I've got a question this time, I promise. What do you

think the chances are that we'll see a US release of

Jump Superstars? Admittedly, there are a lot of

characters from manga not yet released here, yet the

game also as big names like Kenshin, Dragon Ball and

One Piece. Futhermore, character recognition aside, it

looks like Nintendo is putting together a solid game

here, comparable to Smash Brothers. I think it would

be wise for NOA to take a chance with it.

-Jonathan Decker "Lokno"

Pretty slim with the current lineup of characters, unfortunately. Few anime-licensed games get released outside of Japan, and I can't think of a single multi-licensed anime game that has escaped those Eastern shores. You can probably imagine the difficulty acquiring all those licenses for a different region, one in which many of the manga and anime shows aren't even currently available. If the game sells extremely well in Japan (which looks very likely), and the gameplay is shockingly good, perhaps Nintendo of America will try to retool it with more recognizable characters. Konami has done that with its DDR series, which contains a lot of licensed music that can't be released outside Japan for legal reasons. But NOA has never so much as mentioned Jump Super Stars, so the safe bet is to import.

Hey PGC,

It seemed pretty clear that Amusement Vision liked developing for the

GameCube, with games like F-Zero GX and Super Monkey Ball 1/2.

Why has Sega gone completely off-topic and now ignoring the Cube altogether?

Phil.

Sega never really stopped doing GameCube games, but most of what they've released in the past couple of years has either been crap (Virtua Quest) or uninteresting to most people (PSO Ep. III). And to be fair, they haven't done much better on PS2 or Xbox in that same period. I just think Sega has gone way, way downhill after the first year or so of this generation. There are a few exceptions, but the overall quality and appeal of Sega's catalog is pitiful considering the size and legacy of the publisher.

Hi, I was wondering what's going on with the GBA line up? Since DS came out there have been less and less announced titles for the console. Did you find at E3 the GBA line up was lacking and it doesn't go well with Nintendo's "3rd pillar" plan? I mean Nintendo wants everyone to believe that they will have 3 machines out then they can at least stop ignoring one...oh well let me know what you think and thanks for answering my question.

Craig Sloat

The lack of GBA games at E3 was indeed pretty stark. Nintendo seems to have moved their development focus over to the DS, and third-parties are largely following suit. I agree that if Nintendo's plan is to let the GBA hang around as a second (or third) tier handheld for the next few years, they're hardly pushing it as a "third pillar". Game Boy Micro may indeed revive hardware sales for the system, but will software sales and new game announcements benefit from that spike? Not if the Micro sells to the people it's apparently designed for, first-time handheld gamers who will be more likely to raid the huge back catalog than eagerly await new game releases.

Just an fyi follow up to your answer about the MM Anniversary collection for

GBA. I found it at Gamestop.com for a 2/15/06 release. Don't know how

accurate that is, but thought it might help.

Here's the link to the product.

http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=160499

Thanks,

Tim Dunlap

Well there you go, folks. Thanks for the info, Tim. I also checked with Capcom today, and they have it listed as "TBD". In my experience, when a game is announced and later changed to TBD and then not heard from in a long time, it's dead. But publishers like to go with "never say never", hence the rarity of actual cancellation announcements.

Hey guys,

If you could ask for ONE thing from Nintendo for the Revolution, be it a system feature or a change in business strategy or anything, what would it be? I'd be interesting in hearing from a bunch of the PGC'ers on this.

For me, the bottom line is that I would ask them to please, for the love of God, get more third party support than you had with GameCube. Not so much that the system is flooded with crap, but options are extremely important. As an RPG fan, GameCube wasn't even a credible option. Those handful of games aren't enough to sustain any fan of the genre for the life of the system. I think they really need to open up the development doors. My GameCube has been collecting dust for half of the time I owned it, and I bought it on day one.

Adam

Whether GameCube has had enough software depends on how many games you can afford to buy and how long you typically play each game. There's no doubt it had less support than the competing systems, and if Revolution is as weird as we all expect it to be, that situation is probably going to worsen.

But like most Nintendo fans, I care more about their first-party games. So my one biggest hope for Revolution is that it has a fantastic launch with several top-notch first-party games in varying genres, and that Nintendo follows up with a consistently strong lineup without the usual sophomore slump after launch that slows down momentum so much.

Hello PGC!

Do you think it is safe to assume that Super Princess Peach was

canceled? We saw nothing about it at E3. Its also nowhere to be

found in the large "In development section" in Nintendo Power. I'm

kind of worried that because the graphics in it were not exactly up to

par to Super Mario World for SNES that they killed it.....I was

looking forward to this too!

Thanks,

Spike-o

I ran into Leslie Swan, who is the head of localization at NOA and also happens to be the voice of Princess Peach, and asked her about this game back at E3. She said NOA had just gotten their first build game and it was going through some evaluation procedures. Since the game isn't even out in Japan yet, I wouldn't lose hope prematurely for a N. American release. If it's going to reach our shores, I'd expect to hear something about it this fall. Then again, Lik-Sang doesn't have a firm Japanese date on the game, which may be a cause for concern.

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