Newsletter: Sega World Weekly issue 101 (then Dreamcast Weekly)
From Video Game Morgue File
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/______________> > > DREAMCAST WEEKLY MAGAZINE < < <_______________\
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//// ~ Issue #101 - Oct 1st 2000 ~ \\\\
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\\\\ Sponsored by http://www.PrimaGames.com ////
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\\\\ Best read with the Courier New font. ////
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\\\\ Past issues at www.DreamcastWeekly.com ////
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((( DREAMCAST WEEKLY INFO ))) | Page 1 |
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> For daily game news, over 200 Prima Fast Track Guides(tm) online,
codes, downloads, and contests every day, be sure to visit Primagames.
Prima is the number one source for video and computer game strategy in
the world!
---------------------- http://www.PrimaGames.com -----------------------
---------------------- http://www.PrimaGames.com -----------------------
> For the latest game news, reviews and previews visit the premier video
games site TotalVideoGames.com With over 300 archived news articles &
the greatest game reviews. Updated throughout the day with everything!
------------------- http://www.totalvideogames.com ---------------------
> You can unsubscribe from http://www.dreamcastweekly.com but you must
use the address you signed up with (a common mistake!).
> Our domain name is provided thanks to Total Video Games, the UK's
premier video games magazine updated daily, and The Junction, the
best place for Teens to chat.
-------------------- http://www.the-junction.com -----------------------
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((( EDITORS COMMENTS ))) | Page 1 |
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Here it is, part two of our Peter Moore interview. Find out how Sega
keeps up with what us, the gamers, are talking about online. Plus we
talk again on the Senate hearings, hear his his Christmas predictions,
and much more.
Plus on Page 4 (Sega On The Web) we tell you how to download, or create
your own icons for your VMU, then where to find the Space Invanders mini
game! In fact this game you can download using the Nexus 4X Card, or
using the PC emulator.
But before you scroll away to Page 2, we also have five NFL 2K1 Strategy
Guides to give away! Thanks goes to Prima Games for these, and all you
have to do to enter is e-mail me the name of the game Peter Moore can
beat his 14 year old son at (hint: it was in part 1 of our interview,
there's a link to the archives on Page 2). The draw will be made on
Friday, October the 6th, and five winners will be contacted via e-mail.
Good luck!
Until next time remember, The Game Is Never Over!
- Graham "Tails" Parker (Editor)
.oO Page 2 - Cover Story Oo.
.oO Page 3 - Prima Games Corner Oo.
.oO Page 4 - Sega On The Web Oo.
.oO Page 5 - Our Support Sites Oo.
.oO Page 6 - Credits Oo.
HOT QUOTE this issue: ""
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((( COVER STORY ))) | Page 2 |
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>>>> Peter Moore Interview PART 2 - President At Sega Of America
- By Dan Kassis and Graham Parker
Here we continue our exclusive interview with Peter Moore, the President
and COO at Sega Of America. For the first part, please see our archives
at http://www.DreamcastWeekly.com/
DW: How did you find out about our magazine, and are you an avid reader
of any other fan sites or fan-based publications?
PM: We have within Sega and with Access (their PR department), a very
comprehensive list of sites and we are constantly, through e-mail, being
brought to our attention almost on a minute-by-minute basis of any
information pertaining to the Sega brand or to our competition on what
we call Sega flashes. I could get as many as ten or fifteen or twenty of
those a day. But what typically happens is the on-line department at
Access will pull out things from Graham's newsletter (Dreamcast Weekly)
that catch my attention. And so as a result, I simply subscribed to it
and it's great to take on the road and read as I'm traveling. I admire
him for his commitment to following Dreamcast in particular, and Sega
specifically.
It's interesting to see the perspective on the games as they come out
and the anticipation, the excitement as they come through. Because we're
so involved in it, and we see the game from its first concept, that by
the time the game comes out you're over it. You know, you've been living
it for the year, fifteen months, but I enjoy watching the anticipation
level grow in the chat rooms, on the message boards, and particularly
somebody as dedicated as Graham and I think he has forty thousand
readers. So I started to just simply subscribe to it through my AOL so
it wasn't evident who I was.
DW: Right!
PM: And, but then I, about three issues ago was somewhere in the middle
of nowhere, I can't remember where I was, and was reading it on-line and
simply dropped Graham an e-mail saying, "I want to thank you for your
dedication to the cause here," and you know, "We at Sega all appreciate
people like yourself who have kept the brand alive through some rocky
times and despite the fact that we've been sometimes very cruel to you,
you've maintained the love affair with the brand that all of now have
again." So I think he was a little surprised that firstly I read it, and
secondly I would take the time to send him an e-mail. In fact I think I
was in Japan at the time. We bounced a few e-mails back and to, and
that's how all this came about. But I do watch the websites. I will go
into a number of sites anonamously, to not necessarily get engaged in
the conversation because that's not fair, but to watch what people are
saying. I certainly in the evenings, if nothing's going on in my house,
which is very unusual, will cruise things like IGN DC. I think (that
site) has got some excellent both real-time chat and bulletin boards,
and you talked about the Senate hearings, there were some very
intelligent postings there.
What was missing for me during the Senate hearings was the voice of the
gamer. They weren't represented there, as we all were piously talking
about somebody, and what they should do without actually asking them. I
went on the boards afterwards to see what the reaction of the gaming
community was, and there were some very, very intelligent postings and
some very in-depth musings about the situation cause it is a very complex
situation. But that (Ign dc) and gaming radar, all of the eight to ten
top-quality Sega fan sites. If I only name two or three then the rest of
them will get annoyed, but Sega Dojo, I think I go into a lot and some
of the U.K. sites are excellent as well. When I get time I'll cruise the
web and see what people are up to, and what they're saying.
DW: That's great. Speaking of the Senate hearings, do you think this is
just an election year ploy going on or do you believe that there are
other factors at work that are causing the government to point their
finger at entertainment right now?
PM: I think there's a little bit of both. I think as entertainment,
(it's) a little bit linked to what we were saying earlier on about this
being more than video games, now as entertainment really becomes a major
part of our lives. And where ever that delivery of entertainment is
going to be in the future, whether it's going to be through sunlight
download or streaming media through your set-top box or whatever,
ultimately it's starts to touch everybody hundreds of times a day. And
this was the thrust of what we were saying in D.C. last week, that it's
almost impossible to segment and silo a marketing message now. There's
so much of it flying around and we all have the perfect right to market
our products to the appropriate demographic, but it's very difficult to
do that and not have what I term "spillage", and we do worry about that,
and we're very sensitive to that. I think a number of things happened
there.
Yes, of course, it's election year. As you look back this thing did crop
up and because it's very sexy and it gets the headlines, and it's better
than a pork barrel commodity pricing (because) you can roll out people
like myself and the theory was that the movie heads would come, but of
course that didn't happen. I think the general populace can relate to it
better than run of the mill politics. So as a result, there were a
number of factors going on there. McCain obviously wanted to give the
FTC a forum to announce their findings. He wanted to embarrass Lieberman
into coming, which he did because Lieberman of course has been the
harshest critic of the entertainment media for years, and yet now as many
would say, the Vice-President-elect, is now involved in fundraising to
the highest level of which Hollywood in particular has been one of the
major benefactors of the Gore campaign. So I think there was a little bit
of political grandstanding there to put Lieberman in a difficult
situation. And the fact that the movie studios didn't show up was even
more damaging, because it really seemed like they had something to hide.
So I think in our industry we had to maintain our vigilance but I think
also, when we look at our rating system and our efforts to work with
retailers, that we've done a phenomenal job in building informational
programs for parents in particular. That will allow them to make the
best choices when it comes to allowing their "entertainment diets" as I
call it, to be monitored. You know it was real uncomfortable to have
Eminem's lyrics dotted around the Senate chamber by Sam Brownback. But
that was... And if you do see the testimony, Brownback and I kind of got
into it towards the end and as it became more open-flowing, he wanted to
take it down a content path rather than a marketing of content path and
you know, it started treading on the First Amendment so... very surreal
for a Brit like myself to be protecting the First Amendment in the
Senate chamber!
DW: That did occur to me, yeah! Speaking of Hollywood, I saw something
that surprised me in our local paper where there was a reprint of an
interview with actress Jamie Lee Curtis. She's now a very successful
author of children's books. She said that she actually took video games
out of her home to protect her children from violent content. Because
she mentioned that it was her and her husband's responsibility and not
the government's to monitor what their kids saw and heard so, as a
parent, what would you say to her if you had the chance?
PM: Well, she had the perfect right to determine, as I do in my home,
what's appropriate and what isn't. I have a very young taste in music
for a man of my age. And in my car, I quite frankly enjoy... If I had a
look at my CDs in my car right now, it's probably Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock,
I do have Eminem. I have a seventeen year old daughter, a fourteen year
old son and an eight year old daughter. Would I let them own those
albums and listen to them in the house? No. That's my perrogative as a
parent, and my choice as an adult. And what goes on in my home, whether
it's "Sex in the City" on HBO, or Eminem eminating through my house,
it's simply not appropriate.
The challenge that any parent will tell you is that if you're an only
child at seventeen or eighteen, it's a different story. But when you've
got an eight year-old in the next bedroom, whatever - through osmosis if
nothing else - whatever the seventeen year-old or the eighteen year-old
is experiencing permeates through. That, in my choice as a parent, is
inappropriate. Jamie Lee should have probably took a closer look at what
she was buying in the first place. Determining whether it was right. Now
what she also should look at is, as we all know, is that very few of
these games are rated "M." It's less than 7 percent. And there are some
fabulous games that are rated "T" for "teen" and, of course, the great
majority are "E" for "everybody." But that's her perrogative. She did the
right thing, and that's the point we were trying to make, is that it's
not government's job to determine that. It's the individual's. It's why
we live in America.
DW: Thanks for your candidness, and I have one question to close with.
If we can take it back to the Dreamcast and SegaNet. I'd like you to
picture yourself on Christmas Day. You're there in your home with your
family. The presents have been unwrapped. Things are settling down.
Playstation 2 has been out for two months. SegaNet will have been live
for over three months. How do you see things shaking out over the
holiday season into the end of the year? How many more Dreamcasts do
you expect to be in US homes? How many software units? How many SegaNet
subscribers?
PM: We're tracking right now to our stated install base, which is 5
million users in the North American market by March 31st (2001), which
is our fiscal year. If I look now at the indications for the Christmas
period - What we do is volumetric studies, and I look at the
seasonality. And it's amazingly consistent. I look at what we've sold in
the month of August in hardware, where we're tracking to in the month of
September, and then I extrapolate those numbers out to seasonality. And
as much as 70 percent of the business is still ahead of us in the next
ninety days or so. We may have an install base of somewhere in the
region of 3.75 to 4 million by January 1st. It's very difficult to put
an exact number on it, because so many things come into play.
SegaNet, I couldn't really tell you numbers. That would really be the
domain of Sega.com to plug in specific numbers, and I don't know whether
they've made an announcement. I've been away all week, and certainly
haven't seen one. (They hadn't) All I can tell you is that the fifty
free hours - I don't know if you know what we've done with NFL 2K1 -
that allows you to link to the Dreamcast ID chip to have fifty free
hours of SegaNet. That has been phenomenal, and has exceeded all of our
expectations, which were pretty agressive. So I don't know what the
numbers are, but I do know that it's a very, very simple thing to do, to
get online through your Dreamcast. And I think it is the wave of the
future.
I can tell you that we've geared up customer service to help people
through the huge numbers, what I would call Boxing Day, December 26th.
We're very, very optimistic that the experience by then - because we'll
have three key games, other games around the periphery, but three key
games up an running. And eagerly awaiting Phantasy Star Online, which I
saw last night in some detail. And every time I see it, it blows me
away. So, you'll have the sports games - both football and basketball
(NFL and NBA 2K1) - Quake III Arena, and a number of other games. But
those will be our primary, first-party focus. The future looks rosy,
we're really optimistic and are gearing up our inventory to meet demand.
Unlike last year, when we couldn't keep up with demand, we feel that
we've been able to build our inventory levels over the last few months
so that we can hit our stated objectives.
DW: Is there anything else you'd like to say to the readers?
PM: We are so excited about the future, and we're not the least
concerned of the threat from pretenders to the throne, coming out with a
new console. Sega is the only true gaming company, and let me tell you,
with the stuff I've seen for 2001 in the last 48 hours, our success is
pretty much guarranteed.
A huge thanks goes to Peter Moore, Dan Kassis, Jenny Majalca, and
Charles Bellfield for making this interview possible.
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((( PRIMA GAMES CORNER ))) | Page 3 |
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Stuck on 4 Wheel Thunder? Wondering what codes there are for Virtua
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>>>> 250 Fast Track Guides - http://www.primagames.com/guides/pftg.php
Remember, Primagames.com has more than 250 Prima Fast Track Guides
online for you to check out right now. For the best, fastest, and most
up-to-date game strategy you'll find, Prima's the ticket. Click the
link above for the Fast Track Guide index.
>>>> 20,000 Cheats - http://www.primagames.com/strategy/codes/
Prima Games, the company responsible for those brilliant strategy guides
launch their cheats database... and they feature more games than you can
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>>>> Check out their site yourself at http://www.PrimaGames.com/
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((( SEGA ON THE WEB ))) | Page 7 |
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Each week we print the best of Sega around the web. From videogame
movies, to import stores, VMU developments, to collectibles on Ebay!
If your starting to sell any interesting Sega related on Ebay, give us
an e-mail on Madcow@ihug.co.nz and we'll list it here.
>>>> VMU Mini Game & Icons!
Ok lets bring out some new batteries and power up that long forgotten
VMU. We've got a site hosting hundreds of icons from almost every
Dreamcast game out there, and they will even make your own by request!
Each icon takes just 2 blocks of space, so you can certainly spare it.
Check out the website here:
http://0z.net/dcvmuicons/
Or if your looking for a new mini game, and have clocked VMU Pac-Man,
then how does Space Invaders sounds? Full details, several different
downloads (you can even download it using the Nexus 4X Memory Card),
and most importantly, screen shots, can all be found on the site below.
http://www.jumpstation.co.uk/si/si.html
If your really interested in the game, you can read the full history of
how it came from the arcades into your hands.
>>>> Submit A Site!
If you've programmed a cool mini-game for the VMU, let us know, so we
can let the 40,000 readers of Dreamcast Weekly know. Thanks!
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((( OUR SUPPORT SITES ))) | Page 8 |
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Dreamcast Weekly goes out to around 40,000 gamers every week. How did we
get so many people signed up? With the help of these websites, that's
how. Thanks to them Dreamcast Weekly has become the huge e-magazine it
is today.
>>>> Sega X - http://www.segadreamcast.net
A website with plenty of news, and always the latest game reviews, but
also a IRC Java chat room where you can chat about all the latest Sega
topics. THE must see Sega site each and every day.
>>>> Sega 2000 - http://www.sega2000.net
Sega 2000 is one of the few Sega sites that packs all the important
information about Sega's 128-bit console in both America, Europe and
Japan. With top news, reviews, previews, features,cool forums and more,
Sega 2000 has enough features to keep Dreamcast fans entertained for
hours and hours.
>>>> Game Ireland - http://www.game-ireland.com
Begorrah! Are you Irish? Half Irish? Enjoy a pint of Guinness from time
to time? Whatever your connections, visit Game-Ireland, the premier
source of Irish gaming on the Net. We cover everything from Dreamcast to
the Game Boy with the best Irish writers in the business.
>>>> The Next Level - http://www.the-nextlevel.com
The Next Level is a multi-platform gaming magazine focused on current
and upcoming next-generation systems. We provide up-to-date news,
in-depth reviews, reader reviews, intriguing editorials, and more.
>>>> Perfect Zero - http://204.30.23.21/
The Perfect Zero server is in trouble! Because their host server has
died, the staff have put an emergency version online at the above
address. Help support their comeback by visiting Perfect Zero today.
>>>> Future Gamez - http://www.futuregamez.net
What ever console your looking for, Future Gamez have them all. From
Dreamcast to GameCube, and X-Box to Playstation 2. So get your news,
reviews, previews, and more at Future Gamez, and stay on top of all
systems.
>>>> The Sonic Zone - http://www.suneet.com/soniczone/
Updated daily with a HUGE amount of Sonic content that is sure to blow
you away! From Fan Fiction to Chatting, and even Fan Created Games, this
is your one stop Sonic site.
>>>> Gaming Central Starpath - http://www.startpath.com/gamingcentral
This site contains hundreds of links for anything a gamer might be
interested in, no matter what format, including some game specific
links.
>>>> Dreamcast Weekly - http://www.DreamcastWeekly.com
The official website for the Dreamcast Weekly is right here. It
includes our history, back issues, and more. Then in the future... who
knows, we might start up an HTML version, and hopefully be a print
magazine one day (Hint to any publisher that may be reading this :) )
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((( CREDITS ))) | Page 9 |
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O Editor: Graham Parker "Tails" - Madcow@ihug.co.nz
O Red Hot Rumors: Michael Monahan - Mikelad1@aol.com
Thanks goes out to all our support sites above, along with our sponsor,
PrimaGames.com, all for helping make Dreamcast Weekly as big as we are
today!
>>>> http://www.DreamcastWeekly.com - Our Official Website!
>>>> http://www.PrimaGames.com - Our Sponsor
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Copyright 1998-2000 Graham Parker - Madcow@ihug.co.nz
Written and edited by Graham Parker. No parts may be copied without
prior permission or correct credit where due. There should probably be
a pile of other legal lines here, but please just play nice and don't
steal. Thanks for reading DC Weekly!
