Nintendo's Spaceworld on hiatus - again

Reports in the Japanese press are indicating Nintendo has opted not to hold a Spaceworld showcase event this year - making this the second year running that the event, previously an annual occurance, has been shelved.

Last year, the company ditched Spaceworld for the first time, explaining that it wanted to explore new ways to promote games directly rather than spending a lot of money on a single showcase event. Now well-respected Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream is reporting that Spaceworld is once again off the calender for 2003.

Some visitors to E3 last month expressed the belief that Nintendo's somewhat lacklustre showing could be down to the company holding back key announcements for Spaceworld; unless the company is planning a major presence and some very big announcements for the Tokyo Games Show, however, it looks like it might not have been holding back at E3 after all.

One slightly unusual Nintendo event that is going ahead in Japan, however, is a concert in mid-September featuring the music of Koji Kondo - the composer who created the scores for the Mario and Zelda games, among others.

The concert will be held on September 14th, and tickets are expected to go on sale at the end of this month. Concerts of videogame music are still relatively rare in Japan, although not unheard of by any means - to name but two of the better known shows, there have been a number of performances of music from the Final Fantasy games, and Sega's RPG series Sakura Wars has regularly had stage performances based on it.

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