Point of Origin: Vol. II, No. 9

Happy New Year! Welcome to 1992. When last we checked Origin had missed the important Christmas deadline for Ultima VII, Ultima Underworld and Strike Commander... and those familiar with their history know that final product won't ship for another year. As this year of Point of Origin newsletters opens, we'll be seeing how the company deals with missed sales expectations... and how important Wing Commander was to their success. It's January 17th, 1992 and this is Vol. II, No. 9 (it will take several years for Origin to figure out the 'Vol, No' thing - look at Claw Marks!).

A very special thanks to Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum for making this resource available and to Electronic Arts for sending them to him in the first place!

Here's the breakdown for Wing Commander:

• Origin Blitzes Winter CES describes the CES trade show. The focus was on the upcoming titles (mentioned above), but Wing Commander II was still on display (and was the talk of the press);

Wing Commander II enjoys its own cult following. Just about everyone who picked up the joystick at that machine already had an intimate knowledge of the spacecraft, their weapon systems a nd the wingmen's personalities. Over on the Software Toolworks booth, Wing Commander playing off a surprisingly fast MPC-standard CD-Rom drive kept Wing fans equally enthralled.

On the first day of the show, Video Games and Computer Entertainment Magazine helped decorate the Origin exhibit area by dropping off a foot-tall glass trophy for Wing 2 as 'Game of the Year.' Wing 2 also received a large plaque from Computer Game Review for 'Best Computer Game of the Year.'

Just before the show, we leaned that Wing 2 picked up 'Game of the Year' a nd 'Technical Brilliance' awards from Australia's PC Games Plus Magazine. Congrats to both teams.

Back at the show, Marten, Karl, Anita and Jennie handed out a few awards of their own. They honored the distributors and retailers for helping Wing 2 achieve 500,000 units sold worldwide.

• Customer Service After Hours talks about the success of a 'second shift' Customer Service phone program. The instigator? WC2: "Last week alone, rep's took 200 calls between 5:00 and 7:00 pm (the extended hours stated with the release of Wing 2)."
• And The Winner Is... announces that Wing Commander II and its related games have been nominated for a number of prestigious SPA awards: "We put WCI into 'Simulations' last year and got blown away by a crowded field of heavy-hitting competitors. It looks like the same might have happened this year with 12 titles duking it out, among them 5 flight sims. This year we went for tthe other possible Wing classification--Action/Arcade--and might actually take top honors if we can just blast away some Lemmings and Hedgehogs once we're through with those darned cats!)" WC2 was also nominated for 'Best Entertainment Program', and the speech accessory pack was nominated for 'Best New Use of a Computer'.
• In Other News finds another Wing Commander mention in a new magazine: "MPC World rolled out its premiere issue and included Wing 1 and Secret Missions in its Buyer's Guide. MPC World bill itself as the magazine for learning, working and playing with multimedia PCs. It says Wing 'is in a category all of its own. It's a gritty, real-feeling simulation of the future. The Secret Missions is an impressive multimedia title.'"

Point of Origin
Vol. II, No. 9 - January 17, 1992 Contents Origin Blitzes Winter CES
In Other News...
Customer Service After Hours
Fun, Funner, Funnest
And The Winner Is...
More Pages & Praises
Random Access