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Look down for more good squire. And if you want to write for me, email me.15/5/98 ---- Bordum strikes the dust...
I've reached my point now. It's the summer, people go outside. I can no longer spend as much time as I do on page170, though I wouldn't like to close it down. I have a social life, you know.....
E-zines like page170 don't update as often, or carry as many features. I feel that I'm about to reach boiling point. There's only so much you can pardoise from Digi. Page170 really has lost the plot...
So now I have to consider the choices. I either get some more writers, drop the bi-weekly update to just a weekly one (probabaly dropping WR to a monthly thing) or bin the web site all together. Which I wouldn't like to do, but may be forced into. It would be a shame, but could be inveitible.
Back when this started, I had the time to write 4 features a week. Now I don't, and I'm also running out of ideas. I asked for help before but no one has really came out with any proper articles. Now if page170 had support, I could keep it going at least weekly. If you fancy writing for page170, gimme an email and we'll go from there. I know most of you would not like to see this go. I wouldn't, either, but it may have to, after summer gets closer and closer....
Talking about summer, surprisingly this month ain't been too bad for the Playstation. The release of Gran Tourismo and Resident Evil 2 has definitly perked up sales, though we've been told of no records broken as of yet. The N64 is slowly turning into a PlayStation with knobs on, it appears that most of the good - "quality controlled" - games from Nintendo were released last year. Apart from 1080 Snowbording, nowt is materialising. Are we looking at a Saturn V2? No, more likly a machine that will be more third-party based in years to come to compete with the monster that is Sony. Sega will sit in the corner and sulk. And no one will care. Ahhhhhh.........
But amoungst all this spitting at Sega, no one has given a thought for the Blue Hedgehog that so many (once) loved. There is to be no funeral, no final game, no Sonic Toosday, nothin'. That's just, like, evil man. Spare a thought for my brother.
Sonic brought many people to the 16-bit world, but almost no-one to the 32-bit. That was Lara's job, who wooed most idiots to the PS with impressive looking pre-renderd images and shite looking PS grahics. She's as a about as attractive as a lamp post, but most would unbeliably, disagree. Sad Sods.
What will attract the idioids to the next generation then? It could be Lara again, or Sonic (if hell freezes), but more likly something else that we havn't imagined yet. If you think about it, you would of laughed off any suggestion of a successful female character to rival a Hedgehog, back in 1992. But the gamesplaying public changed, they got older. And more stupid, as it seems.
The PS has obviously had some other "kiddy" mascots too, but none had the carisma of Sonic, simply because they were cheap rip-off's. That said, Sega could never get anywhere near a decent - proper 3D - Sonic outing for the Saturn. They killed off their own animal, and therefore, must be punished by the RSPCA. Bastards.
I'm going now to write a crappy plea for help. Goodbye.
7/5/98 ---- Screaming across the obvious
We are getting closer, closer, and closer still to the end of all hope. We're nearly there. It's going to happen. We know it. And it may end up ugly, or not. (And no, it's not the damn Millennium Bug....)
Yes, Your Panel 4 should be on digi in but a few weeks time, everyone who sent in their best efforts at journalism is hopeing that it's them that will have their hopeless-peice-of-crap/holy-grail published on the teletext tomb. Many of those will be reading this very WeekRamp. Preview P4's that have been published in alt.digitiser or to me via various friends of mine have been very promising, and I've also tried my hand at one too. Although it's crap.
YP4 (as it's not-so-stylish anagram) could be the best thing since sliced bread. If Biffo chooses correctly. The one person that does get published first will probably become a messiah, and also an entry in the WTF. Maybe. Small bit of history....
Anyway, something a bit more gamery now. This week a "report" by a statistics company trying to get a for itself said that Sony's PS explosion will slow down, although the company will still make tonnes of cash via Minidisc and various other White Trash. Excuse me for being pedantic or some other long word, but isn't this pointing out the obvious a bit?
The PS'es Reich has grown so much now that anyone who wanted one, has probably got one. The N64 cleaned up after it. How can Sony sell the console now? N64 owners tend to be hard nuts to crack, fitting under the category "rebel". Sony could try to lower the price of the console by dumping some of the extras in the Value Pack, to try to sell it to Poor-ish households, but they probably already own one too. Console prices don't matter when your games are too damn cheap. And Nintendo won't be launching a proper Platinum label for a long time....
And anyway's, would Sony care? They will still make money from games sales anyhow, and eventually the MiniDisc will take off in a bigger way than it did last Xmas. Then there's DVD, WebTV, and all manner of other gubbins. Sony still will be king of consumer goods, whatever happens.
Console sales could go into stagnation for several years in fact, as they did back in the crash of 1994-95. The one that encouraged TV bosses to axe certain TV shows, and certain shops to lower their games stock. As there would be no longer an excitement, 99-2000 could be the end of the 32/64-bit age, and once again fool idiots into thinking it was all over. Until DejaVu strikes back, of course...
Stopping contemplating the death of the games market, alt.digitiser has, as usual, been under some critism. As always. It's irrelevancy to digitiser is hated by some, and loved by others. In a way, it is relevant to digi, by being twisted, strange, vader ridden and full of digi like ish gags. It's reasonable, anyone who visits #digi-98 on a weekly basis would recognised the mentality.....
That's it. Go hope for your P4's...
More WR by looking down, or going to the archive
1/5/98 ---- Death of the Unofficial Console Mag[lie]
Future Publishing once was an amazing publisher. Home of YS, AP and Amiga Format, anything they touched usually turned to gold. It surprised some (especially me) though, when they took on the licence for the Official Playstation Mag.
Other attempts to run an Official mag had already been carried out by Futures arch menace EMAP. EMAP owned the licences to Nintendo Magazine (the first ever Official hack, in fact, remember Nintendo Magazine System?) and Sega Saturn Magazine (Possibly the worst ever, a grudge towards Digi always). EMAP have failed to make a good mag out of either of them, they are both complete shat. Why a quality magazine publisher would want to follow there example was beyond me, but then they do have to make there money. And oh yes, they definitely have.
Official PSM sells over 200,000 copies each month, which both shows the strength of the format, and the gullibility of the punters. Thanks to it's monthly demo disk (lovingly created by Sony for Future), most PS owners pick up the mag and never read the magazine. Not much of a shock there, but the problem is A LOT of people do this. The Magazine itself ain't too bad, it's better than the other two officialdom efforts, but still sometimes over marks (10/10 for FFVII was maybe a little over the top...) though isn't scared to mark a hyped game badly if it is absolute shite. Though if you compare it's game marks to say, Playstation Power's, then a large gap shows between their marks and PSM's.
Official is well written, which is good, but it's reviews are all vetted by Sony, which is cow pat. It's also killing the other publishers magazines, including Future's own Playstation Power, and as Fat Sow said, resorting them to pictures of nude or semi-nude women with games along side (that said PP's seem to have got the mix right... Ahem...)
The other Official Magazines are too hopeless to kill off there end of the market though, well sort of, Sega Magazine, which even though absolutly crap, in a "we hate you"-style campaign together with Sega, forced Saturn Power to close it's doors. Nintendo Magazine has a weak readership anyway, and no gimmicks to convince more to part with their cash. Magazines like N64 therefore thrive without resorting to puerile crap.
What's the moral of the story? Average Official magazines can be dangerous to the rest of them, especially when they have cover mounted cd's begging with the kids to part with a fiver. (and before I forget, Official PSM is amazingly over priced for it's wide audience.....)
Before I go, there might be some changes. I'm going to beg games co's to send review copies to me. Wish me luck.....
By PAndroid