Bandai Giving Up

Bandai was the exception.

At the edge of the South Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center, Bandai's booth setup was underway.

There were no towering neon signs, no lavishly funded enclosed black-box demo rooms, and no exaggerated giant posters.

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Several workers were moving boxes of plastic model kits into the booth, stacking them behind transparent glass display cases.

This was a company that survived by selling plastic toys and anime merchandise.

This year, the game lineup Bandai had brought was pitifully thin.

Aside from a 3D fighting game called Dragon Ball Z: The Great Dragon Ball Legend and a 2D fighting game called *New Mobile Report Gundam Wing

Endless Duel*, there were no new titles announced at all.

Yakumo, the manager from Bandai North America in charge of the on-site setup, was irritably tugging at his tie.

Watching the workers clumsily assemble the towering XXXG-00W0 Gundam model, he could not help cursing.

"Careful! The clip on that wing is fragile. If it breaks, we don't even have a spare!" Yakumo shouted.

A young Bandai employee walked over to him with two game discs, an awkward look on his face.

"Manager Yakumo, the demo units for these two games have already been powered on. But the visuals really aren't fit to be shown." The young employee pointed at the two small CRT televisions in the back.

Yakumo sighed and walked over to the televisions.

On the screen, Dragon Ball Z: The Great Dragon Ball Legend was running.

Goku and Vegeta were engaged in stiff aerial combat, the rough polygon edges covered in jaggies.

Every attack detection came with frame drops, and the screen stuttered so badly it made people dizzy.

When the development team designed it, they had deliberately referenced Sega's Virtua Fighter in both viewpoint and