It’s the summer. The time of year for chasing girls and getting a suntan. Unless you’re a gamer of course. Then it’s the time of year to sit around getting paler and increasingly frustrated with your dwindling release schedules.
The month started well. "Microsoft and its studios are focusing all efforts on developing quality games for the Windows and Xbox platforms. Neither Microsoft Game Studios or any of its developers are involved in developing games for DS at this time. Rare has developed, and is continuing to develop, Game Boy Advance games. At this time, there are no plans to support the DS." No one was shocked.
By the second of the month, Nintendo had made the cryptic comment of the year, discussing the secret range of peripherals for its increasingly mysterious Revolution console. A range of patent applications hint towards camera use as well as a new robotic addition to the machine. Fans live in hope.
The next day and Microsoft’s Japanese Xbox push is plunged into crisis with the news that True Fantasy Online has been canned outright. “The difficult decision to cancel True Fantasy Live Online was based on a number of careful considerations, including the game's progression to date and the remaining development time needed to complete such an ambitious project. The MMORPG genre, across all platforms, has become an incredibly crowded and competitive marketplace. In response, Microsoft Game Studios has decided to streamline its portfolio, making fewer bets in this genre. At Microsoft Game Studios, we continually evaluate our portfolio strategy and investments to ensure we are achieving our most important objectives of creating successful, platform-driving titles in a timely manner. We truly appreciate all the support True Fantasy Live Online has received from its fans and the games community.”
By the 7th the final chapter in the sorry tale of Interplay sees itself out with the firm being evicted from its head office. CEO Herve Caen maintains that the business is still up and running. Although workers have been evicted from the offices and heavy fines are squeezing the financial fist of doom even tighter, it’s not all over just yet. Cean commented, “The company has not been shut down. [The State Of California] doesn’t have the power to do that. It can only let me not let employees work.”
By the 9th, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata decides to go on record again, making a fresh next-gen warcry. "The Japanese game market has steadily been shrinking since 1997 and there is no clear sign of an exit to such a falling trend. The key reason for the continued shrinkage lies in the fact that the complication of games is prompting the growing number of so-called light users to not play games anymore." He continued, "The launch of the Nintendo DS is our answer to the shrinking game market in Japan. With the launch of the Nintendo DS, we are confident of introducing new fans and bring those light users who have stopped playing games back into the fold. I also believe the Nintendo DS is not only attractive for light users but also for hardcore users."
IGN announces that a version of Halo is underway for Game Boy Advance. The publication assert this even after Bungie openly mocks the piece. "We, of course, all can go back and forth...but I'm sticking to my guns on this. I've been told by multiple development sources that a Halo GBA project has at least been in the "looking into" stages since before Christmas. Anything can happen between now and then, of course, but don't expect it until 2005 if production moves forward," claimed one IGN writer. Oh dear.
By the 15th, Kevin Bachus goes on record to say”…all I have is my credibility…” Hours later he’s accused of lying to the US courts. HardOCP, still in a mud-flinging contest with Infinium Labs published the following: “For months, Infinium Labs has made numerous claims to the U.S. District Court that they have no ties to Texas and in the words of Timothy Roberts, "I have never conducted business in the State of Texas." It can now be revealed what many have suspected and several have known for several months: that Infinium Labs not only has numerous contacts and conducted business in the State of Texas, but had an office in Richardson, Texas, directly contradicting what Kevin Bachus and Roberts have declared to the court.” Christmas card lists are revised all round.
The 17th and SPOnG reveals that the Oddworld game is called Stranger and is in planning for PlayStation 2. We break the world’s first images the next day.
When asked how Half-Life 2 is progressing, Valve’s Gabe Newell said, “Good. It's in great shape. We anticipate delivering it to Vivendi in August.”
On the 21st the UK is stunned by a catalogue chain offering GameCube hardware at the Dreamcast-demise price of £39.99. “Index is currently running a big promotion on all products, of which GameCube is one, offering up to 50% discount. As far as we are aware Index will continue to trade with Nintendo at certain times of the year,” counters Nintendo Europe, somewhat unconvincingly.
A document purporting to be leaked Xbox 2 material surfaces on the 23rd. “Xenon is the code name for the successor to the Xbox game console from MS. Xenon is expected to launch in 2005. This white paper is designed to provide a brief overview of the primary hardware features of the console from a game developer’s standpoint.” It continues, “Xenon is powered by a 3.5+ GHz IBM PowerPC processor and a 500+ MHz ATI graphics processor. Xenon has 256+ MB of unified memory. Xenon runs a custom operating system based on MS Windows NT, similar to the Xbox operating system. The graphics interface is a superset of MS Direct3D version 9.0.” It turns out to be alarmingly accurate.
Mark Cale lies to SPOnG about his defunct Last Ninja project which was rejected by Sony Computer Entertainment of quality grounds. “You see, the game looks amazing, better than any ninja game ever made," he bullishly claimed. "Ninja Gaiden simply doesn't compare, Last Ninja is far superior.” He continued, “The game is simply too advanced technically for a release on current systems so, we are going to release it on PlayStation 3 instead. This isn't any reflection on any delays, it's just that we want the game to be shown off in all its glory, and current systems simply couldn't handle it.” Cale went on to lie to GameSpot and anyone else about the initial lies he told us. Fans of the series are widely depressed by the state of things on so many levels.
Then the DRIV3R scandal broke. It was widely alleged that Atari brokered exclusive review and cover rights to various magazines in return for over-inflated scores. The news, which became one of the biggest stories of the year, seeing considerable mainstream coverage, was born of SPOnG’s very own forums.
A post read, “The culprit right now is Atari with DRIV3R, with reports coming in today of demands for at least 9/10 score in exchange for early review code. Although the build with magazines at the moment is described as being “…two or three weeks away from being final,” it has not lived up to expectations with certain press contacts. However, in order to obtain the code, a score of nine has been demanded by Atari’s PR team.”
Xbox World and PSM2, the two Future magazines with the exclusive reviews both gave the game, widely seen as being unplayable poor, scores of nine out of ten.
Atari and Future denied any collusion and everyone, absolutely everyone involved in the games industry, was made to look foolish and had their credibility damaged to some extent. The lowest point of the 2004.
Sega studio closures commence. Amusement Vision and Hitmaker are assimilated and rumours, stemming from UK magazine EDGE, predict high-level development departures.
The month started well. "Microsoft and its studios are focusing all efforts on developing quality games for the Windows and Xbox platforms. Neither Microsoft Game Studios or any of its developers are involved in developing games for DS at this time. Rare has developed, and is continuing to develop, Game Boy Advance games. At this time, there are no plans to support the DS." No one was shocked.
By the second of the month, Nintendo had made the cryptic comment of the year, discussing the secret range of peripherals for its increasingly mysterious Revolution console. A range of patent applications hint towards camera use as well as a new robotic addition to the machine. Fans live in hope.
The next day and Microsoft’s Japanese Xbox push is plunged into crisis with the news that True Fantasy Online has been canned outright. “The difficult decision to cancel True Fantasy Live Online was based on a number of careful considerations, including the game's progression to date and the remaining development time needed to complete such an ambitious project. The MMORPG genre, across all platforms, has become an incredibly crowded and competitive marketplace. In response, Microsoft Game Studios has decided to streamline its portfolio, making fewer bets in this genre. At Microsoft Game Studios, we continually evaluate our portfolio strategy and investments to ensure we are achieving our most important objectives of creating successful, platform-driving titles in a timely manner. We truly appreciate all the support True Fantasy Live Online has received from its fans and the games community.”
By the 7th the final chapter in the sorry tale of Interplay sees itself out with the firm being evicted from its head office. CEO Herve Caen maintains that the business is still up and running. Although workers have been evicted from the offices and heavy fines are squeezing the financial fist of doom even tighter, it’s not all over just yet. Cean commented, “The company has not been shut down. [The State Of California] doesn’t have the power to do that. It can only let me not let employees work.”
By the 9th, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata decides to go on record again, making a fresh next-gen warcry. "The Japanese game market has steadily been shrinking since 1997 and there is no clear sign of an exit to such a falling trend. The key reason for the continued shrinkage lies in the fact that the complication of games is prompting the growing number of so-called light users to not play games anymore." He continued, "The launch of the Nintendo DS is our answer to the shrinking game market in Japan. With the launch of the Nintendo DS, we are confident of introducing new fans and bring those light users who have stopped playing games back into the fold. I also believe the Nintendo DS is not only attractive for light users but also for hardcore users."
IGN announces that a version of Halo is underway for Game Boy Advance. The publication assert this even after Bungie openly mocks the piece. "We, of course, all can go back and forth...but I'm sticking to my guns on this. I've been told by multiple development sources that a Halo GBA project has at least been in the "looking into" stages since before Christmas. Anything can happen between now and then, of course, but don't expect it until 2005 if production moves forward," claimed one IGN writer. Oh dear.
By the 15th, Kevin Bachus goes on record to say”…all I have is my credibility…” Hours later he’s accused of lying to the US courts. HardOCP, still in a mud-flinging contest with Infinium Labs published the following: “For months, Infinium Labs has made numerous claims to the U.S. District Court that they have no ties to Texas and in the words of Timothy Roberts, "I have never conducted business in the State of Texas." It can now be revealed what many have suspected and several have known for several months: that Infinium Labs not only has numerous contacts and conducted business in the State of Texas, but had an office in Richardson, Texas, directly contradicting what Kevin Bachus and Roberts have declared to the court.” Christmas card lists are revised all round.
The 17th and SPOnG reveals that the Oddworld game is called Stranger and is in planning for PlayStation 2. We break the world’s first images the next day.
When asked how Half-Life 2 is progressing, Valve’s Gabe Newell said, “Good. It's in great shape. We anticipate delivering it to Vivendi in August.”
On the 21st the UK is stunned by a catalogue chain offering GameCube hardware at the Dreamcast-demise price of £39.99. “Index is currently running a big promotion on all products, of which GameCube is one, offering up to 50% discount. As far as we are aware Index will continue to trade with Nintendo at certain times of the year,” counters Nintendo Europe, somewhat unconvincingly.
A document purporting to be leaked Xbox 2 material surfaces on the 23rd. “Xenon is the code name for the successor to the Xbox game console from MS. Xenon is expected to launch in 2005. This white paper is designed to provide a brief overview of the primary hardware features of the console from a game developer’s standpoint.” It continues, “Xenon is powered by a 3.5+ GHz IBM PowerPC processor and a 500+ MHz ATI graphics processor. Xenon has 256+ MB of unified memory. Xenon runs a custom operating system based on MS Windows NT, similar to the Xbox operating system. The graphics interface is a superset of MS Direct3D version 9.0.” It turns out to be alarmingly accurate.
Mark Cale lies to SPOnG about his defunct Last Ninja project which was rejected by Sony Computer Entertainment of quality grounds. “You see, the game looks amazing, better than any ninja game ever made," he bullishly claimed. "Ninja Gaiden simply doesn't compare, Last Ninja is far superior.” He continued, “The game is simply too advanced technically for a release on current systems so, we are going to release it on PlayStation 3 instead. This isn't any reflection on any delays, it's just that we want the game to be shown off in all its glory, and current systems simply couldn't handle it.” Cale went on to lie to GameSpot and anyone else about the initial lies he told us. Fans of the series are widely depressed by the state of things on so many levels.
Then the DRIV3R scandal broke. It was widely alleged that Atari brokered exclusive review and cover rights to various magazines in return for over-inflated scores. The news, which became one of the biggest stories of the year, seeing considerable mainstream coverage, was born of SPOnG’s very own forums.
A post read, “The culprit right now is Atari with DRIV3R, with reports coming in today of demands for at least 9/10 score in exchange for early review code. Although the build with magazines at the moment is described as being “…two or three weeks away from being final,” it has not lived up to expectations with certain press contacts. However, in order to obtain the code, a score of nine has been demanded by Atari’s PR team.”
Xbox World and PSM2, the two Future magazines with the exclusive reviews both gave the game, widely seen as being unplayable poor, scores of nine out of ten.
Atari and Future denied any collusion and everyone, absolutely everyone involved in the games industry, was made to look foolish and had their credibility damaged to some extent. The lowest point of the 2004.
Sega studio closures commence. Amusement Vision and Hitmaker are assimilated and rumours, stemming from UK magazine EDGE, predict high-level development departures.