Steven Kent from MSNBC was on a mission to find out how many developers in Japan have seen Dolphin Dev. Kits. Basically what it came down to was, "Not a whole lot." I would have used his direct analogies to such pop artists as Brittany Spears and Ricky Martin (is he a fan?), but I felt it would be better to let you enjoy these below. A lot of Developers knew developers who had seen it. A lot of this is news that you have read already, but it's a good read none the less, on a slow news weekend. (and while we continue the rebuild)

MSNBC went to several top game designers to ask them if they had seen Dolphin. This was how they responded:

[To Gozo Kitao, Konami general manager currently working on three PlayStation2 titles]

MSNBC: Have you seen Dolphin yet?

Kitao: I haven’t seen it yet, but others in the company have.

[To Shinji Mikami, Capcom designer who created the Resident Evil series]

MSNBC: Have you seen the Dolphin kit?

Mikami: No, not at all.

MSNBC: Have any other producers seen it?

Mikami: Maybe [Yoshiki] Okamoto has seen it.

(When asked, Okamoto said that he had not.)

[To Yoichi Haraguchi, the director of Namco’s consumer sales department]

MSNBC: Have you considered doing anything for Dolphin?

Haraguchi: We would like to.

MSNBC: Have you seen the development kit?

Haraguchi: No, not yet.

[To Keiji Inafune, Capcom designer who created Mega Man and is currently working on Onimusha: Demon Warrior]

MSNBC: Have you seen Dolphin yet?

Inafune: Dolphin comes up a lot. I guess Nintendo is big in the U.S.; but since we haven’t heard any information on Dolphin, I think they’re not really making it.

In all fairness, searching for Dolphin in the Western Hemisphere is more like looking for the latest Britney Spears video — not many people own it, but loads of people have seen it. Asked if perhaps Dolphin will never see the light of day, Joel Hochberg, president of Rare, Inc., says: “That’s an impossibility. There would be a lot of unhappy people around here; we’re very deep in several Dolphin projects.”

Other game shops that are known to have Dolphin kits include Nintendo internal, Nintendo Software Technology Corp., a Washington-based development house, Left Field Productions, and Retro Studios.

INSIDE NINTENDO

Nintendo Company Ltd. seldom opens its doors to journalists, but Hiroshi Imanishi, Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi’s right-hand man, and company spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa were gracious enough to accept a visit last month. During the interview, Imanishi discussed Dolphin and Game Boy Advance, and explained why Nintendo of Japan is sitting pretty even if its console sales aren’t.

Nintendo of Japan had a banner year in 1999, riding very high on the success of Game Boy Advance and, especially, Pokemon. Both Minigawa and Imanishi were quick to point out the problems console game publishers faced last year. “As far as Famitsu’s market research is concerned, sales are down. They’re especially way down for the so-called ‘new generation’ console [i.e., Dreamcast], but also for the 32-bit and 64-bit [systems]. The only good sales are being achieved by Game Boy,” observed Minigawa. “Looking at the most recent market research information from Famitsu, about 70 percent of the unit sales have been Game Boy Color.”

During the course of the interview, Minagawa and Imanishi discussed the woes of the industry — downsizing at SquareSoft (“Square has had a very large downsizing, and people working there know that eventually they will not be working there”), Namco (“Their arcade division may have to downsize”), and Sega (“Due to sluggish sales of Dreamcast, Sega had to lower its projections. They originally estimated some small amount of loss this term, but it turned out to be huge”).

Against this backdrop, Game Boy Color is achieving big sales with huge profit margins. As Minagawa points out, the costs of developing titles for Game Boy are considerably smaller than those of making console games. Add to this the potential of absolutely huge sales numbers.

Nintendo of Japan sold a combined 5 million copies of the Pokemon Gold and Silver cartridges last year and total sales may exceed 8 million before the cartridges reach the United States. Even more impressive, Nintendo will sell its 100 millionth Game Boy in May — and those sales are further complemented by over 300 million cartridges sold worldwide. Sony may have effectively stolen the latest generation of console gaming from Nintendo; but as Peter Moore, Sega senior vice president of marketing, puts it, “Nintendo is crying all the way to the bank.”

Because of the success of Game Boy Color, Nintendo is in no rush to release Game Boy Advance. Minigawa went so far as to say that Nintendo’s retail partners want to keep the status quo. But Imanishi questions the logic of delaying that next step.

“Looking at our future, it may be more detrimental not to release Game Boy Advance,” Imanishi said. He said that the next system has to be in place before consumers lose interest in the current Game Boy. (Last week, Nintendo announced at a conference for game designers that Game Boy Advance will not be launched this year. It should be noted that nearly every game publisher MSNBC has visited, both in the United States and Tokyo, has a Game Boy Advance development kit — making the hunt for Game Boy Advance like looking for Ricky Martin album.)