Tecmo patches DOA3 in the US
Bringing it into line with the European and Japanese releases
Tecmo has announced a Dead or Alive 3 "Booster Disc" for American Xbox owners. The disc comprises the bonus content present in the Japanese and European versions of the game, which was added after the original game shipped in the US. The Booster Disc will accompany the June issue of the Official Xbox Magazine, which in time-honoured (but not exactly time-honouring) monthly tradition will hit the streets on May 7th… "The Booster Disc is my way of personally thanking gamers for supporting Dead or Alive 3," said Tomonobu Itagaki, creator of the Dead or Alive series. "We developed Dead or Alive 3 first and foremost for the U.S. market. When we created this bonus material for the Japanese and European versions of DOA3, we didn't want American gamers to feel left out. That's why we're offering these extras free of charge. It's a win-win situation for everybody. Of course, the only system on which this is possible is Xbox, thanks to the built-in hard drive." Effectively a patch then, but one devoid of the usual bug fixes. If this Booster Disc does iron out any problems in the code, Tecmo is pretending otherwise, and we can't blame them, or Microsoft, for not drawing that to our attention. One of the biggest linchpins in Microsoft's console strategy is consumer perception of the Xbox as a distinctive entertainment medium. Not a PC. Not a halfling stricken with bugs and patched software. MS would do well not to make a regular fixture of these Booster Discs, because it promotes similarities between the PC and the Xbox that go far beyond the boundaries previously outlined, and against the very principles of the console. Fixing them at the centre of a tirade of hard disk promotion is a bit of a risky ploy as well, but then again, Microsoft makes its biggest profits skating on thin ice, and Xbox is unlikely to prove an exception. Related Feature - X Marks The Spot
