Looks like the Xbox is being delayed..in Japan that is. Instead of a debut late this year the Japanese will now get the console on February 22. Microsoft still insists the US launch will be on the 8th of November.

Cube.IGN is reporting that the introduction of the GameCube in the US has been delayed until November 18, almost 2 weeks later than the original November 5 release date. This info was found in Nintendo's Spaceworld Press Kit. The delay means early November is all for Microsoft, since the Xbox is supposed to be released on the 8th of November. First-party GameCube games launching along with system are Luigi's Mansion and Wave Race: Blue Storm, and Pikmin will follow a day later (third party titles, like LucasArts' Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader will also be available). Smash Brothers and Eternal Darkness will follow in December. 700,000 GameCube units will be available on launch day.

As was mentioned yesterday, Dungeon Siege was just announced as officially delayed by the guys at Gas Powered. Of course everyone waiting for the game went fruity and all kinds of theories surfaced. Chris Taylor of GPG decided to come forward on this forum posting to lay it down on what's up and clear things up a bit. (Thanks Ian Smith)

When we started Gas Powered Games we shot for the moon. Ironically we never actually got all the things into the game that we wanted, far from it, but we got the real important stuff in and now we are trying to finish it all, and it's a huge task, much bigger than anything that any one of us could have imagined. [snip]

Blue's News has posted a press release they received from Microsoft announcing that Dungeon Siege, the upcoming Diablo-style RPG from Total Annihilation creator Chris Taylor and Gas Powered Games has been pushed back into next year. No specific day, month or even quarter is named, only that the game will be released at some point in 2002. Here's a clip from the press release:

August 16, 2001 – Redmond, WA -- Microsoft and Gas Powered Games have made the careful decision not to release Dungeon Siege in the fall of 2001. Both companies remain extremely excited about the game and are committed to completing the title and bringing the highly anticipated game to store shelves in 2002.

“Our decision to delay the release of Dungeon Siege is one of the toughest we’ve had to make, but we firmly believe that this is the right choice given that one of the most critical steps in creating an RPG is the tuning and balancing stage,” said Chris Taylor, Lead Designer, Gas Powered Games. “We’ve made a promise to build a game that delivers an over-the-top experience, and we’ll do whatever it takes to deliver on that promise.”

No doubt this announcement will be disappointing for fans of the game who were hoping to get their hands on it later this year.

Looks like there might be a bit of a glitch in the X-Box launch. A "possible flaw" in the Intel motherboard is causing production delays. They are still shooting for the Nov 8th launch date though.

It's just a day full of bummer news. The guys at HomeLAN have gotten word that Medal of Honor: Allied Assault is being delayed. The title was originally slated for a release around the Christmas season this year but is slipping into about February of next year most likely.

...a spokesperson for the game's publisher Electronic Arts confirmed that it was likely that the game would have a Feburary release, although he added there was still a chance that the game could appear in stores before the end of the year as originally planned. The spokesperson cited the need for more development time

Update: Apparently the EA guy is now backtracking on his comments and is saying the game should still be out by November most likely.

Looks like someone is really dropping the ball on this one. The official Black & White site mentions that the official patch for the game is still being delayed by the QA department, and thus the planned updates to the game have been delayed as well.

Ok now this is just getting silly. The Black & White patch has been delayed..again. According to the Lionhead guys the patch is finished, but is still being tested at EA. EA also shot down a plan to release a pre-QA patch due to customer support concerns. If these constant delays are customer support..that's just great. Thanks VE.

Looks like Microsoft is shelving one of their ideas to make even more money, Office subscription. Besides selling Office XP (due May 31), Microsoft was also going to offer a subscription plan. They are still going ahead with the plans in some selected countries, but not the US. Who wants to pay a yearly fee anyway?

The Microsoft spokeswoman emphasized that the company remains "committed to the subscription model and definitely plan(s) to continue with plans to deliver subscription offerings worldwide. She described Microsoft's new strategy as a "more metered approach," with the company "rolling out subscription offerings on a country-by-country basis."

Interestingly, this might have as much to do with fighting software piracy as anything else. Already, in advance of the official Office XP launch, pirated copies are selling on the streets of Singapore for as little as $2.60.

Thanks theo.

As was mentioned back in March the GameCube from Nintendo will be experiencing a delay in release over in Japan. the US release date remains unchanged though. Thanks Well-Rounded. Speaking of GameCube, here are some pics of one of the canne projects.

According to Gone Gold, ION Storm's Anachronox's March release date has been changed. It now has a non-specific "Spring" date.

It looks like Microsoft might be running into some problems with trademark issues. A company in Florida is claiming to have rights to the X-Box name which you can read about in a few places. CNET, MSXBox , FT.com , and Eurogamer. Here is basically what is going on:

MS is being threatened with legal action by a small Florida-based company called Xbox Technologies, which filed a string of trademark and patent applications involving the word Xbox starting in March 1999, months before Microsoft picked it as the name of their console. If the court case goes ahead it could force Microsoft to rename their console or delay its launch.

Action Vault is reporting that Volition's Red Faction has been delayed until late summer/early fall, giving it more time to polish which is always a good thing. The game was first scheduled for a Q1/Q2 2001 release. Thanks Voodoo Extreme.

Dissapointing news for the Europeans, it looks like the Xbox launch will be delayed until 2002 for us. Microsoft has been following the disastrous Sony Playstation2 launch and thinks this is the best solution to prevent shortages. Instead of November/December like the US, Europe will possibly have to wait until March, which would really suck ass.

Speaking to MCV, Xbox European boss, Sandy Duncan said, "The demand for Xbox is so high that we have revised our forecasts and we feel tht we can ship many more units this way.
"The downside is that the launch will miss Christmas 2001 in Europe, but this is not a problem. We have spent time talking to the trade and the main thing is that we announce a launch date and stick to it."

The FiringSquad has some more information on the news/rumors that motherboards based on the AMD 760 chipset would be delayed because of problems with the chipset. There is a problem, but there already is a fix.

For those of you who were anticipating seeing Soldier of Fortune on the Dreamcast, you're gonna have to wait a bit longer according to IGN. Thanks Stomped

Ouch and more ouch. Intel looks to have confirmed that the 1.13GHz Pentium3 chip might not even see the light of day until the second quarter of next year! Guess it has some issues.

Ugh, in case you missed it Warcraft3 was announced as being delayed even more. FGNOnline has a brief Q&A with Blizzard about the delay of the game.

According to ZDNet the 1.13Ghz Pentium3 that was recalled back in August, will not appear back in stores until somewhere in the second quarter of next year. They are doing this since they need their resources for the Pentium4 launch, but are also considering transitioning the CPU to a flip chip package, whereas it uses the cartridge-like SECC2 packaging now.

According to an update on iXBT Labs, there is a delay of the GeForce2 Ultra due to the fact that memory manufacturers can't produce enough DDR SDRAM memory chips that work at the required 460Mhz. Creative and Hercules will be able to start shipping in late October, but only in very limited quantities. Cards from other manufacturers have been pushed back even more. The NV20 won't have this problem because it uses slower memory, but will still be faster due to improved technologies.