World-wide News

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This page reports on only the most important and major games news from outside the Acorn market.

19/8/98		Rumours persist (including from rivals Sega) that Sony will announce their successor to the PlayStation this summer - SCEI [Sony] President Teruhisa Tokunaka has revealed that the PlayStation 2 may feature a DVD drive, giving it a minimum of 4.7Gb of storage space and up to a possible maximum of a staggering 17Gb!
19/8/98		A new pocket console is on its way - the NeoGeo Pocket. But, surprisingly, it's only black and white, presumably to conserve battery life and reduce costs; it's big pulling-feature is compatibility with Sega's new DreamCast system. By inserting a connecting cable between the two units gamers can play head-to-head, using the NeoGeo's 16-bit processor. Whether it will be released outside Japan remains to be seen.
19/8/98		Movies: Paramount Pictures have said that there will definitely be a Tomb Raider movie, featuring the adventurous exploits of the game's well-endowed heroine, Lara Croft. Meanwhile, pitches based on the Command and Conquer war games are being presented to Hollywood studios, and there is some possibility of a Resident Evil movie, based on the PlayStation horror games.
19/8/98		One of the big launch games for the PlayStation was Ridge Racer - the fourth sequel is now on its way from Namco, currently called Ridge Racer Type 4 and due for release in the UK around Autumn 1998. The main addition to the earlier games is the addition of a Grand Prix mode.
25/6/98		Sega are to release their first PC game which is not a port of either a console or arcade game. With the working title of Emperor, the game is a realtime strategy set early this century. Sega intend this to be just the first in a line of original PC products.
25/6/98		Sony's latest sales figures show that they intend to sell their 50 millionth Playstation within a year. Current international sales have already reached 32 million.
25/6/98		Spice World, the game, is now finally out on Playstation release. First reports suggest the game is limited but fun - you must teach the girls to dance and sing in time, and help mix some of their songs.
25/6/98		Ex-Acorn games saviour, Krisalis, have been dropped as developer of the Playstation port of bloody car game Carmageddon due to quality-control problems.
25/6/98		Console costs are dropping in the USA. Both Nintendo 64s and Playstations can be bought for the US equivalent of around £80. Sony in the UK have no plans to cut prices.
4/6/98		SquareSoft have officially confirmed that they are working on a sequel to their worldwide smash-hit Final Fantasy VII, imaginatively called Final Fantasy VIII. Japanese gamers will be able to play a demo of FF VIII if they buy forthcoming RPG (Role Playing Game) Brave Fencer Musashiden, with the full release due for late this year and apparently "certainly" by March 1999. If FF VII is anything to go by, it will be years before we see an English-language version of the game
4/6/98		Sega have finally revealed their new games system, DreamCast, replacing the mostly unsuccessful Saturn. Due for release in Japan late this year, it will be late 1999 at the earliest before a UK release appears. Based on a 200MHz Hitachi SH-4 processor, it's been claimed that the console is four times more powerful than an Intel Pentium II (how they arrive at this conclusion I'm not sure). The system used Microsoft's cutdown Windows CE operating system with DirectX - this is intended to make it easy to port games from the PC to the system and vice-versa. After the notoriously difficult to program Saturn system, this may encourage more software developers to publish for the DreamCast
4/6/98		After years of rumours, Nintendo have finally announced both release dates and pricing for a forthcoming colour Game Boy console. Updating Nintendo's massively successful portable games machine nine years on, the release on November 23rd this year will be at $80 (US dollars). A UK version should follow a few months later. Backward compatible with all existing Gameboy games, the new console allows a staggering 56 colours to be displayed...
4/6/98		The DD64 was the device that was supposed to allow the Nintendo 64 to overcome the hadnicaps its lack of CD gave it - the lack of space to store data. Later Nintendo revised the specs to allow it to store large quantities of data, which was supposed to make it unique in gaming terms (although this ignored the fact that PCs are already able to do this). Now it is looking more and more unlikely that the upgrade will be released at all - Nintendo have confirmed there will be no release this year, and even a 1999 release is looking unlikely. And by 2000 Nintendo will probably be onto a newer console!
4/6/98		Sony recently revealed a range of intelligent memory cards for their PlayStation console. Extravagantly terming them "PDA"s (Personal Data Assistants) they are similar in design to 'Tamagotchi'-type electronic creature nurturing games, which is in fact what they are intended to be used for - to nurture in-game characters for later use on the full console. A UK release now looks more likely following Sony's confirmation of a Spring 1999 release in the US.

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