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Late Night Consoling

by jason bergman, Feb 18, 2003 8:30pm PST
Related Topics – Atari, Konami, Games: Console

You can add another dead would-be Game Boy competitor to the piles, as Bandai announced today that they are effectively pulling out of the handheld market, and will make their WonderSwan Color and SwanCrystal systems exclusively on a "made to order" basis. The history of this industry is littered with Game Boy competitors, some sucked (Game.com), some very cool (Lynx) and some that were somewhere in between (GameGear). Nintendo finally has some kind of competition again on the horizon with the N-Gage, although it remains to be seen just how viable a handheld system that really is. No matter what, as I've repeatedly said around here, competition is A Good Thing, and nobody, not even the Big N, should be in any segment unopposed. Fortunately for us, as the Game Boy Advance SP shows, Nintendo recognizes that they can't afford to get lazy with their handheld system, viable competition or not. But I still want to see someone else make headway in the handheld sector. If it takes a mobile phone maker like Nokia to do that, then so be it.

GameCube Zelda Bonus Disc for Europe Good news for European Zelda fans...while you won't be getting the special Ocarina of Time/Master Quest disc as soon as you pre-order the game, if you buy the game when it first comes out, you'll get a special two-disc package that includes the extra games.
GameBoy Advance Boktai Revealed Konami has released the first screenshots from Boktai, which is the name of Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima's upcoming oddball GBA game. This is the game that actually has a light sensor built into the cartridge, although exactly what the point of this is has yet to be really explained in any detail.
PS2 Virtual-On Marz Details New details from Virtual-On Marz, the upcoming PS2 revival of this venerable series, can be found at Gamers.com tonight. There are specifics on the new game modes and Virtuaroids (read: robots what fight n' stuff).
GameCube PS2 Xbox Soul Calibur II Toys As part of their gala unveiling at Toy Fair here in NYC, McFarlane Toys has revealed their upcoming toys based on characters from Soul Calibur II. There are non-game toys galore of course, including some very cool Alien and Predator figures and characters from The Matrix.
Xbox Oddworld Update Those watchful hawks over at Planet Xbox have posted word of an update over at the official Oddworld Inhabitants site, which has info on an upcoming art exhibition, as well as a teaser for their next game.
GameCube Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Update There's not a whole lot to go on here, but Games Are Fun has posted and translated a scan from the Japanese magazine V-Jump which has some new information on Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.
GameCube PS2 GameBoy Advance Misc. Screenshots Tonight's shots are all at GameSpot, where they have new shots from P.N. 03 for GameCube, new shots from King of Route 66 for PS2, and a first look at Mega Man Zero 2 and shots from Crazy Taxi: To Catch a Ride and Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel (yeah, just rolls off the tongue, don't it?) all for GBA.
Console Game of the Evening: Backgammon for the Atari 2600. It's odd to think of such a mainstream game as one of the original first party games for any system, but of course when the 2600 came out, there was no console market, so this was just as important a release on paper as Yar's Revenge.


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