public figure dies, most obituaries will mention  the person's great qualities and how fans are saddened by the loss.  Giant Baba's death was covered in every newspaper and on every TV station in Japan.  Not just sports fans feel this loss, it is something which touches the average Japanese person as well.  He was a sportsman who honestly loved his fans and did his best to display his love at every opportunity.  For those of you who enjoy Japanese pro wrestling video games, you will be glad to know that Giant Baba will make another appearance in an upcoming All Japan Pro Wrestling title for Dreamcast.  Those interested in learning more about Giant Baba should read this article.
 

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