Did Probe/Acclaim Cheltenham survive the Acclaim bankruptcy? I'd love to see another Extreme-G game.

Don't hold your breath. I don't know of any original Acclaim franchises that survived the company's downfall. They didn't hold a high-profile IP auction like 3DO did, so games like Extreme-G are probably gone for good. British developer Probe, which you note was renamed as Acclaim Cheltenham, was a fully owned studio and thus perished with the publisher. Still, I'm sure members of that team have gone on to join or form other companies, so a spiritual successor to Extreme-G could appear one day. It's happened with other series.

After the Super Princess Peach question and my response in yesterday's mailbag, a couple of readers chimed in with this correction:

Just to let you know if you didn't realise it (which I'm surprised at considering I could hear the difference)… Leslie Swan used to do the voice of Peach during the N64 years. However since about 2000 (and definitely the Gamecube games to my knowledge) it has been done by Jen Taylor. Jen's voice is a little higher than Leslie's and I first picked up on it when playing Mario Sunshine (and hence checked the credits and saw it was no longer Leslie). Does Leslie still do voice work though? I actually prefer her version of Peach to be honest.

Mat Allen

...and...

Maybe I'm just a biased piece of crap *sarcasm*, but I find your comment in the last mailbag concerning Leslie Swan being the voice of Peach somewhat misleading. She was indeed the voice of Peach, emphasis on was. However, Jen Taylor seems to be the REAL voice of Peach, simply based on how many games she's appeared as the voice of Peach compared to Leslie Swan. Personally, I would be more apt to say Leslie is the voice of Mona. Maybe I'm reading too much into things (actually, I KNOW I am), but I sincerely hope that this was unintentional considering who else Jen voices.

A big Planet Gamecube fan,

AfroRyan aka Ryan Fisher

Of course it was an unintentional mistake on my part, and I thank these guys for the correction. I've only met Leslie, not Jen, so I associate her with the character even though she has moved on to other roles. But that didn't keep her from saying "Peach!" at my request at a recent press event, which was pretty special. :-)

Way back when (March), Nintendo Power listed Katamari Damacy as a title for the DS. With no appearance at E3, and no other info leaked, are we never to see (i.e. touch) the little prince? [I can touch it... I can touch the cosmos...]

APD

Unfortunately, there has been ZERO information on Katamari Damacy DS since that initial announcement in Nintendo Power. But the PS2 sequel, We Love Katamari, was just released in Japan, so if it's the same development team working on the DS game, maybe they just started on the handheld version.

Hey PGC,

Is there any particular reason why Nintendo hates Europe and Australia

so much?

Also, shouldn't Nintendo (and Microsoft/Sony) treat the UK has a

seperate entity, from the rest of Europe, given they're in the PAL

system and speak english?

I honestly can't imagine why Nintendo doesn't devote more resources to Europe and Australia. Both regions seem to be fantastically mismanaged and generally neglected. We can only hope that Nintendo will take a fresh approach to the regions with the start of the next console generation. As for your other question...I've always been under the impression that virtually all of Europe uses the PAL standard, not just the UK. Regardless, consumer logic would say that Nintendo should release games in the UK and Australia (also PAL and English-speaking) earlier than in other European countries. Corporate logic says that a simultaneous release is better because then people will be more likely to buy the game in their own country, thus suppressing the intra-regional import market which tends to confuse accounting and create a sort of black market for popular titles. Of course, at this point Nintendo should probably take whatever sales they can get in Europe and Oz, importing be damned, but that makes too much sense...in both consumer and corporate logic, neither of which Nintendo has a good grip upon.

Dear Bag,

In a world in which FOUR Mario Party games are released on the

Gamecube, why aren't we seeing sequels to other titles like Super

Smash Bros. Melee? The last Smash Bros. game was released in December

2001, sold millions of copies, and became arguably one of the best

games on the gamecube.

It seems like it would be simple enough to slap on a bunch of new

levels, throw in a few new characters, and come up with a couple new

things to fall from the sky. I'd pay $50 for a sequel if they even

updated it just a bit.

Is it really that difficult to get a sequel made to a basic game such

as Smash Bros.? They've had almost 4 years to do it. You'd think

that Nintendo would put out 2 or 3 copies of a game like this on each

new system... it seems to be guaranteed money!

-The Batman

Who can say by what reasoning Nintendo decides to milk some franchises and not others? Certainly the Mario Party games are much cheaper to develop than Smash Bros. For one thing, you're underestimating the amount of effort that goes into a game as finely tuned as SSB Melee. Every character, move, and level has to be balanced with all the others, and the excellent job HAL did with that balancing act is the reason so many people still play Melee to this day. There again is probably part of the reason: people are still buying and playing Melee, and Nintendo may think those people don't really need another game in the series unless it can offer significant improvements. Above all, though, is the fact that Melee's designer left HAL a couple of years ago and is now working on other games, including Meteos. Nintendo is pressing on, however slowly, and Satoru Iwata has already said that an online sequel to Smash Bros. will be available at the Revolution launch.

Hey there PGC ,

I was just wondering if we ever found anything from DemaSked or if it was just one huge goose chase.

-Bosox

Right before the service was set to be revealed, Warp Pipe Technologies supposedly signed a huge business deal that forced them to keep their secret after all. Since it has (or had) something to do with online services, maybe something will finally be announced this fall when the DS goes online. But considering the complete lack of evidence that Demasked was ever anything more than a trumped up marketing campaign for something, I personally do consider the whole thing to be a wild goose chase. I'd like to be proven wrong someday.

Bag it (before you tag it)!