Gigantic Japanese publisher of Castlevania buys a stake in the creators of Bomberman. Gothic multiplayer insanity: Q3 2002. Joking.

Konami, the largest third-party game publisher in Japan, has bought out 38% of Hudson Soft, making them the major shareholder. Hudson is probably best known for the long-running Bomberman series.

We heard this as a rumor last week, but now the Magic Box has confirmed it. Konami has generally been stoic about GameCube support thus far, while Hudson is traditionally a major Nintendo supporter. Whether this new business move will affect either company's attitude towards Nintendo or the GameCube remains to be seen.

The PGC Server is getting worked over like Billy on his Birthday. Read on to find out why ...

Folks, the Planet GameCube server is getting hit HARD today, harder than usual. And the reason why is simple. We've been Slashdotted.

It's actually quite an honor. Slashdot is the foremost resource for the high-tech industry, and getting Slashdotted is quite the sign of respect. Unfortunately, that means that you all get to learn about ... The Slashdot Effect.

See, Slashdot's userbase is in the hundred-thousands, and readership is probably in the millions. When a story gets posted to Slashdot, the website that the story is about frequently crashes out or becomes very slow. It's a great way to test server load ... if you could predict it.

True believers beware, new shots from Rogue Leader are worthy of losing all bladder control.

YOU MUST GO TO IGN CUBE NOW! New shots from the Hoth level of Rogue Leader is all that has to be said but if you're still reading all one can do is try to stammer out a sentence while drool puddles on the desk below your frothing mouth.

Nintendo Select Infinium CRM to do.. Market stuff... And Web-based... Aww heck.. Just read the article.

Albeit written in greek, Nintendo has a new marketing firm. Here's the goods from Core Magazine...

Nintendo has selected Infinium CRM to power its Retail Marketing Program in an effort to maximize channel marketing efforts and enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. As part of the strategic initiatives to support its continued growth, Nintendo began evaluating high return-on-value, low total cost of ownership customer relationship management solutions to be the cornerstone of its Retail Marketing Program. Infinium CRM is a fully-integrated, highly flexible, Web-based solution that supports business relationship management, sales and marketing, and support services with a single, central market database. Infinium CRM offers PDA capabilities, Web-based information exchange, fast implementation, and zero maintenance desktop functionality.

Nintendo shells out the big numbers for North America. Plus: Japanese launch colors confirmed.

As originally reported by Nikkei News, then revealed to us by the Mips36 Nintendo GameCube News Page, and finally clarified by GameSpot VG (whew!), here are new GameCube launch details:

- The Japanese launch will consist of 500,000 units, all purple.

- Further colors will be available at a later time in Japan.

We still don't know jack about Rune for GameCube, but at least now we know who's making it.

Nintendo's Japanese Space World site updated today with the name of the company behind the recently announced Rune. The developer is From Software, a Japanese company traditionally affiliated with Sony.

This still doesn't give much insight into what Rune might be, but From Software has experience with mech-combat games (Armored Core) and RPGs (King's Field, Evergrace).

Thanks to Joshua Gallant for the tip.

Before E3, PGC told you LucasArts was planning a second Star Wars game for Cube. Now it’s been confirmed & will be based on Episode II!

Thanks to IGNCube, we have a report that confirms a second Star Wars game is in the works for GameCube, something PGC told you about just before E3. As suspected, the next game will utilize the Episode II license. LucasArts’ President, Simon Jeffery, confirmed the game’s existence during an online chat event held on July 25th. The chat event allowed registered members of LucasArts' website to ask about future products & many showed up to do just that.

There've been crazy, yet exciting rumors regarding Sega & Nintendo recently. Find out what Sega prez, Peter Moore had to say about two of them: a Sega/Nintendo RPG & Sonic in SSBM...

Ever since Sega left the hardware business and even months before, there have been rumors of exciting possibilities involving Sega & Nintendo. Just a little under a year ago, there was a rumor of a Nintendo / Sega RPG in the works. There have also been rumors of Sonic the Hedgehog appearing as a hidden character in Super Smash Bros. Melee, a possibly well chronicled in our Smash Melee preview & discussed in our latest Mailbag.

Rick's gotten questions about his scores for ChuChu Rocket, so he takes some time to explain how our review system works ...

I've gotten several pieces of mail from folks wondering why my scores for Graphics and Control in my ChuChu Rocket review were so low.

First, they're my opinions. Those scores are absolutely arbitrary, and reflect how I felt the game did in those areas at the time I wrote the review.

Second, ChuChu Rocket is a puzzle game. There isn't going to be a great deal of innovation in the control or graphics that will really make you stand up and say "Wow!" A game like Castlevania would get an 8 in graphics (from me). Tony Hawk would probably garner a 9. I could not honestly give those same scores to ChuChu Rocket.

Check out new screens and game profiles for GBA games that will be at Space World!

Famitsu Magazine has released new screens and information about many of the GBA games that will be playable at Space World. Since we can neither get the magazine nor read Japanese, the good folks at the Magic Box provided the information.

The following games now have profiles as well as two screens:

Batoland

Mysterious Retreat TV