Hello all!

In the past week, there has been a lot of speculation as to what will happen between Working Designs and Sega of America. After Sega broke some promises and basically screwed WD over at E3, Vic Ireland has been very vocal about his anger toward SoA. At this time, he has stated that Lunar: SSS will be WD's last game for the Saturn. There are rumors that Sega and WD are trying to make amends, but there has been no official apology from Sega yet. Unless some things happen, Grandia may never come out in the US...I doubt Sega would undertake such a large translation, considering they have not brought over many games from Japan; ones that would be relatively easy to port.

Sega has also (indirectly) indicated that an upgrade for the Saturn has been canceled. They wanted to avoid another '32X.' This is a good move on Sega's part since a new system is projected to be released in '98. As for the next system, the Black Belt has been chosen (not confirmed however) over the Dural spec. The Black Belt was designed in the US while Dural was developed in Japan. Check the site for full details.

I've also added four images from a new shooter that's out in Japan, Shienryu. Its a vertical scrolling shooter with tons of action, its somewhat reminiscent of Raiden. There is little slowdown even when there is a ton of stuff on screen. Other new games out in Japan this week are: Samurai Spirits Bushidohretsuden (RPG), Rabbit (2d fighter), Willy Wombat from Hudson (a platformer), Zero4 Champ DooZy-J Type-R (a racing/RPG game), and lastly Konami's Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus a collection of three classic shooters including: Salamander, Salamander 2, and Life Force. There have been no new releases in the US, but a few more games should be out soon.

See everyone next week...

-Greg