Fearless leader Billy B. checks in from Japan. Check out the full report on the state of GameCube ads in Japan.

Billy contacted me from a pay phone in Japan tonight, with some news that would be considered grim. From what he has seen, the GameCube is getting hardly any publicity in Japan. Except for Super Monkey Ball, which you apparently can't get away from. Billy and co had to literally search for a GameCube brochure. Also, the Wave Race and Luigi's Mansion commercials are not on TV often. It looks like stores will have point of purchase stuff up this week. Also, according to Billy, "Wario is the bizomb." Look for an update coming from Billy later when he finds time to get into another pay phone.

The British news promotes GameCube with in-game footage and a interview of sorts!

It looks like the mainstream news in England is beginning to pick up on GameCube. A popular British news broadcast, "Breakfast News" just did a story on the videogame wars--mostly focusing on the 'Cube. Here's how reader "Radioheadrule" described it:

"The piece covered the console wars - this is the first of its kind on mainstream British news. The physical Gamecube console itself was shown along with the PS2 system and the fabled Dreamcast, it spoke of XBox but nothing was seen. Then Nintendo Of Europe had offered a brief interview where they briefly touched on Luigi's Mansion and the water in Waverace Bluestorm... this was followed by Nintendo Gamecubes being played and fullscreen Direct Feed Luigi's Mansion being played out across the nation....No non-nintendo game footage was shown, more or less nothing positive was said about PS2, the XBox details were obviously very vague to the BBC cos they hardly mentioned it."

Nintendo has a new poll on what newly-announced game you are most excited about! Guess who's winning!

NOA's latest online poll asks gamers what just-unveiled GCN game they are most excited about. Now is your chance to voice your opinion!

"Which game announced at Spaceworld are you most excited about?"

Mario Sunshine

The "new look" Zelda

Soul Calibur 2

Sonic Adventure 2

As of right now, Zelda is winning by a significant margin, with Mario coming in second. None of the games are without a few followers--a good sign indeed.

There is a new, CG, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie in production. This means new TMNT games! TURTLE POWER!

It seems now-a-days that lots of old shows get resurrected and turned into new movies. The next such movie will be a fully computer animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie produced by one of the best fight directors in the business, John Woo.

At the moment, it seems that at least 2 new TMNT games will be on Nintendo systems. The first will be released in Fall of 2002 on the Game Boy Advance. The second will release on the GameCube in Spring of 2003. Rainbow Studios will be developing the titles.

The publisher of Spider-Man and X-Men games has just acquired two more Marvel licenses.

In a press release sent out today, Activision announced that it now has the rights to publish even more games based on Marvel franchises. Now the Fantastic Four and Iron Man, both in the works for feature films due in 2003/2004, will be hitting the PC and next-gen consoles.

While GameCube isn't specifically mentioned, there is a very good possibility that one or both of these games is bound for Nintendo's system, and probably GBA too. Activision's Spider-Man games are already headed for the twin systems. Here's the full, official press release:

We've finally gotten to a computer with Internet access! Word!

Yes, yes. We know we haven't updated from Japan for a couple of days. We had to check out of our hotel room a couple days early, and we crashed with the Tendo Box fellahs. We'd like to thank them for allowing us some floor space, and their hospitality.

Most of everyone has returned to the states, except for J-Dub and Myself. We've crashed with our Japanese correspondant Hong Hang Ho, and after cleaning the crap off his apartment floor, we have set up camp once again.

Outside of that, I'm glad to say that we're safe and well. We're trying to figure out how to jack my laptop into a pay phone and get some impressions, news, and other fun stuff online.

Thanks to one of our readers, we may have found new dates for some GameCube titles!

Props to James Coleman on this one ... Searching Buy.com's Games section reveals a list of pre-order GCN titles, including Wrestlemania 2002, Tetris Worlds, and both Batman titles!

While retailers are commonly the last to know when a game date slips, this may still be worth looking at.

We aren't posting the dates yet, while we cross-check for their accuracy, but feel free to check the link above for yourself ... and pre-order if you are so inclined.

Steven Kent’s latest article takes a look at the popular RPG series and the endeavors of Enix in North America.

“We like Steven Kent so here's more of his work...” said the subject line of the email we got from reader “dfriedberg.” We’re big fans of Steven Kent too, so we’re happy to point you to his latest article, Americanizing the Dragon, found on the online version of the Japan Times. It focuses on Enix, makers of Dragon Quest, which remains one of the most popular RPG series in Japan.

Not directly Nintendo related, the article is incredibly informative in regards to Enix and how they have brought its games to America. As classic as the original Dragon Warrior on NES may be to gamers in North America, Enix’s U.S. operations are actually quite small.

The wait is over ... all major retailers should have some stock of Mario Kart Super Circuit for Game Boy Advance.

Why are you even reading this? Go get it!

Target stores have a great deal, selling the game for $25.88. All their shipments should be in, or coming today.

We'll have impressions up later today.

In the meantime, be sure to check out Nintendo's excellent (and newly opened) Mario Kart Super Circuit webpage for a sneak peek and all kinds of goodies!

Just to add a bit of humour (and perspective) into the whole cel-shaded Zelda debate...

For those of you with a sense of humour, you should take a look at this little page put up by #planetchat regular Bayou. While poking a bit of fun at the people who really don't like the change in Zelda's outlook it's a nice laugh from all the stomach churning debates.