Apparently, Microsoft and Nintendo both expect to make it by the holiday season.

Read this!

I knew that would make the front page...

Anyway, here's Nintendo's take on what's going on.

A whopping 5 titles at launch for GameCube!

My god, how can I ever make the choice of which one to pay 50 bucks for! There's so many! I mean, Pokemon Red Green Yellow Maroon or Stadium! I CAN'T DECIDE!

Sorry, I had a moment.

Reinvent! Ohmigod! Stop the presses!!!! :)

Personally, I think the initial Gamecube titles look pretty dang great: A Mario (luigi) game; dinosaur planet renamed and reworked for GC; metroid; etc. And Phantasy Star Online 2 is coming for GC. I prefer all of these to the xbox titles, but of course this is all very subjective.

Check out for yourself:

http://e3.nintendo.com/

Yeah I find articles like that insulting. What ever happened to nintindo really? It seems like for the past five years all they have done is make more donkey kong, mario and pokemon games. I dont think they have done anything nearing innovation in years at least not anything that got attention. Those new games not exactly bring any high hopes either though I am always willing to give anything a chance with "dark" in the title.

"Personally, I think the initial Gamecube titles look pretty dang great"

Er, yeah, if you're 8 years old. Seems like another N64 to me.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

Nintendo's put out some good stuff.

Goldeneye brought the FPS genre some attention for console fans, and then Perfect Dark improved on it. And they've got some good games out for the N64. I love mine.

> "Personally, I think the initial
> Gamecube titles look pretty dang
> great ..."
>
> Er, yeah, if you're 8 years old.
> Seems likeanother N64 to me.

Gee, every day Wumpus decides what is funny, what is wise, what's worth playing or watching, and why. The weight of such a body of knowledge must be an awful burden to bear - surely it must be manifested somehow physically. Perhaps with a hump of sorts, or a giant chip on his shoulder, or just a vast gas bag protruding from an orafice.

Whether it's Tom Chick's funny bone or Nintendo's plans for Gamecube, one thing doesn't change: Wumpus is there with his report card.

I'd be more eager to see what Rare will do for GC than the big N itself. I loved Metroid, but does the world need another FPS?

Rouge Squadron 2, Metroid Prime, Raven Blade, Dinosaur Planet and Luigi's Mansion all look fantastic. Leaps and bounds beyond anything that's been shown for the Xbox. If E3 was Microsoft's chance to change people's minds about the Xbox they're failing miserably. Where are all the huge announcements we were supposed to hear? The only noteworthy stuff is the info on a release date, price and availability. The price everyone already figured (and is a C-note more then where everybody else will be this fall), the launch will be eclipsed by the Gamebox launch (all those affiiate news director will feel pretty stupid doing team coverage of a console launch twice in one week) and the system availability is pretty sad. They were supposed put the PS2 launch to shame but they aren't even sure they'll match the number of available units before christmas, and this is assuming no manufacturing snafues. I predict a significant lowering of the standard clockrate of nVidia's Xbox GPU when the final product ships. The initial claim was 300 mhz, the current claim is 250 mhz and I wouldn't be surprized if the final number is 200 mhz or less (less if there really are more features being added then what's on the GeForce 3).

I don't care how many Xbox tacos the Bell sells this fall, Microsoft's prospects look worse then ever. The only new Xbox game I've heard about that isn't a "enhanced" version of a PS2 game or a cross-platform title is Dino Crisis 3 which isn't that interesting at all. MS is soooo screwed. Hell, Kevin Bachus who was in charge of Xbox third party developer relations just left the company because he got tired of lying todev teams and publishers about the hardware's capabilities. (OK, I'm guessing about that last part but I think it's probably true and that I was involved in making it happen through my relentless letter writing to Daily Radar's Xbox editor about the disparity between Microsoft's claims about the Xbox hardware and what the hardware can actually do. I have elaborate fantasies about Bachus getting phone calls from developers saying "hey, I just read on Daily Radar how full of shit you guys are. What the fuck is up with that. You trying to blow smoke up my ass or what." Probably never happened, but I like to think it did. As you can imagine I have far too much time on my hands.

"Whether it's Tom Chick's funny bone or Nintendo's plans for Gamecube, one thing doesn't change: Wumpus is there with his report card. "

Just FYI, I owned a N64 on the day it was released up until mid-1999. And I bought another N64 just to play Perfect Dark, though I subsequently sold it on eBay.

So I'd say I'm qualified to have an opinion about it. And the library looks rather weak. I loved M64, but I'm not one of those "I'll buy everything Nintendo releases" fanboys. The system looks really, really rushed, and other than the Star Wars game, I wasn't impressed with the screenshots (or the potential title list) all that much.

"As you can imagine I have far too much time on my hands."

Not enough time to post corroborating links-- everything you posted sounds fabricated to me. You predict? Give us some links substantiating or providing some shred of proof for what you say, first.

wumpus http://www.gamebasement.com

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Rouge Squadron 2

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Personally, I think the initial Gamecube titles look pretty dang great"

Er, yeah, if you're 8 years old. Seems like another N64 to me.

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The only thing my PC is woefully short on is portability.

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The Xbox isn't having a good show, IMO. It's not that it looks bad, but the games don't look any better than the PS2 and Gamecube games, and frankly, the Sony and Nintendo titles look more interesting. The buzz is that Gamecube will also be $199 at launch, so if Sony drops their price it will be the PS2 and Gamecube at $199 and the Xbox at $299. That's going to kill the Xbox. Heck, the Xbox probably comes in third as far as the quality of the games being developed, too.

Oh, one more thing about Xbox. One of the Star Wars games is coming out on both Xbox and PC, and Lucasarts had them running in their booth. The PC version is clearly better, graphically.

Like I said, not a good showing for the Xbox so far.

Hmm...That surprises me. Honestly, I expected the Xbox to be quite a prize. I had planned on buying one, eventually (though not until they got a little cheaper), but may not, based on what I'm hearing here...

I've still got my money on the Gamecube...

I'm no MS fanboy, but I'd probably judge the game more on what comes out 6-18 months after launch rather than the launch stuff. About the only thing I'm interested in gamewise is Red Storm's Ghost Recon, which may be coming out on PC as well, but it seems awfully low on the radar screen right now.

MS Fanboy!

*attempts to strangle Wumpus with PS2 controller cord* Take that back, take it back! :)

"I'm no MS fanboy, but I'd probably judge the game more on what comes out 6-18 months after launch rather than the launch stuff. About the only thing I'm interested in gamewise is Red Storm's Ghost Recon, which may be coming out on PC as well, but it seems awfully low on the radar screen right now. "

I kind of agree, well sort of.

The PS2's most interesting titles are due out in the next few months, like GT3 and TM:Black, and a handful of others.

It takes time to develop for a system, so initially, games will suck. Of course, that doesn't mean that the companies should have a lack-luster display of games at the beginning. Five games? Come on, guys, that's mediocre.

Hell, even, the PS2 outdid that, and some of them were actually good.

And no, I'm not a SONY fanboy, I'm actually looking forward to the Gamecube and GBA (supernintendo in your hand!) really excitedly.

Now if only Rare would start designing for PS2 or a system that had the raw power that it does (crossing fingers that Gamecube does...), then we'd see some really awesome graphics, and some really awesome, powerful games.

My theory is sometimes better games come out on lesser systems because the developers aren't so busy wetting their pants over the graphics that they forget to put in some gameplay. :) Once they put their diapers on and get past that stage, they usually do better games.

OK, so I can't spell. It's not my fault, it's that damned video with Pink, Maya, Lil' Kim and Christina. You can hardly blame me when that thing was engineered to burn the word rouge on my frontal lobe.

5 games at launch ain't bad for Nintendo. The 64 came out with, what, 2? Mario and Pilot Wings.

Five games isn't good, though. I don't think anyone will argue that five games makes for a strong launch. When the N64 came out Nintendo was hurt by the paucity of titles available.

Nintendo's launch strength will be in their price, which may be as low as $179 from what some console people have said. If they do come in at that price and Microsoft sticks with the $299 price, that's going to be a big advantage for Nintendo.

On the flight back I was seated near a couple of videogame people who attended E3. They were referring to the Xbox as the next 3DO. That's probably a bit strong, but Microsoft has a lot of work to do.

>less if there really are more features being added then what's on the GeForce 3

Y'know, I spoke with NVIDIA about that at E3, and I'm now more confused than ever. It's the same, but it's different, but there are more features, but there aren't, but all the changes are just marketing BS, but really it actually is better.

Hell, you ask me, it don't matter. All that matters with regards to that chip is how games stack up graphically next to their competitors. We'll have to wait a couple months to tell about that, since no Xbox games are running on final hardware yet. PC stuff will pass it up about a month after Xbox's release.

I'll say this for MS's showing at E3--kinda weak and disappointing (except for Cel Damage), but like 10 times better than Sony's showing last year, two months AFTER their release.

"I'll say this for MS's showing at E3--kinda weak and disappointing (except for Cel Damage), but like 10 times better than Sony's showing last year, two months AFTER their release."

Agreed. Mostly. Overall, the x-box's showing was not nearly the debacle that the ps2's was last year. BUT, the x-box didn't have one key benefit that the PS2 enjoyed last show: a huge buzz-generating title like MGS2.

As a poorly informed sideline spectator hundreds of miles away from E3, I have to confess that titles for the X-Box are much more to my tastes than the stuff coming out for the GameCube. Halo, Warthog's Bounty Hunter, Morrowind, and others really look to be pushing the conventional envelope. I confess I'm mostly into open-ended gameplay and titles that are immersive from the standpoint of a believable and consistant setting.

The PC will be my platform of choice for now but I am holding off on upgrading until I get a better idea of what future titles the PC and X-BOX will have. I hear that the Falcon franchise is back in play under the wing of one of the Realism Patch team and that they are looking to develop realistic flight sims for consoles. If the X-Box is one of them, it makes me wonder what genres of games will be PC exclusive in the future.

From what I keep seeing Microsoft wants people to think the Xbox GPU is more advanced then the GeForce III so that's what they've been saying. But the nVidia guys, especially the engineers, keep saying it's basically the same chip modified to work with unified memory.

Sony's showing was pretty lame in 2000, but they didn't really have anything to prove. The strong brand and unprecidented developer support and huge mainstream buzz guranteed they'd sell every unit available at launch. A huge sowing at E3 could have, arguably, made the hardware shortages an even bigger disaster. MS needed to show something substantive and failed. As for it being the next 3D0... I've been saying that for like a year and a half! :)

Warthog's Bounty Hunter looks sweet, though. Starlancer wasn't earth shattering, but it was a lot of fun. And they worked on Star Trek Invasion. But I haven't heard if it definitely won't come to the PC though.

Brad Grenz

Consoles consoles consoles... who cares! Frankly I hope they all die... If the console crowd cant buy into the Dreamcast then they dont deserve a good console... GOOD RIDDANCE! GOOD fer you good fer ME.

etc

>But the nVidia guys, especially the engineers, keep saying it's basically the same chip modified to work with unified memory.

This is true. I think developers will get a fair amount more out of it than GeForce 3, ultimately, because of the optimized APIs, much leaner OS, direct connection to the CPU via Hypertransport, and the ability to do hardware-senstive code optimizations they just can't do on a PC.

Plus, running your display at TV resolutions leaves room to do more fill-rate intensive stuff.

But the PC hardware coming out at the end of this year will smoke any console (natch).