PGC has gained the assistance of a longtime reader turned l33t retail reporter, a gentleman calling himself "SillyMrMan" (and we'll leave it at to protect his anonymity) who has emailed us several promotional posters received from Nintendo. Since he was nice enough to hook us up, we got in touch and were all to happy to see what he had to say about the posters and other information from the retail front.

First off, the posters! These are pretty big and attention getting and we'll turn to SillyMrMan to tell us how he came by them:

SillyMrMan says: I work at a videogame retail store and walked into work on Monday not expecting anything out of the ordinary. Five minutes after I entered the store it I noticed a new poster sitting between the GameBoy games and the N64 games: GAMECUBE! …Although the pictures may not be the greatest, I was taking them on company time and didn't have that much time to really spend on getting it perfect.

We (as in "Ty") tinkered with the pics a bit to improve them for web viewing.

"Our District's Nintendo Rep. stopped off a week ago and gave them to us," reports SillyMrMan. In getting the pictures, SillyMrMan was nice enough to include various poses of the posters, which we have posted.

Check out shots below and click on them for larger versions:

SillyMrMan also reports that GameStop is taking GameCube pre-orders and contrary to previous reports, Nintendo has been allowing retailers (well, at least GameStop) to do this. Although pre-orders are being taken, there is no official price for the GameCube.

SillyMrMan says: I found it interesting how Peter Main wrote the letter to retailers asking why they were marketing the X-Box when its launch was so far away. They [Nintendo] state that they are going to begin pushing the GCN in August in America, eight weeks or so before launch. And suddenly, BAM, we get advertising for the GCN 6 months in advance...

Interesting indeed. Could Nintendo have new incentives to promote its machines a bit earlier? Although NGC doesn't have a price for the GameCube, there is some word on the competition:

SillyMrMan says: We have the price of the X-Box, or at least a tentative one that has been STATIC for over 6 months now. The price that we currently have (in the computers) is $399.99. Back in February the price was actually quoted by Microsoft itself... though now it's trying to play it cool with numbers like "330" and such.

SillyMrMan quoted this price confidently, as it's what he's supposed to tell customers who come into the store. It's fair to assume the price will drop though if this is what Microsoft is currently telling the retailers. Yet after hearing about this one wonders just how affordable X-Box will be if this is what retailers are being told to expect.

And on the topic of Nintendo competition, SillyMrMan also discussed Sony representatives acting like bullies, something PGC has reported on before.

SillyMrMan says: Our store employees are pretty peeved at Sony … Their rep came in and told us that if we didn't remove the two X-Box advertising from public eye last holiday season, they would stop allocating us PS2's... and our list is up to about 150 people STILL. We have been given the ultimate shaft & there is a lot of hatred for Sony in that store

Sounds like Sony is still strong-arming retailers and they are not happy about it at all.

Any closing words SillyMrMan?

SillyMrMan says: Before I forget: our store has currently stopped taking GBA reservations because we have already filled our first shipment. And trust me, GAMECUBE is getting there… Speaking of GameCube, it is MUCH easier to persuade people to reserve the GAMECUBE now with those posters up. Just yesterday we had a lady glance at the poster and almost run to the desk and say, "How much to reserve the New Nintendo." And when I can just point to the picture of Gannon on the poster and say, "Have you seen anything look this good on the PS2 or from X-Box screenshots?"

People are at a loss of words and usually will plop down their $50.00 for the reservation. Things are definitely looking up for Nintendo at the retail end right now :-)

Please let me take a minute to get something off my chest as well: I am not one of those dumba$$ kids who gets a job at a videogame retail store and doesn't do his homework. I like to fancy myself a videogame afficionado and, at times, an industry analyst.

Well, you've certainly helped PlanetGameCube analyze the industry and hooked us up phatty with the pre-order posters!! On behalf of our staff and readers, PGC thanks SillyMrMan!