Wednesday, August 30, 2000

Jason Hall Chat Transcript -- 10:54 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Voodoo Extreme posted an edited transcript of their chat with Monolith CEO Jason Hall. I decided to yank out a few choice Shogo-related comments.

Q: Shogo had been looked upon as a mediocre FPS RPG, but in my eyes I found the game to focus on a great story which made it enjoyable for me. Is there any talk of Shogo 2 on the horizon? If not will you be looking at any outside sources for a possible Shogo 2?

A: The only possibility of a Shogo 2 exists on a console. Right now though we are not thinking about making a Shogo 2 in any way. I suppose that someone could license the property from us and make Shogo 2 if they wanted it sooner...

Big surprise there. It seems to me that everytime someone asks him about Shogo he responds as if they were asking him to eat a cockroach.

Q: When you decided to make another mech game, why did you decide against making it a sequel to Shogo?

A: The mech game we are currently making is decidedly different from Shogo. That is why. It has a somewhat different target audience.

Well, that answers his question. It isn't Shogo 2 because it's a different game! Well, jeepers, thanks.

Q: Do you think SHOGO was an underapreciatted game and if so why do u think the gaming comunnity has not considered this game like one of the better of his time?

A: I think that the market told me everything I needed to know. Shogo was very fun, but the sales said it all with regard to the level of econmonic success that title had. There are no excuses. We just need to keep trying to make fun games that people like!

I think that the AI and multiplayer bugs that haunted Shogo upon its release killed its sales potential more than anything else. But that's just me.

Return to Wolfenstein Interview, Pt. II -- 10:28 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Gamespot UK posted the second half of their interview with Jonathan Knight, producer for Gray Matter's Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Just a warning, this part of the interview contains details on the game that some may consider to be "spoilers". Thanks Blue.

BitBoys Sue Themselves -- 10:20 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Amid the lawsuit frenzy, BitBoys were feeling a bit out of the loop. Sadly, they could not sue anyone for stealing their technology due to the fact that, at present, it does not exist. So they decided to make a bold move and sue themselves. Industry analysts indicate that this will not affect BitBoys' shipping schedule in the least inasmuch as it, like their technology, does not exist.

Hyundai Sues RAMBUS -- 9:32 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Following on the heels of Micron's suit yesterday (story), Hyundai has filed suit against RAMBUS, claiming that their patents are "invalid and unenforceable". While I'm not a big fan of sending in the lawyers, I am happy to see that memory companies are not going to let RAMBUS dictate everything. Thanks Evil Avatar.

Tuesday, August 29, 2000

3dfx: Hurtin' for Certain -- 8:14 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

3dfx issued a press release detailing their financial results for the second quarter. Revenues were down a tidy $40 million compared the first quarter this year and the second quarter last year. Combine that with the hit they took acquiring Gigapixel and they lost $100 million last quarter. Ouch. The Shugashack, the source of this information, also reported that 3dfx is considering selling their board manufacturing business. Good thing I don't have any of their stock (although I probably could buy a share or two with the lint from my pocket).

PHP 4.0.2 released -- 6:59 pm CST, Update by The Master

Zeev of Zend has announced the release of PHP 4.0.2. You can get it on the PHP website. Good stuff, highly recommended.

PHP 4.0.2 has been released. This is a maintenance version, with no big revolutions. It mostly features many bug fixes, some new functionality, and increased performance under certain circumstances. Users that are happy with PHP 4.0.1pl2 that aren't experiencing any of the problems that were fixed, and don't need the new functionality, don't necessarily have to upgrade - even though 4.0.2 is a recommended upgrade.

As for PHP 3.0 users, well, time to sync in :) I'd like to take this opportunity to strongly urge people to upgrade to PHP 4.0. The number of reasons to do this is too long to be listed here, so I'll only say that PHP 4.0 is superior to PHP 3.0 in *every* aspect, be it performance, stability or features. The only reasonable reason to stay with PHP 3.0, temporarily, is if your applications require porting to PHP 4.0 (and then too, my suggestion is to try and make the necessary fixes when you get the time). Otherwise, staying with PHP 3.0 makes no sense

Bleh -- 4:07 pm CST, Update by The Master

Been reading Tom Clancy's newest Jack Ryan novel, The Bear and The Dragon. Excellent book, easily one of his best ever. My only complaint is his editor and reviewer over at Putnam need to be shot for their obviously awful editing of the book. I've not seen this many gramatical errors in a novel since the Wingman series I used to read in High School. I'd recommend using more than a spell check to catch errors guys.

Also been this close to finishing Deus Ex the past week or so. Unfortunately there seems to be a gigantic bug in the save/load game functions in the final game level. You can't save games there. If you do they get corrupted and you have to start over. My fair warning to those who need to save/load a lot in games.

3dfx fires shot of their own -- 4:03 pm CST, Update by The Master

According to this press release, 3dfx has fired a salvo at NVIDIA in retaliation for their recently announced patent infringment lawsuit (story). You go kids, mudslinging on the PC hardware front is so much more fun to watch than the political kind we're getting to suffer with the US Presidential race going right now.

Ubi Soft aquires Red Storm Entertainment -- 4:01 pm CST, Update by The Master

Blue has gotten a press release indicating that Ubi Soft has aquired Red Storm Entertainment, Tom Clancy's computer game company. In addition, Tom Clancy has entered into a licensing agreement with Ubi to continue development on games based on his properties. Guess RSE wasn't turning enough profit.

Return to Wolfenstein Interview -- 12:07 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Gamespot UK has posted part one of their interview with Gray Matter's Jonathan Knight, the producer behind the upcoming 3D shooter, Return to Castle Wolfenstein. This is the first interview I've seen that goes into detail on the plot behind the new Wolfie. Thanks Blue.

M$ Loves Alternate OSs? -- 9:49 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

An Infoworld rumor column is reporting that many networks run or owned by Microsoft use operating systems other than WinNT or Win2K.

For the most part, according to our ex-Microsoftie, the company's money-making Web properties are all based around Unix, with Hotmail 99 being 99 percent FreeBSD, MSN using some Apache on Solaris, bCentral ad servers on 100 percent FreeBSD, and WebTV pretty much entirely Solaris.

"Internally when Windows 2000 was announced, people were told not to even think about using it for production because it was too unstable," says this ex-Microsoftie.

It's enough to make an AltOS fan smile quietly to himself. Thanks Slashdot.

Micron Sues RAMBUS -- 9:36 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

In the "what's good for the goose, is good for the gander" department, Micron is suing RAMBUS, claiming that:

Rambus violated antitrust laws and is seeking to invalidate some Rambus patents.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware, Micron said in a statement. Further details were undisclosed, and a spokesman was not available to comment.

It'd be nice if this suit would be successful or at least give RAMBUS a scare. If they get away with forcing all the DRAM manufacturers to kowtow to their wishes, memory will get mighty expensive. Thanks Shugashack.

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