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My good friend Shelly Friend (not a word), that nice PR manager of Nintendo UK exclaimed that the Nintendo Megaton announcement is ‘a load of rubbish’. Well Shelly I think you’re great and everything but how the hell do you know? You are the PR manager of the UK not the sodding director of Nintendo of Japan, you are on a need to know basis and until the announcement affects the UK you really won’t know. But then again who am I to criticize, Shelly would know far more than me and considering how quiet Nintendo have been she seems right. So then where did this Megaton thing start? How would we know if it was announced anyway?
Well the news that Nintendo were going to announce something so big it would see Gamecube sales skyrocket came from a few reputable sources. One of these sources was the, in the know, Japanese Gamecube magazine Denjiki. Sadly if they claimed this a few months back the information would be gospel but sadly the magazine had lost some of its reputation. In the month of June the magazine announced that Nintendo are working on a re-release to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time with improved visuals, a music CD and the 64 DD add on Ura-Zelda, they said the announcement would come in a week. But it didn’t… oh hang on. Although the announcement didn’t come in July, although it wasn’t a stand alone game and although it doesn’t come with any music CD a re-release of Ocarina of Time has occurred and so they were a bit off but inevitably they were right. So could the same happen here? Does the announcement occur at the end of the year or sometime next year like at E3 for example? Is it an announcement of a list of several announcements?
I could analyze all the rumours revolving around the Megaton announcement but I will merely comment on them as they have been discussed to death. It is more likely Nintendo will announce a few big name games and quite possibly online ones; it is highly unlikely it has anything to do with any buyouts. Either Microsoft or Nintendo will not buy SEGA… and this is due to several reasons. SEGA sports wouldn’t want to support the Gamecube, AM2 like to work on all consoles particularly Microsoft and so these two wouldn’t go if Nintendo waved some money in their faces and it is the same the other way round. Nintendo have ties with SEGA with the Tri-force deal, Amusement Vision (Monkey Ball and F Zero) and the Sonic Team (Sonic and Phantasy Star) love Nintendo and so these two wouldn’t go if Microsoft waves some cash… so that rumour was never to be believed. Capcom is equally unlikely although could inevitably be true, after all Capcom is suffering financial problems… yet that was only after disappointing yearly sales and with tones of titles scheduled next year not just on the Gamecube, Capcom’s next year could be a prosperous one. And I know for certain they won’t be giving up the ghosts because of an unsuccessful year. So why did this rumour keep coming back and back? Because we wanted it to, there have been and will be hundreds of Megaton rumours but the one that sounded the coolest was the Capcom/SEGA buyout and so we harked on about it and that is how a rumour spreads.
So the Megaton announcement could still occur… that is if it hasn’t already. Lets say the Megaton announcement is more of a collection of big and small announcements that all increase the sales of the Gamecube… in fact together they’d cause the sales to raise dramatically. We have been so wrapped up in this entire Megaton business that some news articles have passed us by which we have all nodded, smiled, briefly discussed about and moved on. Now it started badly with the EU fine, Rare being sold and Microsoft overtaking Nintendo in Europe but towards the end of October things started to pick up, here is a list of the news articles (not in chronological order) that I have been very interested in.
1: Gameboy Player
Nintendo unveiled a new peripheral for the Gamecube. The Gameboy player allows you to play EVERY Gameboy game ever made and this adds another element to the Gamecube. The GBA player will cause Gamecube sales to rise especially for those who cannot afford a standalone Gameboy and Gamecube… it also means the GBA can be played on full screen that will please those retro gaming fiends! This is a great way to capitalize on the incredible success of the GBA, the GBA link up would have an effect on the Gamecube sales but this GBA player extends that even further! It could even propose new gameplay ideas. The main attraction about it all has to be the fact that Nintendo’s game library has risen quite dramatically with the inclusion of this device.
2: Pokémon craze re-launched!
After softcore response to the recent Pokémon movie in Japan it looked to set the tone that Pokémon has finally died in Japan after a good 7 years on the top. Ahem well so we thought, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire the biggest GBA titles to date with some nice gameplay twists was launched in Japan and already has sold more than 2 million games (1.3 million in its first week)… compare this to the fact that Gamecube has only topped 1 million with Smash Brothers and the X-box hasn’t managed a million mark at all. This has also caused a dramatic rise of the Gameboy Advance, sitting well behind the PS2 and now sitting extremely highly in first place… one week it was selling 150,000 the next week 300,000 and so on (a 300% rise in sales) … the Gameboy has returned to its dizzy heights all thanks to the storming release of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.
3: Gamecube level pegging with the PS2 in Japan
Ok it was just for one week and I wasn’t sure it was true until my recent magazines confirmed it… Gamecube sales rocketed for one week and brought Nintendo neck and neck with Sony. How? Well it was simply Zelda. Yes this was the end of November and the Zelda release was a few weeks off but the concept of a two free games for pre-ordering the Gamecube event of the year was enough for Zelda to sell by the bucket load weeks before the game actually came out. Sadly the sales have dimmed quite a bit but it was still nice to see Nintendo doing so well, maybe the actual launch of the game will have a similar effect. Another major aspect at the time was the top 5 games list all were Nintendo games, the top 2 were the 2 Pokemon games, Biohazard 0 took the third spot, Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation for the GBA took number 4 and Mario Party 4 snuggled in at number 5.
4: Metroid Prime hailed as one of the world’s greatest games ever.
Several high profile magazines, websites and various other experts hailed Retro Studio’s as the best game of the year. Although it was only released in America this year, Metroid Prime is apparently a superior game to both X-box’s Christmas hit Splinter Cell and the PS2’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The response received meant the game sold in excess of 250,000, although this isn’t on the same scale of GTA (or in particular Pokémon ruby and sapphire) it is a stunning feat nonetheless.
5: Zelda hailed as one of the world’s greatest games ever.
The battle between Nintendo’s biggest games this Christmas won’t have a victor until Zelda is released in the West and Metroid Prime is released in the East. But judging on the response of those strange Japanese folk it looks like Zelda lives up to the hype. Many sources claim that it is an entirely new Zelda experience and famous the world over Famitsu magazine awarded its fourth ever perfect score 40/40. Famitsu claim it is the best Zelda yet (and Ocarina of Time was one of the other perfect scoring games) and one of the worlds best ever games it sold 407.700 copies in just a few days… hmmmmm Zelda or Metroid? You spoil us Nintendo.
6: Three games for the price of one
This was am awesome precedent from Nintendo. The first two Zelda games (NES) offered gold coloured cartridges for those who pre-ordered… and that was the start of many pre-order deals involving the Zelda games… this has to be the best. By Pre-ordering Zelda in Japan you get a disc that contains a smoother running Ocarina of Time game and a smoother running remixed version Ura-Zelda. At the time this was the best game in the world and now you get it for free when you pre-order one of its sequels… truly stunning idea from Nintendo and something that would and did boost sales of the Gamecube.
7: Raylight Studio’s
Raylight Studio’s is one of the most overlooked pieces of information around. Whereas Nintendo has lost Left Field and Rare throughout the year, they have gained a Squaresoft Affiliate and a dedicated Capcom company… and most recently Raylight Studio’s. Raylight have made the Wings games as well as R Type 3. The company promises great things for Nintendo.
8: Capcom 5
Leave the biggest till the end. We all know what happened; Capcom’s fourth development company confirmed they are working on 5 Gamecube games, 4 due within the next year. Looking certain to go against the 5 Rare have planned for the X-box Capcom’s 5 are all system selling and 4 at least are stunningly original. Including the 2D/3D Viewtiful Joe that has sparked a lot of interest, the clever and stylized Killer 7 about an assassin in a wheel chair with 7 personalities, the game that is supposed to provoke the feeling of flying called Dead Phoenix and the promising metal gear style game Product number 3. To top it off in 2004 the best Resident Evil yet will be released….
Now tell me c those are not some of the biggest things we’ve heard from out Gamecube since this time last year? You can’t can you… and together they will all increase the sales of the Gamecube… could this be the Megaton? Who knows but if there is no more announcements think back to what I just told you… after all we have a very promising future with the goings on of the last two months.
MEGATON
Dringo.
Well the news that Nintendo were going to announce something so big it would see Gamecube sales skyrocket came from a few reputable sources. One of these sources was the, in the know, Japanese Gamecube magazine Denjiki. Sadly if they claimed this a few months back the information would be gospel but sadly the magazine had lost some of its reputation. In the month of June the magazine announced that Nintendo are working on a re-release to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time with improved visuals, a music CD and the 64 DD add on Ura-Zelda, they said the announcement would come in a week. But it didn’t… oh hang on. Although the announcement didn’t come in July, although it wasn’t a stand alone game and although it doesn’t come with any music CD a re-release of Ocarina of Time has occurred and so they were a bit off but inevitably they were right. So could the same happen here? Does the announcement occur at the end of the year or sometime next year like at E3 for example? Is it an announcement of a list of several announcements?
I could analyze all the rumours revolving around the Megaton announcement but I will merely comment on them as they have been discussed to death. It is more likely Nintendo will announce a few big name games and quite possibly online ones; it is highly unlikely it has anything to do with any buyouts. Either Microsoft or Nintendo will not buy SEGA… and this is due to several reasons. SEGA sports wouldn’t want to support the Gamecube, AM2 like to work on all consoles particularly Microsoft and so these two wouldn’t go if Nintendo waved some money in their faces and it is the same the other way round. Nintendo have ties with SEGA with the Tri-force deal, Amusement Vision (Monkey Ball and F Zero) and the Sonic Team (Sonic and Phantasy Star) love Nintendo and so these two wouldn’t go if Microsoft waves some cash… so that rumour was never to be believed. Capcom is equally unlikely although could inevitably be true, after all Capcom is suffering financial problems… yet that was only after disappointing yearly sales and with tones of titles scheduled next year not just on the Gamecube, Capcom’s next year could be a prosperous one. And I know for certain they won’t be giving up the ghosts because of an unsuccessful year. So why did this rumour keep coming back and back? Because we wanted it to, there have been and will be hundreds of Megaton rumours but the one that sounded the coolest was the Capcom/SEGA buyout and so we harked on about it and that is how a rumour spreads.
So the Megaton announcement could still occur… that is if it hasn’t already. Lets say the Megaton announcement is more of a collection of big and small announcements that all increase the sales of the Gamecube… in fact together they’d cause the sales to raise dramatically. We have been so wrapped up in this entire Megaton business that some news articles have passed us by which we have all nodded, smiled, briefly discussed about and moved on. Now it started badly with the EU fine, Rare being sold and Microsoft overtaking Nintendo in Europe but towards the end of October things started to pick up, here is a list of the news articles (not in chronological order) that I have been very interested in.
1: Gameboy Player
Nintendo unveiled a new peripheral for the Gamecube. The Gameboy player allows you to play EVERY Gameboy game ever made and this adds another element to the Gamecube. The GBA player will cause Gamecube sales to rise especially for those who cannot afford a standalone Gameboy and Gamecube… it also means the GBA can be played on full screen that will please those retro gaming fiends! This is a great way to capitalize on the incredible success of the GBA, the GBA link up would have an effect on the Gamecube sales but this GBA player extends that even further! It could even propose new gameplay ideas. The main attraction about it all has to be the fact that Nintendo’s game library has risen quite dramatically with the inclusion of this device.
2: Pokémon craze re-launched!
After softcore response to the recent Pokémon movie in Japan it looked to set the tone that Pokémon has finally died in Japan after a good 7 years on the top. Ahem well so we thought, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire the biggest GBA titles to date with some nice gameplay twists was launched in Japan and already has sold more than 2 million games (1.3 million in its first week)… compare this to the fact that Gamecube has only topped 1 million with Smash Brothers and the X-box hasn’t managed a million mark at all. This has also caused a dramatic rise of the Gameboy Advance, sitting well behind the PS2 and now sitting extremely highly in first place… one week it was selling 150,000 the next week 300,000 and so on (a 300% rise in sales) … the Gameboy has returned to its dizzy heights all thanks to the storming release of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.
3: Gamecube level pegging with the PS2 in Japan
Ok it was just for one week and I wasn’t sure it was true until my recent magazines confirmed it… Gamecube sales rocketed for one week and brought Nintendo neck and neck with Sony. How? Well it was simply Zelda. Yes this was the end of November and the Zelda release was a few weeks off but the concept of a two free games for pre-ordering the Gamecube event of the year was enough for Zelda to sell by the bucket load weeks before the game actually came out. Sadly the sales have dimmed quite a bit but it was still nice to see Nintendo doing so well, maybe the actual launch of the game will have a similar effect. Another major aspect at the time was the top 5 games list all were Nintendo games, the top 2 were the 2 Pokemon games, Biohazard 0 took the third spot, Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation for the GBA took number 4 and Mario Party 4 snuggled in at number 5.
4: Metroid Prime hailed as one of the world’s greatest games ever.
Several high profile magazines, websites and various other experts hailed Retro Studio’s as the best game of the year. Although it was only released in America this year, Metroid Prime is apparently a superior game to both X-box’s Christmas hit Splinter Cell and the PS2’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The response received meant the game sold in excess of 250,000, although this isn’t on the same scale of GTA (or in particular Pokémon ruby and sapphire) it is a stunning feat nonetheless.
5: Zelda hailed as one of the world’s greatest games ever.
The battle between Nintendo’s biggest games this Christmas won’t have a victor until Zelda is released in the West and Metroid Prime is released in the East. But judging on the response of those strange Japanese folk it looks like Zelda lives up to the hype. Many sources claim that it is an entirely new Zelda experience and famous the world over Famitsu magazine awarded its fourth ever perfect score 40/40. Famitsu claim it is the best Zelda yet (and Ocarina of Time was one of the other perfect scoring games) and one of the worlds best ever games it sold 407.700 copies in just a few days… hmmmmm Zelda or Metroid? You spoil us Nintendo.
6: Three games for the price of one
This was am awesome precedent from Nintendo. The first two Zelda games (NES) offered gold coloured cartridges for those who pre-ordered… and that was the start of many pre-order deals involving the Zelda games… this has to be the best. By Pre-ordering Zelda in Japan you get a disc that contains a smoother running Ocarina of Time game and a smoother running remixed version Ura-Zelda. At the time this was the best game in the world and now you get it for free when you pre-order one of its sequels… truly stunning idea from Nintendo and something that would and did boost sales of the Gamecube.
7: Raylight Studio’s
Raylight Studio’s is one of the most overlooked pieces of information around. Whereas Nintendo has lost Left Field and Rare throughout the year, they have gained a Squaresoft Affiliate and a dedicated Capcom company… and most recently Raylight Studio’s. Raylight have made the Wings games as well as R Type 3. The company promises great things for Nintendo.
8: Capcom 5
Leave the biggest till the end. We all know what happened; Capcom’s fourth development company confirmed they are working on 5 Gamecube games, 4 due within the next year. Looking certain to go against the 5 Rare have planned for the X-box Capcom’s 5 are all system selling and 4 at least are stunningly original. Including the 2D/3D Viewtiful Joe that has sparked a lot of interest, the clever and stylized Killer 7 about an assassin in a wheel chair with 7 personalities, the game that is supposed to provoke the feeling of flying called Dead Phoenix and the promising metal gear style game Product number 3. To top it off in 2004 the best Resident Evil yet will be released….
Now tell me c those are not some of the biggest things we’ve heard from out Gamecube since this time last year? You can’t can you… and together they will all increase the sales of the Gamecube… could this be the Megaton? Who knows but if there is no more announcements think back to what I just told you… after all we have a very promising future with the goings on of the last two months.
MEGATON
Dringo.
Page:
My good friend Shelly Friend (not a word), that nice PR manager of Nintendo UK exclaimed that the Nintendo Megaton announcement is ‘a load of rubbish’. Well Shelly I think you’re great and everything but how the hell do you know? You are the PR manager of the UK not the sodding director of Nintendo of Japan, you are on a need to know basis and until the announcement affects the UK you really won’t know. But then again who am I to criticize, Shelly would know far more than me and considering how quiet Nintendo have been she seems right. So then where did this Megaton thing start? How would we know if it was announced anyway?
Well the news that Nintendo were going to announce something so big it would see Gamecube sales skyrocket came from a few reputable sources. One of these sources was the, in the know, Japanese Gamecube magazine Denjiki. Sadly if they claimed this a few months back the information would be gospel but sadly the magazine had lost some of its reputation. In the month of June the magazine announced that Nintendo are working on a re-release to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time with improved visuals, a music CD and the 64 DD add on Ura-Zelda, they said the announcement would come in a week. But it didn’t… oh hang on. Although the announcement didn’t come in July, although it wasn’t a stand alone game and although it doesn’t come with any music CD a re-release of Ocarina of Time has occurred and so they were a bit off but inevitably they were right. So could the same happen here? Does the announcement occur at the end of the year or sometime next year like at E3 for example? Is it an announcement of a list of several announcements?
I could analyze all the rumours revolving around the Megaton announcement but I will merely comment on them as they have been discussed to death. It is more likely Nintendo will announce a few big name games and quite possibly online ones; it is highly unlikely it has anything to do with any buyouts. Either Microsoft or Nintendo will not buy SEGA… and this is due to several reasons. SEGA sports wouldn’t want to support the Gamecube, AM2 like to work on all consoles particularly Microsoft and so these two wouldn’t go if Nintendo waved some money in their faces and it is the same the other way round. Nintendo have ties with SEGA with the Tri-force deal, Amusement Vision (Monkey Ball and F Zero) and the Sonic Team (Sonic and Phantasy Star) love Nintendo and so these two wouldn’t go if Microsoft waves some cash… so that rumour was never to be believed. Capcom is equally unlikely although could inevitably be true, after all Capcom is suffering financial problems… yet that was only after disappointing yearly sales and with tones of titles scheduled next year not just on the Gamecube, Capcom’s next year could be a prosperous one. And I know for certain they won’t be giving up the ghosts because of an unsuccessful year. So why did this rumour keep coming back and back? Because we wanted it to, there have been and will be hundreds of Megaton rumours but the one that sounded the coolest was the Capcom/SEGA buyout and so we harked on about it and that is how a rumour spreads.
So the Megaton announcement could still occur… that is if it hasn’t already. Lets say the Megaton announcement is more of a collection of big and small announcements that all increase the sales of the Gamecube… in fact together they’d cause the sales to raise dramatically. We have been so wrapped up in this entire Megaton business that some news articles have passed us by which we have all nodded, smiled, briefly discussed about and moved on. Now it started badly with the EU fine, Rare being sold and Microsoft overtaking Nintendo in Europe but towards the end of October things started to pick up, here is a list of the news articles (not in chronological order) that I have been very interested in.
1: Gameboy Player
Nintendo unveiled a new peripheral for the Gamecube. The Gameboy player allows you to play EVERY Gameboy game ever made and this adds another element to the Gamecube. The GBA player will cause Gamecube sales to rise especially for those who cannot afford a standalone Gameboy and Gamecube… it also means the GBA can be played on full screen that will please those retro gaming fiends! This is a great way to capitalize on the incredible success of the GBA, the GBA link up would have an effect on the Gamecube sales but this GBA player extends that even further! It could even propose new gameplay ideas. The main attraction about it all has to be the fact that Nintendo’s game library has risen quite dramatically with the inclusion of this device.
2: Pokémon craze re-launched!
After softcore response to the recent Pokémon movie in Japan it looked to set the tone that Pokémon has finally died in Japan after a good 7 years on the top. Ahem well so we thought, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire the biggest GBA titles to date with some nice gameplay twists was launched in Japan and already has sold more than 2 million games (1.3 million in its first week)… compare this to the fact that Gamecube has only topped 1 million with Smash Brothers and the X-box hasn’t managed a million mark at all. This has also caused a dramatic rise of the Gameboy Advance, sitting well behind the PS2 and now sitting extremely highly in first place… one week it was selling 150,000 the next week 300,000 and so on (a 300% rise in sales) … the Gameboy has returned to its dizzy heights all thanks to the storming release of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.
3: Gamecube level pegging with the PS2 in Japan
Ok it was just for one week and I wasn’t sure it was true until my recent magazines confirmed it… Gamecube sales rocketed for one week and brought Nintendo neck and neck with Sony. How? Well it was simply Zelda. Yes this was the end of November and the Zelda release was a few weeks off but the concept of a two free games for pre-ordering the Gamecube event of the year was enough for Zelda to sell by the bucket load weeks before the game actually came out. Sadly the sales have dimmed quite a bit but it was still nice to see Nintendo doing so well, maybe the actual launch of the game will have a similar effect. Another major aspect at the time was the top 5 games list all were Nintendo games, the top 2 were the 2 Pokemon games, Biohazard 0 took the third spot, Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation for the GBA took number 4 and Mario Party 4 snuggled in at number 5.
4: Metroid Prime hailed as one of the world’s greatest games ever.
Several high profile magazines, websites and various other experts hailed Retro Studio’s as the best game of the year. Although it was only released in America this year, Metroid Prime is apparently a superior game to both X-box’s Christmas hit Splinter Cell and the PS2’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The response received meant the game sold in excess of 250,000, although this isn’t on the same scale of GTA (or in particular Pokémon ruby and sapphire) it is a stunning feat nonetheless.
5: Zelda hailed as one of the world’s greatest games ever.
The battle between Nintendo’s biggest games this Christmas won’t have a victor until Zelda is released in the West and Metroid Prime is released in the East. But judging on the response of those strange Japanese folk it looks like Zelda lives up to the hype. Many sources claim that it is an entirely new Zelda experience and famous the world over Famitsu magazine awarded its fourth ever perfect score 40/40. Famitsu claim it is the best Zelda yet (and Ocarina of Time was one of the other perfect scoring games) and one of the worlds best ever games it sold 407.700 copies in just a few days… hmmmmm Zelda or Metroid? You spoil us Nintendo.
6: Three games for the price of one
This was am awesome precedent from Nintendo. The first two Zelda games (NES) offered gold coloured cartridges for those who pre-ordered… and that was the start of many pre-order deals involving the Zelda games… this has to be the best. By Pre-ordering Zelda in Japan you get a disc that contains a smoother running Ocarina of Time game and a smoother running remixed version Ura-Zelda. At the time this was the best game in the world and now you get it for free when you pre-order one of its sequels… truly stunning idea from Nintendo and something that would and did boost sales of the Gamecube.
7: Raylight Studio’s
Raylight Studio’s is one of the most overlooked pieces of information around. Whereas Nintendo has lost Left Field and Rare throughout the year, they have gained a Squaresoft Affiliate and a dedicated Capcom company… and most recently Raylight Studio’s. Raylight have made the Wings games as well as R Type 3. The company promises great things for Nintendo.
8: Capcom 5
Leave the biggest till the end. We all know what happened; Capcom’s fourth development company confirmed they are working on 5 Gamecube games, 4 due within the next year. Looking certain to go against the 5 Rare have planned for the X-box Capcom’s 5 are all system selling and 4 at least are stunningly original. Including the 2D/3D Viewtiful Joe that has sparked a lot of interest, the clever and stylized Killer 7 about an assassin in a wheel chair with 7 personalities, the game that is supposed to provoke the feeling of flying called Dead Phoenix and the promising metal gear style game Product number 3. To top it off in 2004 the best Resident Evil yet will be released….
Now tell me c those are not some of the biggest things we’ve heard from out Gamecube since this time last year? You can’t can you… and together they will all increase the sales of the Gamecube… could this be the Megaton? Who knows but if there is no more announcements think back to what I just told you… after all we have a very promising future with the goings on of the last two months.
MEGATON
Dringo.
Well the news that Nintendo were going to announce something so big it would see Gamecube sales skyrocket came from a few reputable sources. One of these sources was the, in the know, Japanese Gamecube magazine Denjiki. Sadly if they claimed this a few months back the information would be gospel but sadly the magazine had lost some of its reputation. In the month of June the magazine announced that Nintendo are working on a re-release to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time with improved visuals, a music CD and the 64 DD add on Ura-Zelda, they said the announcement would come in a week. But it didn’t… oh hang on. Although the announcement didn’t come in July, although it wasn’t a stand alone game and although it doesn’t come with any music CD a re-release of Ocarina of Time has occurred and so they were a bit off but inevitably they were right. So could the same happen here? Does the announcement occur at the end of the year or sometime next year like at E3 for example? Is it an announcement of a list of several announcements?
I could analyze all the rumours revolving around the Megaton announcement but I will merely comment on them as they have been discussed to death. It is more likely Nintendo will announce a few big name games and quite possibly online ones; it is highly unlikely it has anything to do with any buyouts. Either Microsoft or Nintendo will not buy SEGA… and this is due to several reasons. SEGA sports wouldn’t want to support the Gamecube, AM2 like to work on all consoles particularly Microsoft and so these two wouldn’t go if Nintendo waved some money in their faces and it is the same the other way round. Nintendo have ties with SEGA with the Tri-force deal, Amusement Vision (Monkey Ball and F Zero) and the Sonic Team (Sonic and Phantasy Star) love Nintendo and so these two wouldn’t go if Microsoft waves some cash… so that rumour was never to be believed. Capcom is equally unlikely although could inevitably be true, after all Capcom is suffering financial problems… yet that was only after disappointing yearly sales and with tones of titles scheduled next year not just on the Gamecube, Capcom’s next year could be a prosperous one. And I know for certain they won’t be giving up the ghosts because of an unsuccessful year. So why did this rumour keep coming back and back? Because we wanted it to, there have been and will be hundreds of Megaton rumours but the one that sounded the coolest was the Capcom/SEGA buyout and so we harked on about it and that is how a rumour spreads.
So the Megaton announcement could still occur… that is if it hasn’t already. Lets say the Megaton announcement is more of a collection of big and small announcements that all increase the sales of the Gamecube… in fact together they’d cause the sales to raise dramatically. We have been so wrapped up in this entire Megaton business that some news articles have passed us by which we have all nodded, smiled, briefly discussed about and moved on. Now it started badly with the EU fine, Rare being sold and Microsoft overtaking Nintendo in Europe but towards the end of October things started to pick up, here is a list of the news articles (not in chronological order) that I have been very interested in.
1: Gameboy Player
Nintendo unveiled a new peripheral for the Gamecube. The Gameboy player allows you to play EVERY Gameboy game ever made and this adds another element to the Gamecube. The GBA player will cause Gamecube sales to rise especially for those who cannot afford a standalone Gameboy and Gamecube… it also means the GBA can be played on full screen that will please those retro gaming fiends! This is a great way to capitalize on the incredible success of the GBA, the GBA link up would have an effect on the Gamecube sales but this GBA player extends that even further! It could even propose new gameplay ideas. The main attraction about it all has to be the fact that Nintendo’s game library has risen quite dramatically with the inclusion of this device.
2: Pokémon craze re-launched!
After softcore response to the recent Pokémon movie in Japan it looked to set the tone that Pokémon has finally died in Japan after a good 7 years on the top. Ahem well so we thought, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire the biggest GBA titles to date with some nice gameplay twists was launched in Japan and already has sold more than 2 million games (1.3 million in its first week)… compare this to the fact that Gamecube has only topped 1 million with Smash Brothers and the X-box hasn’t managed a million mark at all. This has also caused a dramatic rise of the Gameboy Advance, sitting well behind the PS2 and now sitting extremely highly in first place… one week it was selling 150,000 the next week 300,000 and so on (a 300% rise in sales) … the Gameboy has returned to its dizzy heights all thanks to the storming release of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.
3: Gamecube level pegging with the PS2 in Japan
Ok it was just for one week and I wasn’t sure it was true until my recent magazines confirmed it… Gamecube sales rocketed for one week and brought Nintendo neck and neck with Sony. How? Well it was simply Zelda. Yes this was the end of November and the Zelda release was a few weeks off but the concept of a two free games for pre-ordering the Gamecube event of the year was enough for Zelda to sell by the bucket load weeks before the game actually came out. Sadly the sales have dimmed quite a bit but it was still nice to see Nintendo doing so well, maybe the actual launch of the game will have a similar effect. Another major aspect at the time was the top 5 games list all were Nintendo games, the top 2 were the 2 Pokemon games, Biohazard 0 took the third spot, Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation for the GBA took number 4 and Mario Party 4 snuggled in at number 5.
4: Metroid Prime hailed as one of the world’s greatest games ever.
Several high profile magazines, websites and various other experts hailed Retro Studio’s as the best game of the year. Although it was only released in America this year, Metroid Prime is apparently a superior game to both X-box’s Christmas hit Splinter Cell and the PS2’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The response received meant the game sold in excess of 250,000, although this isn’t on the same scale of GTA (or in particular Pokémon ruby and sapphire) it is a stunning feat nonetheless.
5: Zelda hailed as one of the world’s greatest games ever.
The battle between Nintendo’s biggest games this Christmas won’t have a victor until Zelda is released in the West and Metroid Prime is released in the East. But judging on the response of those strange Japanese folk it looks like Zelda lives up to the hype. Many sources claim that it is an entirely new Zelda experience and famous the world over Famitsu magazine awarded its fourth ever perfect score 40/40. Famitsu claim it is the best Zelda yet (and Ocarina of Time was one of the other perfect scoring games) and one of the worlds best ever games it sold 407.700 copies in just a few days… hmmmmm Zelda or Metroid? You spoil us Nintendo.
6: Three games for the price of one
This was am awesome precedent from Nintendo. The first two Zelda games (NES) offered gold coloured cartridges for those who pre-ordered… and that was the start of many pre-order deals involving the Zelda games… this has to be the best. By Pre-ordering Zelda in Japan you get a disc that contains a smoother running Ocarina of Time game and a smoother running remixed version Ura-Zelda. At the time this was the best game in the world and now you get it for free when you pre-order one of its sequels… truly stunning idea from Nintendo and something that would and did boost sales of the Gamecube.
7: Raylight Studio’s
Raylight Studio’s is one of the most overlooked pieces of information around. Whereas Nintendo has lost Left Field and Rare throughout the year, they have gained a Squaresoft Affiliate and a dedicated Capcom company… and most recently Raylight Studio’s. Raylight have made the Wings games as well as R Type 3. The company promises great things for Nintendo.
8: Capcom 5
Leave the biggest till the end. We all know what happened; Capcom’s fourth development company confirmed they are working on 5 Gamecube games, 4 due within the next year. Looking certain to go against the 5 Rare have planned for the X-box Capcom’s 5 are all system selling and 4 at least are stunningly original. Including the 2D/3D Viewtiful Joe that has sparked a lot of interest, the clever and stylized Killer 7 about an assassin in a wheel chair with 7 personalities, the game that is supposed to provoke the feeling of flying called Dead Phoenix and the promising metal gear style game Product number 3. To top it off in 2004 the best Resident Evil yet will be released….
Now tell me c those are not some of the biggest things we’ve heard from out Gamecube since this time last year? You can’t can you… and together they will all increase the sales of the Gamecube… could this be the Megaton? Who knows but if there is no more announcements think back to what I just told you… after all we have a very promising future with the goings on of the last two months.
MEGATON
Dringo.
Excellent. I honestly do not think there is a better way of expressing that.
:)
:)
I'm sure I'm not the only one when I ask:
'Did Nintendo actually confirm the Megaton?'
'Did Nintendo actually confirm the Megaton?'
What in the world are the Wings games?
R-type 3?
Hardly a high profile game is it?
R-type 3?
Hardly a high profile game is it?
Great (and long post), Dringo!
Nintendo definantely have had their fair share of gaming news recently. It wouldn't be sporting to have a 'Megaton' annoucement too.... Leave it 'til next year :), hopefully!
Nintendo definantely have had their fair share of gaming news recently. It wouldn't be sporting to have a 'Megaton' annoucement too.... Leave it 'til next year :), hopefully!
I am Nintendo.
Excellent post, well written and interesting.
:-D Go Dringo!
:-D Go Dringo!
megaton will suck and alwasy has sucked!!
itd nothing but some lame áss bullshít roumour made up by some sad pathetic lonely freak!
itd nothing but some lame áss bullshít roumour made up by some sad pathetic lonely freak!
If there is a Megaton, it'll be a joint project between companies.
Capcom would obviously be involved.
Some parts of Sega (Sonic Team and Amusement Vision) would also be part of it, and I expect that others would too.
Sure, Megaton is an unconfirmed rumour, but so was Zelda:OOT remake for the Gamecube, remember?
Capcom would obviously be involved.
Some parts of Sega (Sonic Team and Amusement Vision) would also be part of it, and I expect that others would too.
Sure, Megaton is an unconfirmed rumour, but so was Zelda:OOT remake for the Gamecube, remember?
Hmm.. Alcofrolic seems to have gone off the rails recently, eh?
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