The fallout from my recent hard drive failure continues, as last night I found my entire network here at the loonybin completely off-line. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, this has not changed, although tonight I've managed (by a rather scary collection of wires) to get online using my trusty iBook. It's sort of like being on the road in my apartment, actually...only I get to sleep more (albeit only slightly). So anyway, I apologize in advance for any stories I might miss, and promise to do a Saturday Afternoon Consoling to get all caught up on things. Let's get to it.

	Dead or Alive 4 Confirmed From the No Shock Here Department comes a blurb on XenGamers that has word that Tecmo has confirmed that Dead or Alive 4 is in development for release in 2003. No specific platform is named, and it sounds like there is a possibility that it will wind up on other platforms than the Xbox. Tecmo has never been particularly loyal in the past...just look at the "exclusive" Sega had on DOA2 for proof of that.
	Sega Looking to Buy Other Publishers? How's this for a turnaround...apparently Sega is considering buying other publishers to increase their market share. The only one I can think of offhand that would be a decent fit would be THQ, who Sega is already working with on their GBA titles.
	Square Suspends FFXI Auctions Apparently one particularly clever Final Fantasy XI player managed to find an exploit in the game's item auction system, and as a result Square has put the auctions on hold until they can find a fix for it. This is yet another example of why Square should have waited at least another six months before taking this thing live.
	Pokemon Advance Japanese Release Date Nintendo has announced a November 21st release date for Pokemon Advance, the new GBA Pokemon game about which surprisingly little has been said lately. It's not even clear if this game manages to (pardon the pun) advance the gameplay at all over the original game, which no other title in the series to date has attempted to do. If they don't make some kind of innovation soon, this franchise may die off (well no, not really...but it'll stall for a while at least).
	Unlimited SaGa Announced Good news for fans of Square's SaGa series...the company has announced that Unlimited SaGa, the first PS2 entry in the series will be out in December in Japan. The team is led by SaGa veterans, while the character designer worked on Final Fantasy X previously.
	New Japanese Sales Figures The latest Japanese sales figures are up at GameSpy Daily...this week saw big gains for both the Xbox and GameCube, and shows that the Dreamcast isn't dead just yet, as it managed to creep onto the list again (the announcement of Ikaruga probably helped somewhat).
	New Mortal Kombat Shots PS2.IGN has some new shots from Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance online tonight. As was already reported here, this game has been delayed, but only slightly (it'll still be out in time for the holiday season).