quote IGN Cube

Nintendo Plans Acquisitions
Could Microsoft be swallowed whole?

April 06, 2004 - Nintendo may have a big corporate shopping list, the Toyo Keizai Newspaper reveals. In comments with the paper, Nintendo executives revealed that the company hopes to acquire key technologies for its conventional businesses ahead of competitors. To do so, Nintendo will go so far as to actually purchase other companies using its abundant investment resources.

While specifics on what key technologies Nintendo requires weren't made clear to the paper, it's reasonable to assume that this is all in connection with upcoming videogame hardware. Unless, of course, Nintendo is planning a return to the playing card field.

Man... the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban game will be coming out in about 70-150 days from now...

quote IGN Cube

Nintendo on Top
Number-one publisher in Japan according to Enterbrain.

April 09, 2004 - Nintendo was the top game software publisher in Japan through the business year, which ended March 31, according respected overseas magazine Enterbrain Inc., Reuters reports. The company beat out competition including Sony, Square and Konami for the top spot.

Nintendo sold some 6.5 million units of software in Japan through the year. Strong sales of key Nintendo titles such as Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Party 5 helped keep the publisher's number-one position. The Big N maintained its top slot without the help of the Pokemon franchise. Though the best-selling game of the year in Japan was "Pokemon Fire Red/Leaf Green" for Game Boy Advance, Enterbrain listed the title under The Pokemon Company, of which Nintendo owns a 30-percent share.
Second place went to Square Enix, which sold nearly four million games. Meanwhile, Konami, whose World Soccer Winning Eleven 7 was the second-biggest seller in Japan, slipped from the fourth biggest publisher last year to the sixth.

Total game hardware sales through the business year March 31 dropped some 15.7 percent in Japan to 7.38 million units and software sales slipped 1.7 perfect to 55.2 million units.

quote cube-europe

We recently got our hands on the newest issue of CUBE Magazine and they are saying that they have a list of confirmed games that Nintendo will be showing at the E3 show. Here is the list with some VERY big surprises:

Custom Robo
Donkey Konga
GEIST
Giftpia
Golden Sun
Mario 128
Mario Tennis
Metroid Prime 2
Paper Mario
Pikmin 2
Wind Waker 2
Zelda Four Swords

In all a very nice list! But will we really be getting a GameCube version of Golden Sun? CUBE Magazine says we will. The magazine added that it would most likely appear as a rolling demo. It also listed some new third party games that has been confirmed for the show as well that we didn't know about which we have listed below:

Call of Duty (Activision)
True Crime 2 (Activision)
Killer 7 and Resi 4 (Capcom)
SSX 4 (EA)
Timesplitters 3 and Second Sight (FRD)
The Movies (Lionhead)
Unity (Lionhead)
RIDGE RACER 6 (Namco)
Starfox GC plus Baten and Tales
Prince of Persia 2 (Ubisoft)
Monkey Ball 3 and Virtua Fighter (SEGA)

This is one whopping list of first and third party titles! We will try and confirm this news with Nintendo after easter. In the meantime we wish you a good Easter and sweet E3-dreams!

I have a few more Games from the May issue of NP
Second Sight EA
Time Splitters 3 EA
Starsky and Hutch ?

quote

News: Knights Of The 'Cubed Table.. No More?
By jayseven - Apr 13th 2004 22:38
-----------------------------------------------

Oh. Dear. Excuse me for being so personal with this news, but I fear this is sad news for us all...

IGN.com has posted a piece of news which seems to have come out of the blue.

IGN have claimed that Denis Dyack, president of the development company behind Eternal Darkness and responsible for the updated Metal Gear Solid game The Twin Snakes has told them "Silicon Knights and Nintendo have agreed to mutually part ways"

"Nintendo and Silicon Knights have reached an agreement allowing Silicon Knights to pursue its vision of videogame entertainment with other companies," said a Nintendo of America spokesperson. "Nintendo respects the creative work of Silicon Knights and the parties have left the door open to work on future projects that meet the creative vision of both companies."

Though no official reason was given for the decision, IGNcube speculates that the philosophies of the two companies did not mesh. Silicon Knights has always been a very content-driven studio with strong beliefs in the elements of game creation including story, artistry, sound, and technology. Nintendo has recently downplayed the role of technology in game creation and has been known to de-emphasize story, graphics and sound in favor of classic play mechanics.

Asked if today's news meant Silicon Knights would not continue to develop for Nintendo platforms, Denis Dyack said: "No it doesn't. It's possible that we may do another game with Nintendo, actually. It just means that we've decided to break our exclusivity with Nintendo."

So what does this mean for us gamers? Well it means that Too Human, in development since the previous millenium will shift consoles again after already moving from Sony's PSX across to the Nintendo side of things. To read up on Too Human click here.

No more Too Human, a game classed by many to be the potential console shifter needed for Nintendo, or at least no more exclusivity anyway. The only other game Silicon Knights have released for the 'Cube was Eternal Darkness, a personal favourite, which is thought to have had a sequel in development which (if so) would now be a multi-platform game.

If you ask me, this is a damning blow to Nintendo. Silicon Knights was one of the aces of their pack, along with Retro Studios they were considered to be one of the 'replacements' for the sale of Rareware to Microsoft... If this news is true I suggest we all light a candle for the 'loss'. Admittedly we should still be getting their games, but I for one will not be able to play their games without a taste of bitterness anymore...

*lights a candle*



Source: IGNcube

Mario Party6 coming this winter.

Capcom Announces VJ2 for GCN & PS2:

quote 411mania.com

As already announced in yesterday’s Thank God It’s Thursday News Report, Capcom has officially announced Viewtiful Joe 2 for GameCube and PlayStation 2. The game is scheduled to release in Japan in winter 2004 and is being developed by Capcom's recently created Clover Studio.
The game will have a mixture of 2D and 3D action, featuring both Joe and his girlfriend Silvia as playable characters. That’s right, the girlfriend gets a crack at it this time. There will be 40 new enemies, and a number of new environments, such as jungle, underground ruins, feudal Japan, snowy mountains and outer space. The heroes can transform into six different machines, which include cannon, drill, submarine and a race machine. The creator Atsushi Inaba mentioned that the game now comes to PS2 because he would like the Viewtiful Joe franchise to reach to more audiences (meaning they want more money). Both GameCube and PS2 versions should be “identical”. The game is currently 50% completed.

Hey have you guys heard the really great news the rouge squdron games are coming to xbox and they are never ever turning back to the Gamecube again isn't it great news!!!!!!!!!!! I love xbox!!!!!!

Look everyone, it's one of those people that get a big, fat chubby off of attempting to insult Nintendo with bullshat. Real or not, Rogue Squadron died with Rebel Strike anyways.

Hey, look everybody! It's a Nintendo fanboy! Poke him with a stick!

*runs away*

RS never interested me...

quote Jim Haslett

They'll play hard or they're not going to be here.

quote Noit Areggub

quote IGN Cube


May 05, 2004 - Publisher Electronic Arts today unwrapped the first details on the next game in its lucrative James Bond universe, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent. The first-person shooter stars players a brutish, violent 00 agent who takes the dark path.



GoldenEye: Rogue Agent is the first break from the regular Bond side of things for EA, and gamers who own a GameCube, PlayStation or Xbox will have the chance to play the game in a hearty single-player campaign or in multiplayer mode, with the PS2 version being online. It's due this fall on all three systems.


After being released from M16 for reckless brutality, gamers are hired as an enforcer, a basic brute, by the notorious Auric Goldfinger, one of the most successful criminals in the world. Entangled in a ruthless civil war with the brilliant scientist Dr. No, Goldfinger engages in in a growing war, which sees players losing an eye from a gunshot by Dr. No. It's replaced with fantastic new technology, a gold-hued, synthetic eye, that enables the main character to see better than ever, and which is upgradeable throughout the game. Thus the new moniker, Goldeneye.



The game is filled with legendary Bond characters and villains, from Oddjob, Scaramanga, Xenia Onatopp and Pussy Galore, who is a pilot on several missions. The enemy AI is highly intelligent, and they will react to the character's behavior in combat situations with extreme force, using the environment to its advantage for unpredictable, high-level replay shootouts. As Goldeneye, players will traverse across the world, from the mountains of Switzerland to the streets of Hong Kong and from Fort Knox to Dr. No's Crab Key lair in the Caribbean.



EA's newest Bond game integrates single-player, multiplayer split-screen, and online gameplay for the PlayStation 2 across all game modes, and it's both single-player and multiplayer on GameCube and Xbox. The game highlights story-driven single-player missions, deathmatch trials, and objective-based war games, giving players a hefty amount of multplayer levels and options.



We'll have more on EA's newly fashioned Goldeneye: Rogue Agent in the near future.
[Article Here]http://cube.ign.com/articles/511/511690p1.html[/link]

I had hoped that EA would try and honour the sheer amazingness of 007 Goldeneye from the N64, but apparently their idea of using a good name is to coat it in poop. I mean, for gods sake! You don't even play as Bond! It's not a Bond storyline! It's not even remotely linkable to the original Goldeneye! This game's storyline is going to suck so incredibly massively because it's such a stupid concept. I mean, invisible cars are one thing, but even Metroid, set way in the future, didn't attempt to suggest that you could implant scanning systems into a human eye.

This may sound crazy, and a little off topic, but something odd happended to me. I had a dream where I went to a Gamestop looking for Skies of Arcadia. while I was in the shop on the counter I saw a game box that said: "GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, coming soon!" I had never even heard of the game before today! and the dream was only last night.



back on topic. I dont really like the idea of making a James Bond like a really violent game. I think they should limit the violence to actual game play

Nintendo's official list of E3 showcase titles:

quote 411mania.com

Advance Wars (GC)
Classic NES Series: Bomberman (GBA)
Classic NES Series: Donkey Kong (GBA)
Classic NES Series: Excitebike (GBA)
Classic NES Series: Ice Climber (GBA)
Classic NES Series: The Legend of Zelda (GBA)
Classic NES Series: Pac-Man (GBA)
Classic NES Series: Super Mario Bros. (GBA)
Classic NES Series: Xevious (GBA)
Donkey Kong Country 2 (GBA)
Donkey Konga (GC)
Fire Emblem (GC)
F-Zero 2: Legend of Falcon (GBA)
Geist (GC)
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures (GC)
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker 2 (GC)
Mario Party 6 (GC)
Mario Golf Advance Tour (GBA)
Mario Tennis (GC)
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GC)
Paper Mario 2 (GC)
Pikmin 2 (GC)
Star Fox 2 (GC)

yeahhhhhhh, marioparty6, metroidprime2, and viewtiful joe 2 are going to be some very sweet games. The first Metriod Prime and Viewtiful Joe were the greatest games of 2002 and 2003, i can't wait to see what' s going on this time. And marioparty5 was fun, i can only imagine how cool the 6th one will be.