Pip asks, Can you please advise what the real

situation is regarding Gamecube programming? We keep hearing it is very user friendly by

the Big N and its close associates, but no independent comments.

Surely it would do Nintendo no harm to have some

third party people giving some positive feedback, so that others could contemplate jumping

from the difficult PS2 onto the Gamecube bandwagon?

Jonathan Says: Even though you and I may not

be hearing those comments, they are flying all over the development community. The recent

CBS MarketWatch report on Nintendo said that many PS2 developers have become fed up with

the machine and are looking to Nintendo for relief.

Mike H Says: I

believe too much is being made out of the ease of development factor. No console is a walk

through the park to work with. If companies want to make money for themselves and their

shareholders, they go where money is. That includes dealing with horsy development if need

be. But that's not to say they do it willingly. :)

That said, the harm it can do Nintendo is that their

cards wouldn't be as close to their chest as they would like them to be. It's strictly for

competitive reasons. Nintendo has planted seed money into various partners, and the result

is a list of 2nd party developers. As a public company, Nintendo is right to disclose

their funding. From that point on, it's not much of a secret what those developers are

doing, so they've offered nibbles of information. But the cards still remain close to

their chests, and 3rd parties remain pretty quiet.

E3 is going to be the coming out party all around.

We got ya covered.

Donutt007 asks, I think it's funny how a lot of

people say that Sega's going bankrupt, or Sega might have a hard time developing games.

Has anyone been to an arcade lately? Well, I work at Dave and Buster's, if you haven't

heard about it yet go find one by you it's a fun place, get drunk and play games! Anyway,

I'm a video game tech and I have to say about 70% of our games are made by Sega. Games

which have never been on any system. So, I really wouldn't say Sega's in the

"hole" yet. I love Sega games, they have some really great games out there. If

Sega were to become a second or third party developer I think it would highly benefit Sega

and whichever company the produce games for. I think Sega just has a little problem in the

hardware department, not quite sure why that is. Anyway, what are your thoughts on this?

Mike S. Says: I totally agree with you. Sega

has had some troubles in the hardware department but they totally shine when it comes to

games. Almost everything that comes from that company is pure gold. Now that they will not

be worrying about hardware sales they can concentrate on what they do best, making games.

Jonathan Says: I'm with Striker. Sega has

been doing fine in the arcade sector of their business; their financial woes stemmed from

the Dreamcast (and the Saturn before it). So, as a business they were forced to remove

that which was hurting them...the DC. Now I just get to play Sega's great games without

having to buy one of their mediocre systems. I'm rather happy about the situation. :-)

The Younger Plumber Says: Yeah, Sega has a

huge Arcade presence. Like Striker said, Sega's all about the games. The only thing

is: up until now, Sega has been placed with Nintendo and Sony as console hardware

developers. They have such a long history in the department that I find it hard to think

of them as purely a developer. I can only assume that many others can't help but think the

same way. After all, wasn't Sega the one duking it out with Nintendo back in the good ol'

days?! But if you think about it, they lost money in console hardware, so becoming

3rd party would probably ease the negative half Sega's report. I guess this just goes to

show that times change. So here's to seeing me in a game with our favorite blue mascot!

Billy Says: First off, Dave and Busters is an

awesome place. I went to one in Chicago and it was a total blast. It was a lot like a

Chucky Cheese for Adults. IMO there needs to be more of these around the country.

Sega's arcade division? It's amazing. As far as I am

concerned, outside of a few titles...it's the only reason to own a Dreamcast. The

opportunity to play Sega Arcade titles at home. One problem is, is that you need to buy a

controller (or two sets of Maracas) to do it the right way. No complaints here though.

I am hoping Sega and Nintendo can get together and

make some serious games. Hell, at least there will be an outlet for Sega to dump their

arcade titles. Samba on Nintendo? Hells yeah!

Ed Says: I

think part of the knock against Sega is based on the fact that it's been quite a while

since they've posted a profitable quarter. And while they may have a large presence in the

arcade market, that market is nowhere near what it once was. I mean, how often do you find

a good arcade in a mall anymore? Places like Dave & Busters or Chuck E Cheese are

pretty much the only places you'll find a respectable collection of arcade games now. Mind

you, I'm simply pointing out that Sega's financial situation is pretty bad and by no means

look to detract from their ability to develop a good game (arcade or console). Personally,

I'm thrilled that they'll develop for other consoles and think it's a great business

decision. Hey, didn't I write an editorial about this?

Donutt007 (again) asks, Personally I think Nintendo

is playing hard-ball with Square. I think Nintendo would love Square to develop some FF

games for them, but Square wants to make them that much more. Example: Square said

"hey we wanna make games for the GBA" Nintendo "only if you make games for

the GC" Square "sorry we can't commit to that" Nintendo "Oh well,

forget it" And now there's reports about how Square wants to make games for the GBA

and GC, I think Nintendo is playing it smart by acting like they don't want Square, when

they really do. It's kind of a mind game, and I think Square will eventually return to the

company that brought them out. How about you?

Mike H. Says: Hardball? Maybe so. With

Square's recent announcement regarding losses for the quarter, maybe they'll respond to

market and shareholder pressures by swallowing their pride and supporting Nintendo

platforms.

Yamauchi's getting cocky lately. Nintendo probably

feels they have an upper hand and don't need Square. Square probably feels the same way.

If nothing else, this seems to be a big game of chicken.

Billy Says: I don't know.

Square's main comments have always stated that they are a game company interested in

putting their games on the best system, or a system suited where there games can be the

best.

Square's major Nintendo problem was

cartridges. Hopefully with the NGC, and now their success in the pocket arena, Square and

Nintendo can get together once again.

The Younger Plumber Says:

Well.... I think Mike said it best with that game of chicken. I'll just add that if

Nintendo (read: Yamauchi) really wanted Square, then Big N wouldn't be so harsh. With just

about any developer, Nintendo would allow a company to only support GBA, hoping that would

lead to GC development. But because of this family feud, Nintendo wants Square to humble

itself and admit that it was wrong to leave Nintendo (or something like that). If I know

Yamauchi right, he'll hold his ground. So it's all up to how badly Square wants to develop

for GBA (and how much they hate GC, if they hate it). OK.... I think that's all I can

say...

Ed Says: I think you're pretty

much on the money. There's certainly still some bad blood between Square and Nintendo.

Yamauchi's comments clearly reflect this. However, from a business point of view it'd be

kind of petty from Nintendo to prevent Square from making games for them because of bad

blood. After all, Square makes games that sell and that can potentially sell systems, so

any console developer should welcome them into the fold. In the end, I think it's only a

matter of time before we see Square return to a Nintendo platform... it makes sense for

both parties involved.

Dman2000 asks, I'm curious about Nintendo's

situation with their sports library. Who's gonna supply our yearly NHL, MLB, NBA, NFL

needs?? Has EA said anything about making games for the the Cube or is it possible for

Sega to bring their great sports titles to Gamecube?

Jonathan Says: EA will

definitely be bringing its biggest franchises to Gamecube. They just recently confirmed

support for the system. SegaSports could very well be publishing on NGC too...perhaps

something from Visual Concepts, hmm? And don't forget Nintendo's own stuff: Left Field,

Retro Studios, and even Camelot are all good candidates for sports titles. I think the NGC

is set to start off with all kinds of great sports games, unlike the N64's slow beginning.

I'm just praying for a college football game.

The Younger Plumber Says: Yeah.

Although I'm not big on most sports games, I am not about to say that Nintendo doesn't

need more. EA, Sega, and Nintendo's 2nd parties will pump out some Sports titles. I also

suspect that a few lesser-known companies will try to make themselves famous with a killer

sports game. After all, inexperienced companies will want to work on the easiest system to

develop for! That's one of the reasons for why the PSX got so many of them.

Billy Says: It's looking good

for sports fans on NGC. There will be plenty of sporting love for Nintendophiles.

Retro: Baseball, 1080 2, and maybe Football?

EA: You name it. Hopefully everything. My real hopes are that there will be a Madden ready

for Launch. And bring me that SSX

Sega: I am hoping that there will be a NFL2K2 ready for Launch. Bring on the Sega Sports

team!

Acclaim: Hope not. Yuck. No more QBC please.

Midway: All of the Blitz-ish titles should be ready for GC.

Ed Says: Yeah, I think the

sports genre should be covered pretty well, though I'm not convinced that EA will bring

all their franchises over. Madden and NBA Live for sure...and probably FIFA. Baseball and

hockey games aren't quite as big as football and basketball, so I'm not positive we'll see

Triple Play and NHL on Gamecube (at least not right away). Actually, regarding EA, I think

the biggest issue is whether we'll see co-developed multi-platform games or ports of the

previous year's incarnation of a given game.

Nintendo's 2nd parties should provide some sports games, too (Retro football, Left Field

basketball and snowboarding, perhaps something from NST). The Sega Sports line-up on

Gamecube would be a huge boost, but there's no indication one way or another about those.

Acclaim might try another QBC on Gamecube and hopefully we'll see their All-Star Baseball

franchise (their only consistently high quality sports license) on NGC. And finally, like

Billy said, I expect all of Midway's arcade style sports games to be on Gamecube since

they're quite fond of multi-platform development.

Mr. Strickel asks, So far, I'm

extremely disappointed in the audio capabilities of the Game Boy Advance. The music I

could hear in the Mario Kart Advance demos sounds really cheap, hardly better than Game

Boy Color quality. The recent sound demo from the German developer Shi'nen isn't any

better... Where are all the different tracks and the subtle nuances of SNES game music

glory? It just sounds to me like the GBA will be lacking in the sound dept., much like the

GBC is.

Jonathan Says: I

haven't heard enough GBA sound to make a judgement yet, but consider the fact that most

developers don't take the game's music as seriously as they did back in the 16-bit era.

So, some of your disappointment might stem not from the system's limitations but the

developers' willingness to spend time making the music really memorable. Hopefully that

trend will begin to reverse itself soon.

Rize Says: From

what I've seen, the GBA's sound ability is very versatile. Apparently, developers can use

up to 24 channels of sound when there isn't much else to do. In game, developers should be

able to achieve 12 channels with no problem. It works with samples like all modern sound

hardware including the N64. A big advantage is that the samples always stay on the

cartridge so developers don't have to worry about sample size in RAM as long is it fits in

the cartridge. Apparently there's a lot more that you can do as well. It's basically

better than the SNES sound chip in all ways but one: Although the sound is mixed

internally at 16 bits, it's outputted at 8 bits. That won't make as much of a difference

as you would think though. You won't hear the difference unless you have some nice

headphones... and even then it won't be a huge difference. Jonathan is correct. It's going

to be up to the developers to use the hardware, but the capabilities are definitely there.

Check out this

piece on IGN for more info.

The Younger Plumber Says: I

found the Shi'nen music quite good. Little nuances and the like are really up to the

composer. Don't forget: that music was just a demo, and not for a game. Like Rize said,

the 8-bitness is really nothing to worry about. With the right techniques, 8-bit can sound

just as good as 16 (as long as there isn't anything like voice). Also, since developers

will be able to create their own instruments, I don't think we'll have problems with

crappy MIDI sounds. Don't forget: MKA wasn't finished when we heard it last. Music can

always be improved if it needs to be! So don't worry--we'll hear some awesome stuff sooner

or later on the GBA--Especially in the RPG genre.

Billy Says: GBA

sound problems? I don't think so. I've heard the sound first hand and this blows away the

GBC's sound qualities.

You can totally tell the difference

when you hear it. Trust me. Not only that, but with headphones it's a much better

experience. You will not be disappointed in the sound department. The music and sound

effects will be of high-quality.

You will love the GBA. We will have

demo's of all sound files this March!

A Pissed of Aussie asks, Why is it

that Americans get the Gamecube about 3 months after it comes out in Japan, and people

living in Australia and Europe have to wait about 8 months after it's released in Japan,

and 5 months after its released in America?

Nintendo is VERY slack in the release

department, the PlayStation 2 even with heaps of problems with supply still managed to

release the PS2 in Australia about ONE month after it was released in America.

I've been waiting for the Gamecube to

come out for just as long as everyone else, I am a die-hard Nintendo fan but I am sick and

tired of them screwing us Aussies.

Jonathan Says: Although I don't

live in Australia, I think we're all hoping that Nintendo will soon get its act together

in Oz and other trouble spots like Europe. I can understand some delay, due to your

country's location (being an island doesn't help) and the PAL conversion factor, but

hopefully things will tighten up and you guys will be able to enjoy the Gamecube just the

same as the rest of us.

Rize Says: As far as I know,

there hasn't been an official announcement yet. The American launch happens right before

the Christmas season so Nintendo doesn't want to spread itself too thin. That explains the

extra two months. There is going to be a huge ad campaign right around Christmas in

America, so they want as many units to sell as possible. It makes good business sense

unfortunately.

Sony may have released the PS2

worldwide before the end of 2000, but the Japanese launch was in March. That gave them

about 8 months before the European/Australian launches. Americans just had to wait longer

for the PS2 than they will for the Gamecube.

Ed Says: I think Jon hit on one

of the big points in lag time for the European and Australian markets. PAL conversion

tends to be secondary to Japanese to English conversions. Without any software, it'd be

pointless to launch a system. And, as PAL conversions usually wait until both Japanese and

English versions are done, Nintendo's PAL software might not be ready until 2002. It's

unfortunate, but many publishers (Nintendo included) view Europe and Australia as a

secondary market. Hopefully they'll take better care of those markets in this generation,

but I still wouldn't expect to see the Gamecube in Europe and Australia until early 2002

at best.