XBox launch in Japan delayed till 2002 (1 Viewer)

[Christian Behrens]

Not sure whether this had been reported here yet, but MS is in for very hard times. They will have extreme problems gaining ground in Japan by missing the Christmas season, and we all know how important Japan as a market is (Dreamcast, anyone?).
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-000068596aug24.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dbusines s
-Christian

 

[Adam Nixon]

That article sums up everything I've felt about the X-box. It doesn't blast it, it admires the technology, but it acknowledges the hurdles that MS must overcome for its success.

 

[Dean Cooper]

Well that's some pretty half sided poor journalism if you ask me. Half of the statements have already been proven false. If the guy knew anything about video gaming consoles he would know that E3 has very little effect on the future of a console. Spaceworld has turned in to a disaster for Nintendo, there are a LOT of very upset vocal nintendo fans out there right now. I bet you the same clown will write the complete opposite story after TGS in October. The same thing happened to Sony when they were coming to the market and look where they are now.
Dean

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Spaceworld has turned in to a disaster for Nintendo

I doubt that highly. Just having a Mario game and a Zelda game makes the show a huge success. Also, MS had their own show (GameStock) and people came away from that with disappointment (for the Amped photo and the lack of complete software/hardware to demonstrate anything on) and the same thing happened for them at E3. I don't remember hearing anything about SpaceWorld being a disappointment (unless you are talking about last year, but the announcement of GameCube was a HUGE deal and made a lot of noise, so I would doubt it).

 

[Dean Cooper]

Don't take my word for it, look at the IGN boards. Look, I like the new Zelda design and Mario is exactly what I'd thought it be, but a lot of the people that were waiting for the revealing were expecting the same style as the tech demo. Hell Nintendo showed the same demo at E3. Some fans feel lied to and mislead thus pissed off and posting like crazy to express their dissapointment. Nintendo has lost alot of ground in my opinion because the older gamers that loved Zelda wanted the tech demo style and not the loonie toons.
Here is an example of what I mean, a fan made this up within hours of the news breaking:

[Edited last by Dean Cooper on August 24, 2001 at 08:04 PM]

 

[Andre F]

Regarding the video of the new Zelda, give me a break. It is the first showing and while not exactly my cup of tea it did look very good. Mario looked dazzling. Sorry to interject Nintendo stuff in an XBox thread but I couldn't help myself.
My biggest problem with the XBox is the talk of the bundles. No thanks to $500.00 price tag. I'll pick up a Gamecube and two games for $300.00. That still leaves some room for Devil May Cry and MGS2. No matter what system you buy it's going to be an expensive holiday.
-Andre F
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-= Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape! =-

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The thing is that people aren't looking at the game as Zelda but more as what they want Zelda to be. The game could use the time travel element (as someone said before in another thread) and the style could change between adult hood and child hood. The scenes shown could explain how Link became an orphan and thus look that way because they are memories. Nobody knows besides the people working on the game.
I must say that the game is visually stunning. Fluid animation, great use of cel shading, excellent hiding of the polygons and "jaggies"...pretty much everything about that video was amazing.

 

[BrianB]

The thing is that people aren't looking at the game as Zelda but more as what they want Zelda to be.

Well put. I think Miyamoto summed up the decision pretty well in interviews after the announcement - they wanted to take the Link character back to his roots, a young boy out for adventure...
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Nothing In Particular

 

[Dean Cooper]

I agree with you about Zelda, but you missed the point I was trying to make. What did Nintendo reveal at Spaceworld?
Our hardware is delayed 2 weeks for the states.
I'll add this quote in here because it fits so well:
Interview between Peter Main and Famitsu magazine. http://consolewire.com/news/item.asp?nid=1480
"Famitsu: So you don't see a problem with the launch dates of the GameCube and the Xbox being so close in America, 11/5 and 11/8 respectively?
Main: No, not really. Microsoft has announced November 8th as their launch date, but I don't think that's final. The GameCube will definitely launch on schedule though, and it will be a strong contender during the Christmas season. We're lining up games now, so it's just a matter of doing what we do best. Even if Microsoft manages to launch on schedule, they're targeting a different audience."
Our first party software line is only going to be half of
what it was supposed to be, sorry
ummm Quote please:
Interview with Famitsu about launch titles Link Removed
"But Nintendo will definitely have 5 internally developed games available for launch?
Miyamoto-san: Yes, Nintendo is planning to release 5 or so own its own. Please wait until E3 next May for more details though. If I revealed more now, Microsoft might change the specs of the XBox. [laughs..] I don't want people to focus on specs though. Some people might say; 'GameCube isn't great, just look at its CPU power.' The truth is though, for tasks such as drawing pictures or making music, GameCube doesn't use the CPU. I think the balance of the GameCube hardware will lead the industry for years to come. Existing consoles aren't capable of producing the demo's we showed at Spaceworld. In fact, I think the demo's resemble graphics created by multi-million dollar workstations. "
The US is going to pay double for extra controllers than Japan, you guys have too much money any ways...tee hee
We lied about Mario "growing up" he looks exactly the same just with less jaggies, lets see, we'll give the game the title "sunshine" that's sounds grown up enough.
again another quote:
Interview with Nintendo Web http://www.nintendoweb.com/features/miyamoto.html
"Question: You have said that the next Mario is going to be more mature? Are there plans to go through with this concept?
Miyamoto: Well, by that I didn't mean that Mario is going to be the game for adults, but rather I wanted to say more specifically about the game, is that the character is going to look less childish."
and
Interview at old Spaceworld http://www.nintendoweb.com/news/0900/017.html
""You'll see a completely new side of Mario on Dolphin. Don't you agree that in recent times, both Mario and Luigi have become a little too cutesy? I feel like it's time that they became a bit more grown-up.""
Oh and that sexy Zelda demo we showed you 2 months ago at E3, well that was the bait for this SWITCH! He was just WAY too scary for what I wanted link to be, so I talked to my buddies over a warner and came up with this.
Wait it gets better! Remember that hot Metroid FMV that made all the press go ape for at E3? well its really turok meets aliens, yes that's right the game looks nothing like the movie. now move along.
I'm sorry but isn't this is supposed to be the HYPE show for Nintendo? Well think about it, this clown is saying that showing unfinished games on uncomplete hardware that look the same as PS2 completed games at E3 is the start of the failure of the xbox. Nintendo is doing it again, its just a more powerful N64 and what does the press do? Looks at a company (gamestop) that started taking preorders for the Xbox that were NOT authorized by MS and makes a totally false story about all preorders. All one has to do to get an xbox preorder without a bundle is shop around, I've personally found 4 places that will already. Nintendo screwed up big time at its own show and all people can say is damn MS for those bundles, uuugggh.
Dean

 

[Adam Nixon]

I wouldn't neccessarily say they screwed up big time, but the "bait and switch" with Zelda TOTALLY pissed me off. My first thought was, "time to buy a PS2 in November." They didn't really announce anything new, and there wasn't any surprises other than the transformation of Zelda.
After watching the videos of the game though, I have to admit I'm impressed with the technical abilities of the engine. It really does look like animation, but I might have saved such a radical style for a NEW franchise instead of enticing people with something they will never have. It's not exactly what I'd hoped for, but Nintendo isn't the premiere development house for nothing.
As far as Metroid being "Turok meets aliens," I was thinking the exact same thing when I saw Halo for the first time. At least they've got the names that pull people back, something that MS is sorely lacking at the moment. Microsoft will lure bad press simply because they are Microsoft. An awful lot of people would like to see them choke on an X-box failure. I'm not sure what else they can do -- they've done so many things right with this console, but a lot of it seems like empty promises without the "must have" titles. A lot of the X-box games look really good, but I must admit that I expected so much more given the system power. That robot/girl tech demo absolutely spoiled me rotten -- I was ready to drop $300 the second I saw that, but nothing scheduled so far has even come close to that level of initial astonishment.
That's the thing about the GC -- no matter what the game turns out to be, people will still buy it just because it's familiar.
[Edited last by Adam Nixon on August 25, 2001 at 03:29 AM]

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Personally, I find the new style for Zelda to be very cool. It looks great, now all it needs to do is play great (which I'm sure it will). Mario also looks (visually) very good, and I'm sure that the entire game doesn't take place in just that one level. Sunshine is not the final title (Nintendo has said this) and it was probably given just for that level of the game. Metroid looks promising, but its not looking like Metroid. Why? Because of the same reason that Zelda doesn't look like Zelda: its not what people want it to look like. We saw all of 6 seconds of video, so it could change drastically by the time it is realeased. Metroid is like Final Fantasy, they will not screw it up.
I think we should wait until we have playable demos of these games available until we judge them.