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Damnation! It took me the whole show, but I finally got to sit down with someone from NEC Interchannel. By and large the doors were closed. The booth was nothing more than a meeting room, and NEC IC was basically here at E3 to meet with investors and the like, being a brand new company and all. Of course, they're not really 'new' in the classic sense of the word. NEC Interchannel has been around in japan since the dawn of time (the dawn of time happened to coincide with the launch of the PC Engine, interestingly). The US branch shut down some time ago, at the height of the dreamcast's decline.
So as they were closing down the booth today, I cornered Norman Evangelista, VP of NEC Interchannel Ltd. in the US. He turned out to be quite a pleasant and knowledgable fellow. A more detailed interview will come soon - my questions were limited in scope due to the fact that we were really close to last call on the show floor.
NEC Interchannel is back in the US, this we knew. We further know that their first title was TUbe Slider for the GC. Actually there's some interesting stuff to this game. It's developed by NDCube, which features many team members from the original F-Zero group. In fact, Tube Slider was originally slated to be the Gamecube installment of F-zero, but the game was brought in-house at Nintento instead. Since NEC is making the chipsets for the next Nintendo home console, the relationship between NEC and Nintendo is very good. Thus the title was bequeathed to NEC Interchannel, and became Tube Slider as we know it today.
The next title on their release list is Culdcept for PS2. This is a translation of the Japanese version of the Monopoly-meets-Magic the Gathering multiplayer game. Pretty cool to see this game coming to the US. We'll get more info on the conversion shortly. The plan is to have the game ship in November.
Something odd that I neglected to ask, but was weighing on my mind earlier: why were these games being shown at the capcom booth? This is something to investigate further.
They're also publishing a new title based on characters from the Owl and the pussycat. This will be developed by Pirate Games. More on this in the coming days.
Now we get to the (even) juicier bits. The basic story behind the NEC US resurrection is this. NEC restructured after dumping the pce and pc-fx a few years back. They bought Packard Bell, began releasing computer hardware and became an ISP (they own Big Globe). They sell the modem kit for PS2, and NEC's ISP is the near-exclusive choice for Final Fantasy XI, in fact.
But now they're back in the US, since funding is up, and some interesting opportunities came up. Were I to speculate, I'd say that this is because by and large their old licensed intellectual properties have been devalued. This is because the main holders of many of said IPs - namely Hudson and Red - are now by and large incorporated parts of other companies, and deadlocked in their use of said properties.
So NEC is trying to recapture these titles in order to resurrect them in the US and Japan. Bonk came up of course, and when I prompted the idea of Gate of Thunder, he said 'sure!'. And here's something ic readers will appreciate. He said that they have a whole list of NEC IPs that they are investigating and trying to reclaim. Then he said that if I thought I had a better list, to send it along. Oh. You know I will.
Here's something nice and depressing for you. I mentioned Ys Perfect Edition, since it's coming to PS2 in Japan. Any chance of a US release? Quite an exhasterbated look came across Evangelista's face. "No" he said. And not by his own design. The game was denied by SCEA. We were so close to having a good translation of Ys for PS2. He says they'll try again, so keep your fingers crossed. I can't say where I got the info, but I think I know why the game was rejected. Due to the huge influx of titles, Sony is trying to keep a handle on things, to keep profit margins up. Thus they have put a '30% greater emphasis on graphics'. That's the word on the street.
But hell, if you ask me, the graphics in Ys Perfect Edition are superb. Frustrating. But either way, it seems as though NEC has a relationship with digicube, which could translate to some interesting titles making their way over here.
As far as the dating sim thing, Evangelista nixed the idea initially. Obviously the market isn't there yet for galget games in English. But of course this is simply because the market truly does not exist here yet. When I told him that Hirameki is bringing a large portion of NEC IC's Japanese published titles to DVD, he said 'let's see how they do'. So the possibility is there, I think. Especially since our conversation immediately wandered to the fact that visual novels of all kinds in japan always make profit. They know their audience, they make the numbers they shoot for, and due to low overhead, they're basically printing money, though the stakes are low.
All in all, I'm very pleased with the direction that NEC Interchannel is moving in the US. Evangelista is by far the most knowledgable fellow I came across this E3. Never have I met someone from a US branch that so understood the intentions of, and knew the history of the Japanese parent company. It was very encouraging. As an aside, Ys is one of his favorite games so...he has that going for him as well.
Further, he seems very receptive to ideas from the community and the fanbase. Press though I may be, I am a fan first and foremost, and I am not used to being given credit for this. In general it is assumed that press are on the surface of things in the videogame market. But NEC Interchannel seems to understand that it's possible to be not only informative, but rabidly interested and critical at the same time. This has little to do with any specifics of the company of course, but goes a long way towards building my respect for the direction of the company. Basically, they're not just out to publish whatever's out there. I was expecting NEC Interchannel to completely divorce themselves from their niche parents in Japan, but this is not necessarily the case.
A more specific email interview will be conducted in the coming days, so keep watching for it!
Brandon Sheffield
