XPRESS

◼ We’re assuming that neither Cagney nor Lacey will be making their Xbox debut, however

Dropping players into the shoes of Ben Kellman, a tough and cynical cop in the tradition of…well, every character Bruce Willis has ever played, Good Cop, Bad Cop is the latest project from UK-based Revolution Software. While we haven’t gotten our hands on anything playable just yet, the pedigree goes a long way; considering Revolution’s adeptness in regard to weaving stories into its games, we have a lingering feeling that this will be on the amazing tip.

The game opens as Kellman discovers that a prime suspect in a murder case he is investigating is the same man who killed his father 25 years prior. Whether Kellman seeks revenge or justice is dependent upon how one chooses to play the game; throughout GCBC the morality of the player is judged, and the gameplay and story mold themselves accordingly. Players are free to further their investigation as they wish beating up or killing suspects, wounding or permanently silencing enemies. Rather than being helplessly propelled into a corny Hollywood ending, the p layer has the freedom to lead Kellman headfirst into the moral obscurity of violent revenge; while he may succeed in his quest, “winning “ will remain a highly subjective term.

“We’re primarily interested in challenging the morals of the player,” Revolution ‘s Charles Cecil told www.cvg.com. ‘‘The most violent option within the game will certainly appeal to many; but GCBC will present the consequences of those actions in a dark and mature way. We believe players will soon feel uncomfortable playing [the game] because of the things they might end up doing. By testing players’ emotions on top of their reactions, we’ve come up with an extremely unique gameplay experience.”

The team over at Revolution is pouring all of its resources into Broken Sword 3 at the moment (see page 66), which means that GCBC might be slipping to a 2003 release, The possibilities (and impressive engine) have us waiting with bated breath.

The Xbox was almost a Web TV machine! Microsoft tried to buy not only Sega, but Nintendo! Grown men have shed tears over Xbox development decisions! While these may Seem like the insane ramblings of a nut in a rubber room, or nonsensical postings on a Web site, or rumors bandied about in some shopping-mall game shop, they’re actually all grist in the mill that is Dean Takahashi’s Opening the Xbox: Inside Microsoft’s Plan to Unleash an Entertainment Revolution.

It’s evident that Takahashi, a veteran video game journalist with credits at Red Herring and USA Today, truly did his homework; Opening the Xbox features more nitty-gritty details about the men behind the Xbox and the decisions leading up to its debut than you can shake a game controller at. Takahashi ‘s saga begins with erstwhile game designer Seamus Blackley (who’s since left Microsoft), hot off the big-budget bust Trespasser for the PC. After linking up with Microsoft, Blackley’s zeal for the game industry, coupled with some impressive networking, swayed enough power players to convince Bill Gates to greenlight the Xbox. The book goes on to detail every microstep the machine took from that point to its launch some two years (and over 300 pages) later.

Opening the Xbox paints an intriguing picture of a company eager to invade the living rooms of America, and the development of the Xbox makes for mostly compelling reading.

But for every cool nugget like the decision to go with green as the Xbox’ trademark color (“Green is the signature color of technology ever since the beginning of time,” according to Microsoft design manager Horace Luke, who only had a green marker on hand when he began his initial sketches), there’s a passage that loses its way by getting bogged down in a confusing slush of executive names, royalty rates, and parts costs. And for the casual gamer, insiderish power plays such as ditching fledgling chipmaker GigaPixel in favor of industry giant Nvidia are probably less cataclysmic than they ‘re portrayed, in particular because the outcomes of such struggles are already known.

Nonetheless, both Xbox junkies and those wanting a peek behind the scenes of a muti-million dollar hardware launch will want to take a look, if only to read about Gates’ racy backstage antics with WWF wrestler The Rock at the Xbox launch party. Okay. that last part we made up. Just read the damn book.

Microsoft’s Xbox, perhaps unsurprisingly, just hasn’t had anything come easy in its fairly rough landing into Japan’s famously picky games market. The launch has come and gone, and the dust has settled…and Microsoft is showing dismal numbers. Hardware is already being discounted as much as 5000 yen ($40). and Microsoft is finding itself in a tough position in the land of dating sims and RPGs. The Xbox launch week sales of 123,000, have plummeted. One of Japan’s largest game magazine publishers, Enterbrain (publisher of Famitsu), reports that Xbox sold 190,092 units between launch day Feb. 22. to March 31: Microsoft had 250,000 Xbox units prepared for launch in Japan. In contrast, the PlayStation 2 sold 980,000 units in the first three days after launching in Japan in March of 2000.

And the news gets worse.

For the first week of April, the PSOne, Wonderswan, and Dreamcast all outsold the Xbox’ pitiful 2,179 units. To add insult to injury, the well-publicized “scratch” glitch—whereby games and CDs would get scratched during normal use in the Xbox—started to make waves. Microsoft denied any problem until March 7th, when it agreed to begin allowing exchanges free of charge. In the ensuing confusion, however, there was a period of several days in which some large retailers and distributors suspended sales until all was ironed out. Oddly enough, no such problem existed for the American or European launches.

Microsoft executives have been quick to play down the Xbox ‘ lackluster launch in Europe and, particularly, Japan. Xbox director Robbie Bach was quoted by Reuters news service as saying, “Japan is going well on the software side, and is probably a little behind where we want to be on the hardware side. But we always expected things would be tough. Microsoft has demonstrated patience and persistence there before, and I think we will do very well.”

On the bright(er) side, software ratios have actually been above what PS2 reported around the same time after launch; the Xbox is selling on average 1.6 games per unit of hardware, versus Sony’s 1:1. Interestingly enough. Halo, perhaps finally getting some deserved recognition in the East, is moving up Japan’s most wanted charts. For the week of 3/21 - 3/27, Halo was actually at number 17 on Famitsu’s Top 30 Most Wanted list, higher than Nintendo’s Metroid Prime (21) and Star Fox Adventures (25). Other Xbox games joining Halo in the Top 30 Most Wanted were Atlus’ Shin Megamitensei Nine, Sega/Hitmaker’s Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller, and Capcom’s massive 40+ button need-a-special-forklift-to-get-it-home controller Big Huge Robot Warfest, Tekki. which seems to have the local gaming populace unable to rule out an Xbox purchase sooner or later…just not necessarily right now.

Bach continues, “We’re seeing lot of strong support there. We expect our relationships there to grow. It’s not something you can jump into, and in three weeks you have great relations with everyone. It takes three months, or three years. There is still more work to do in Japan.”

Unfortunately, for some of Xbox’ most willing Japanese partners, the payoff simply hasn’t shown up yet. Smilebit’s Jet Set Radio Future and GunValkyrie have both sold dismally, with Jet Set supposedly still coming in at less than 10,000 units (nearly two months after launch). Srnilebit’s (for-now) Xbox-exclusive Panzer Dragoon Orta (see page 34) will be on show at this year’s E3, leading the second wave of top-tier Japanese games. Xbox Japan needs a major system seller, and it remains to be seen whether or not Microsoft has anything up its sleeve. Some big Japanese guns will undoubtedly be pulled out at E3. where many of the big Japanese companies will reveal their long-range plans for the coming year. Virtua Fighter 4 and Metal Gear Solid X will both certainly help, but Microsoft’s Xbox simply needs big Japanese originals to satisfy Japanese garners. Time will tell if the Xbox can hold its own in the Land of the Rising Sun and 2003 will likely be a make-or-break year for the fledgling console.

It was the evening before Xbox’ March 14 launch date here In the United Kingdom. Virgin’s flagship London Megastore sported a giant green rotating Xbox logo projected onto its facade like a laser targeting mark for some passing Death Star, while lime-green Hare Krishna types conga’d down the world-famous Oxford Street, darting Xbox’ praises and handing out leaflets promising gaming salvation.

◼ “No love, you must look at the screen when fiddling with the bitty knobs and buttons on the controller. Yes. I know it’s heavy. Yes, my name is Jonathan Ross and I’m a B-list TV personality in the UK here and I am wearing a very ugly tie.”

And the queue! It started at the store doors and stretched, thankfully. past several fast-food outlets. Hundreds shuffled excitedly, desperate to get inside. But when the cameras from the national press started flashing, the people on line became agitated. Were they scared that their partners (or parents) would discover they hadn’t really found “this games thing going cheap in a junk shop?”

Were they just camera shy?

No. Rather, just like everyone else in the queue, they weren’t buyers but representatives of the UK gaming industry who had turned up for an Xbox launch party held in the bowels of the giant shop. And they smelled a rat when the photographers came out. When the headline “Buyers go X-static for Xbox” appeared in the multi-million copy selling Sun newspaper the next morning-complete with a picture of yours truly and his cohorts “waiting on line” for a machine we’ve had for months-it transpired that our raucous gesticulation towards the paparazzi was all in vain. Microsoft got its fake launch queue shots.

Exactly why Microsoft’s marketing muppets thought a confidence-building show of strength would be to use the UK’s most influential games people as jobbing extras may never be absolutely clear. The separate line of five or six real punters that had formed by 8 p.m. (for a special midnight selling-session) did give a clue, however. In Microsoft’s world, it seems nothing can be left to chance.

And the shame of it was that the initial UK launch was a genuine success. Some 48,000 Xboxes were sold in the first three days; big numbers for this country, especially given that it’s not Christmas (although It was, Microsoft told us, “X-mas”). What’s more, the software tie ratio (the number of games sold per console) was a whopping 2.5: 1. Many retailers reported Halo was selling to a full 85 percent of new Xbox owners.

Compare that to France and Germany. Depending on who you believe, Microsoft was rumored to have sold no more than 10,000 units to the citizens of each of our continental cousins at launch. No wonder Electronic Arts’ president John Riccitiello quickly surmised “Microsoft has had its teeth kicked in, in both Europe and Japan.”

Microsoft was quick to fight back, with the UK’s head of marketing Richard Teversham stressing, “This is not just a three-week launch, it’s a seven-to-10-year project.” And Xbox is still a great media show here, what with the quirky advertising—the highlight of which features a baby launching out of his mother’s womb and flying across the landscape, progressively aging. before dying as an old man with the tagline “Life’s short. Play More?”—pitched perfectly for us crazy Brits.

The real question, however. is what will happen when Nintendo’s GameCube arrives in May? The consensus is that the two consoles will draw on very different audiences. But at £165, GameCube could still make Xbox’s £299 price tag look like a misprint. [Ed. Just before we went to press, Microsoft announced that it was dropping the price of the Xbox in Europe to £199—a full 100 quid—in order to compensate for less-than-expected sales. See page 14 for more details.]

The lesson for now. however, is that the UK-US “Special Relationship” extends even to consoles. So return the favor, chuck your rugby-with-helmet games in the bin, and buy some British games. Project Gotham’s a good one. and you might start saving for Lionhead’s Project Ego and B.C., too.

You will need us again before this console war is over and done.