Some people have had some issues with the XBox Live service over the last week, and this has raised a few questions. For those who can't establish a connection to the service, achievements are not in jeopardy. They are still recorded and uploaded for all to see the next time the console goes online - just without a timestamp. On the other hand, single player high scores in Arena's Melee, Meteor Storm or Gauntlet modes do require an active internet connection in order to appear on the scoreboard. The issues are intermittent and symptoms vary by person, but Microsoft is working on it. It seems like the sheer number of people playing new holiday games is likely to be the reason overloading the system, so I would expect the problems to resolve themselves naturally in a couple days.
While we're on the subject of XBox Live, here's some neato Wing Commande Arena advertisements that many people might have missed. They appeared in a variety of places throughout the XBox dashboard over the summer. The campaign highlighted the fact that Arena was Live Arcade's first 16-player game. The art is very similar, though not identical, to some of the renders featured online.
The September 10, 1993 issue of Point of Origin suggests that a lot of energy is being put into selling Privateer... and getting ready for Ultima VIII! Given the newsletter's reaction to slightly negative reviews of Strike Commander, the press response to that game next year should prove fascinating. In other news, Chris Roberts has been promoted to Vice President!
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!
- Road Kills has a nice look at selling Privateer, Academy and other games:
Karl blew out to the West Coast and met with all of the accounts there, showing them Academy, Privateer, the Speech Pack and all the promotional opportunities coming up. 'We've had some good results with those accounts,' Karl said. Snorin' Lee Moore linked up with him so the two of them could blanket the Midwest accounts like Josha, Navarro and American.
They wrapped up the week with an Egghead show in Chicago, where 255 store managers from around the country got a good look at Privateer and Wing Academy. In fact, many of them ran to the phones to find that Academy had already hit the shelves back home and was moving well. Lee reported that most of the managers still regard ORIGIN as the leading edge of the industry, but with reservations. 'There's a little bit of distaste for our hardware requirements,' Lee said, 'Generally, they like the games but they say, 'My God, you guys take up a lot of disk space. My God, you guys are hard to configure for.'
Next on Lee's itinerary is the San Diego Computer Fair. He's taking his own technical support in the form of Ben 'Styg' Potter. More than 50,000 consumers will get a chance to fly Academy, Strike and Privateer.
- Pulse Check ends with an interesting note: "On the horizon: Pacific Strike and SUper Wing/3DO."
- Another Bump in the Org Chart is a short summary of Chris Roberts' career. Naturally, Wing Commander looms large: "But it was his next project that was to be his milestone. Wing Commander skyrocketed to the top of the charts and it's still there today. Chris's game design and advances in PC technology (386/486 processors, VGA graphics and sound cards) combined to make Wing Commander the new standard in PC games. It also created a second flagship product line for ORIGIN to complement the Ultima series. The Wing Commander line--including Wing Commander II, Secret Missions I & II, Special Operations I & II, and the Speech Accessory Pack--has garnered a host of awards and sold more than 800,000 units worldwide. It's been ported to other platforms, including SNES, and now is destined for 3DO as Super Wing Commander. Meanwhile, two Wing Commander spin-offs, Privateer and Wing Commander Academy, are hitting the shelves while work on Wing Commander III is well underway."
- Reviews in Revue pulls a few interesting quotes from magazines: "If your jaw is off the ground, get this--the October issue of COMPUTE also has a glowing review fo Strike... A few pages later, ORIGIN FX (remember that product?) gets a nice write-up, too. 'If you want variety in your screen saver presentation,' Charles Idol writes, 'ORIGIN FX does an excellent job.' Wing Academy gets a full-fledged two-page preview in this month's Strategy Plus. Will Johnson says he'd like to have a little more control over mission design and the ability to fly more Kilrathi ships, but all in all, he really likes it. 'If you want to get your blood pumping, this'll do it,' he writes. 'Drag out the good joystick because the cheap one won't last very long with this game.'"
Point of Origin
Vol. III, No. 46 - September 10, 1993
Contents
Pulse Check
From the HR Files
Organizational Chart
Bumped Up
Reviews in Revue
Ticker
Former ORIGIN General Manager Possibly Spotted in Bedrock
Dear Point Man
Follow or Contact Us