The Almighty Megaton
Disclaimer:
Most of the links provided will send you to sites that actually have good news archive systems, which made my research a lot easier. It was not my intent to single out any site. If you look at the sites mentioned, you'll notice that they source other sites as well, so they're obviously not the only ones reporting on the subject. As always, the views presented by this article may not necessarily represent the views of N-Sider.
If you've been paying attention to the rumour mill lately, you've no doubt heard of that seven letter word, megaton. And also no doubt, you're sick of it. For those of you don't know what it is, you're about to find out. In short though, megaton was the name of a rumour circulating around the possibility of a huge Nintendo announcement by year's end. For those of you who do know what it is, have you ever wondered how it all started? Why we've had all the rampant rumours and speculation within the Nintendo gaming community? Why so many forums, including IGN's, our own and especially those of Gaming-Age have been sources of steady "information" on the subject? I've compiled a timeline of news items regarding the evolution of megaton and how it proliferated into something this large. There aren't any quotes from forums because they're much harder to quote than news sites. The only thing this feature will focus on is the media coverage surrounding the event and how people reacted to it.
The Timeline
09/20/02
Nintendo Officially Ends Relationship with Rare Source: IGN
Easily one of the biggest announcements of the year, if not the biggest. Microsoft buying out one of Nintendo's favoured 2nd parties. It sent a shockwave of fear and panic through internet gaming sites, forums and chats. Why is this so important in terms of megaton? This was a catalyst for the speculation that helped megaton to grow. The fear and panic that was created incited paranoia among gaming enthusiasts, debating the question of "who's next?". No one seemed to consider that the answer could be "no one". Also, Peter Macdougall's comments gave Nintendo loyalists something else to play with, the prospect of "expanding (Nintendo's) development capacity, both internally and externally". All of this gave forum goers opportunities for unfounded ideas circulating announcements to come.
09/21/02
First Annoucement from V-Jump Source: New Technix V-Jump Image: New Technix
English translation from original French article: An article published in the last issue of V-Jump to celebrate the 1st anniversary of GCs launch has announced that a very very big project to do with Nintendo will be announced at the end of the year, the GC will experience a "boom". Such an exaggeration on the part of this magazine is very uncharacteristic, the project is totally unknown as of now so this is indeed important.
Shortly after Nintendo made the Microsoft/Rare deal official, V-Jump, a Japanese magazine, gets the ball rolling. An issue proclaimed, to commemorate the one year anniversary of the release of the GCN in Japan, that a huge announcement will be made at the end of the year. The page in the magazine can be found here.
09/30/02
First Announcement from IGN Source: IGN
This was the first major exposure of the announcement to the internet gaming community. Also, it was probably the first time that the term megaton was actually used. All previous announcements refered to it as "Boom".
Microsoft Buying out Capcom? Source: GameCube Europe
Thanks to the Rare acquisition and Capcom's financial state (source), it looks like Microsoft's next target would be Capcom. It wasn't true and not surprising, a similar announcement concerning Nintendo and Capcom was rumoured later on.10/02/02
Megaton Announcement Spreads Source: Games Are Fun Source: GameCube Europe
A couple days pass and the megaton announcement spreads to many sites. The nature of the announcement is still unknown, aside from the fact that it's supposed to be "huge".
11/06/02
"Nintendo Dream" Rumours Source: GameCube Europe
A month passes. Rumours circulating Nintendo's megaton announcement begin to emerge ever so slowly. Capcom's Big 5 are rumoured as well.
11/13/02
Capcom Announces Big 5 Source: IGN
A huge announcement. Five great looking (and sounding) titles coming to the GCN from Capcom. On top of that, it was later learned that they would be exclusive. First the RE series. Now this? Has to be leading up to something great, right? Obviously this added fuel to the fire for the "Nintendo buys/merges (with) Capcom" rumours, which hadn't been completely acknowledged by the media at this point. But it was certainly being discussed and propositioned by internet folk.
11/20/02
More Megaton Announcement Speculation Source: N-Philes
Dorimaga, a Japanese magazine gives more information concerning the megaton announcement. It said that a general public show could be organized before the end of the year in Japan, most likely the Jump Festival. Famitsu reports that megaton is just around the corner.
11/26/02
Square and Enix Merger Source: GamePro
Another huge announcement. Enix and Square will merge by the beginning of the fiscal year (April 1st 2003). With the Rare and Microsoft deal fresh in their minds, people began to question the possiblity that the megaton announcement would have something to do with a buyout. Two companies are mentioned in discussions, Sega and Capcom. Both, mostly likely because of their reportedly less than perfect financial situations (Sources: Sega, Capcom). The Sega rumours were shot down readily, but those concerning Capcom persisted thanks to the recent happy relations between the company and Nintendo. Of course that rumour as well was unfounded because of the massive size of the company. After all, Nintendo let Rare, very small compared with Capcom, go to Microsoft rather than buy them out. Still, the rumours and speculation continued.
11/30/02
Megaton = Sony Lawsuit? Source: GameCube Advanced
This was only reported by a couple sites and mostly brought up by the Gaming-Age forums, but had this been true, it's impact would've been substantial. It was also reported on Slashdot, which caused some bandwidth problems for some sites (widely known as the "Slashdot effect") and was probably the only real reason why this story got any exposure at all. The story itself was that Nintendo was suing Sony over the name "PlayStation" that Nintendo had apparently laid claim to back in the days of the SNES CD. Before it was proven wrong, many assumed this to be megaton. People were getting desperate.
12/09/02
Nintendo's Unofficial Comments Source: Patrick Gortjes
One of our european correspondants, Patrick Gortjes, had the opportunity to travel to Utrecht, the Netherlands, where Nintendo hosted a press event at their Dutch HQ. While there, he bumped into a Japanese representative and decided to ask him about megaton. The only response he got was a little joke about it being the death of Yamauchi, which he said would result in rising stock prices. Nintendo knew about megaton, but didn't seem to be taking it seriously.
12/12/02
More Megaton Rumours Source: GameCube Europe
The end of the year was quickly approaching with plenty more megaton rumours. This time, they were saying that Capcom would be acquired by Nintendo and that the announcement would happen sometime around the 16th or 17th.
12/16/02
CBS MarketWatch Reports on a Possible Capcom Buyout Source: CBS MarketWatch
CBS MarketWatch reports on a possible Capcom buyout by Nintendo. Megaton isn't actually mentioned, but it's pretty obvious where these "analysts" got their information from.Modified Megaton Rumours Source: GameCube Europe
So now, Nintendo's not buying Sega or Capcom, but more (3 to 5) Capcom GameCube games will be announced, a new Pokmon GameCube game will be announced and Nintendo will announce the "GBA's Future". That last one may yet happen at CES in January.
12/17/02
Nintendo Announces Jump Festival Lineup Source: IGN
The much anticipated Jump Festival is just around the corner and Nintendo announces that Zelda: The Wind Waker, Mario Party 4, Zelda (GBA) and Nintendo Puzzle Collection will be playable. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles will be shown as well. Nothing megaton, but maybe something will be announced at the show?
12/21/02
Capcom Kills Buyout Rumours Source: GameCube Europe
Capcom finally gets sick of the rumours and shoots them down.
"Those reports are totally groundless," Heiji Oshima, Capcom's Chief Financial Officer, says in an interview. "We have no immediate plans to merge or tie up with other game makers."
12/21/02 - 12/22/02
The Jump Festival comes and goes. Any announcements surrounding megaton? Nope. So in my opinion, this is where the megaton rumours end. Lately, rumours have been circulating of a big announcement concerning new hardware at this year's CES, but I really don't see any connection between this and megaton. Unfortunately, any announcements for the next little while will continue to bring up our little friend. Sad thing is, this was all probably just some marketing thing to get more people to come check out the Jump Festival.
Speculation and Rumour
Think I've said it enough? Well I'm not done yet. Let's look at the definitions of the words in this context:
rumor n.
1. A piece of unverified information of uncertain origin usually spread by word of mouth. 2. Unverified information received from another; hearsay.
There's nothing wrong with reporting rumours or discussing them on a gaming site, so long as you label them as such. Unfortunately, this doesn't always seem to come off well. Some readers have a strong tendency to read rumour as fact. Mainly because they expect the author to have a source of information normally restricted by the average reader, which may or may not be true. Even if it is true, that information could turn out to be incorrect as things change, or the author didn't get the whole picture. It's all based on what a journalist reads or hears from certain individuals. If they're respectable (and I like to think that most are), they'll only report on things that they believe are plausible.
speculation n.
1. Contemplation or consideration of a subject; meditation. 2. A conclusion, opinion, or theory reached by conjecture. 3. Reasoning based on inconclusive evidence; conjecture or supposition.
Speculation, while the lesser of the two, can still be damaging. Most of the time, speculation is just based on logic and possibilities, not inside information. But all the same, it's fun, I love doing it in private/public chat, forums, wherever. Hell, our entire E3 2k2 trip was centered around the art of speculating. Every night, we'd stay up till very late discussing the day's events and their possible effects on the industry. And yes, in many ways, it is an art. You make educated guesses based on a collection of things you've read and heard. Taking all the information that you possibly can into account, you make a supposition. It could be logical, it could be illogical. It could be right, it could be wrong. That's the fun of it. But that's all it is, fun. The problem is, even if someone says something like "You know, Company X is probably in a good position to buyout Company Y.", then, thanks to human nature, someone else immediately retorts with something like "That's retarded! Company X isn't going to buyout Company Y." Notice the drops of the words "probably" and "good position". You can see how the original intent could be misinterpreted. It's like a game of telephone gone horribly wrong.
The End Result
Rumours are a part of the industry, no one can deny that, but people need to sit back and realize that this isn't Entertainment Tonight and we're not talking about Jennifer Lopez's most recent possibly failed marriage. This is business. There are rumours and they can turn into big announcements, but you can't let it get out of hand. Lately though, this has indeed been happening and it's because too many have been taking rumour and speculation as fact. As I said, not all rumours are wrong, some are indeed correct. But you just can't get angry about a rumoured announcement that doesn't happen either. My advice? Question everything, keep an open mind, think logically and most importantly, be media literate.
Brenden Petracek