Late Night Consoling

This story at PDA Live reports on Sega's recent demonstration of a new batch of Palm OS titles they're working on, and also links to two trial games that are now available from Sega Japan's PDA site (thanks Slashdot). As I've mentioned here before, Sega has actually released a Palm OS game already, but the ones demonstrated at Palm Source Japan are much cooler, because they demonstrated some rudimentary 3D on Palm hardware (see screenshots). These games come from Smilebit, the people behind Jet Set Radio Future and Typing of the Dead among others, who has been pretty gung ho with micro-handheld gaming for a while now. Owners of Java-capable Nextel phones can actually download a couple of Smilebit titles right now. As a long-time Palm user, I'm all for this stuff. The two games available today aren't spectacular: one's a souped up version of one of Smilebit's phone games, and the other's similar to Chu Chu Rocket (only without the personality). But nonetheless, I think there's a lot of potential here, and it's great to see a major developer get behind it.

• According to Reuters, Microsoft has sold 190,092 Xbox units in Japan so far, a bit short of the 250,000 they had ready for the Asian launch of the console. Not too surprisingly, everyone's pointing to the Xbox's less-than-spectacular software lineup as the primary reason for the sluggish sales.
• Sorry PS2 fans, you're gonna have to wait a while before you can get your hands on a port of Skies of Arcadia. The GameCube one is still on track to be released during Sega's fiscal year 2003, but the PS2 port won't be out until after that, meaning it'll be at least a year before it comes out.
• PS2.IGN has posted new screenshots and soundtrack details from Wipeout: Fusion, which after Sony decided to pass on it, will finally be coming to America later this year from Bam Entertainment.
• According to a Japanese interview (and reported here on GameSpot), Sony's Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer chips which power the PS2 have been combined into a single processor using a 0.13 micron process. What does this mean? Possibly a cheaper to manufacture version of the PS2 (which would likely lead to a price drop) but this also might suggest that Sony's going to move ahead with their plans to license out the PS2 chip to other companies for inclusion in TVs, DVD players and other devices as announced last year.
• Developer Phantagram has announced that Kingdom Under Fire 2 is in development for the Xbox.
• GameSpot has posted a detailed preview of Spider-Man: The Motion Picture, based on their hands-on impressions of the Xbox version of the game.
• Cube.IGN has a preview online of the final version of Nintendo's Wavebird wireless controller, which will be shipping in June.
• And finally, because I'm surprised it wasn't posted here earlier, developer Appeal has announced that Outcast 2, which was in development for PS2 and PC has been put on hold while they explore other "development opportunities." As a big fan of the first one, all I have to say is...dang.

Console Game of the Evening: Chakan: The Forever Man for the Sega Genesis. A clever and fun little platformer. Considering that I haven't heard about it since shortly after the Dreamcast's release, it's a safe assumption that the planned sequel was scrapped years ago (which is a shame, because it had great potential).