Subject: XBox, update on my fanfic
From: "Don Wang" <[email-masked]>
To: "Ranma 1/2" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 12 May 2001 02:06:47 -0700

I think the XBox will do pretty well.  Of course, it'd be hard to fight
against the well-entrenched Sony market in North America, but they got a
good shot at it as anyone else.

    Microsoft has Sega as a developer, and I believe they've got quite a few
of the major Japanese developers.  Microsoft has been courting 3rd party
developers, which has always been the deciding factor in console wars.  As
far as the Japanese market is concerned, if they can get one of the big
companies like Square they should be fine.  Square literally carried the
Wonderswan on its own.  Nintendo is not exactly doing all that well.
Yamaguchi threatened to pull the Gamecube if it wasn't received well in E3
and it may be more than just a marketing ploy.  Though Nintendo rattles a
lot of impressive numbers, they never tell you which of those is from the
absolutely dominating Gameboy series, and which is from the N64.  Sony is
currently in a state of transition, as the limited install base of PSX2s
prevents them from having an overpowering position (as opposed to PSX, you
just can't compete against 100 million user base), so if there's a good time
for someone to compete with Sony, it'd be now.

    Oh yeah, I've changed quite a bit of the stuff around in my fanfic idea.
Sarah got toned down quite a bit on the annoyance factor, though she's still
a huge headache for Ranma.  I think this is one of the only story I've ever
written where I really will end up killing one of my characters off.
Without going into too much detail, Sarah will die because of Ranma, for the
moment Ranma ran into Kelvena, Sarah's existence is to be erased.  Sarah
initially hates Ranma because I think that's a pretty normal reaction (of
course, Ranma doesn't know about it, neither do Kelvena), but then she
decided that if she can't do anything about it, might as well see why it is
this stupid boy who's the one that will end up killing her.  I do intend her
to still annoy Ranma, in the same how Ranma must be an annoyance to Ryouga,
but still a trustworthy friend nonetheless.  I guess her attitude is one of
"Well, if I'm going to die because of you, might as well have some fun
before the inevitable happens, right?"

    I redesigned Sarah's fighting style based on a neat quote I found from
one of my martial arts (fiction) books.  "Martial arts is not something you
do OUT of this world.  It's something you do IN this world."  Clearly in
Ranma 1/2, martial arts is a very out of the world kind of thing.  You see
Ranma and others go into mountains, China, and all kinds of remote places to
train.  Supposedly the quietness and isolation is good for this kind of
training.  But who says you have to be alone and train only for the purpose
of martial arts?  Sarah is not a martial artist, but she does things that'd
seems crazy even for Ranma.  Sarah's best attribute is her extreme speed,
and she builds that by running to the top of a mountain and running down
again for hours and hours straight.  But she doesn't do it because she wants
to be stronger or faster.  She just enjoys running, and it's because she
never view it as training that she can stand doing things that'd classify as
'training from hell' for even the craziest of Ranma 1/2 martial artists
everyday without fail.  Martial arts should be enjoyable, but if you look at
the way Ranma 1/2 people approach training, it's more like pain as opposed
to fun.

Don
"You were a piece of a star, that fell from the sky..."
Radical Dreamers, the Unstealable Gem