The oddly titled Dreamworks CG film is, of course, being adapted into a video game.

DreamWorks Animation SKG & D3Publisher of America Sign Worldwide Publishing

Agreement for Flushed Away

First Games Based on the Animated Feature Film Scheduled for Q4 2006

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- D3Publisher of America, Inc. (D3PA), a

publisher and developer of interactive entertainment software, today

announced a worldwide publishing agreement with DreamWorks Animation SKG

(NYSE:DWA) for video games based on the forthcoming computer animated

Cute little pets make their way to game stores.

TAMAGOTCHI(R) CONNECTION(TM): CORNER SHOP(TM) CELEBRATES GRAND OPENING IN RETAIL STORES

Popular Tamagotchi(R) Characters Now Available on Nintendo DS(TM

SANTA CLARA, Calif., (January 31, 2006) – Leading video games publisher and developer NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc. announced today that Tamagotchi(R) Connection(TM): Corner Shop(TM), a shopping simulation set in the virtual world of Tamagotchi(R) for the Nintendo DS(TM), has shipped to retail outlets in North America. Based on the wildly popular Tamagotchi(R) virtual pet that has sold more than 40 million units worldwide since its 1996 debut, this playful simulation allows aspiring shop owners to open and run their very own boutique stores.

Hands-on with Naruto: Clash of Ninja and Naruto: Ninja Council!

Naruto: Clash of Ninja and Naruto: Ninja Council are being co-published by Tomy and D3Publisher, who were nice enough to invite us out to Naruto Community Day! This includes hands-on with the first English releases of Naruto games, interviews and Q&A, and delicious ramen.

Naruto: Clash of Ninja releases on March 7 (MSRP $39.99) and features eight core characters from the TV show; Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Lee, Iruka, Kakashi, Haku, and Zabuza, plus "Sharingan" Kakashi and "Kyuubi" Naruto as secret versions. This is in fact the same game as the first Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen released in Japan; a head-to-head fighting game with great gameplay.

A new job listing suggests Midway is working on a first person shooter for all three next-generation platforms.

Midway has posted a new job listing for a Level Layout Designer on a "Next Generation First Person Shooter." While such a posting is usually unremarkable to the average gamer, this one holds a sliver of encouraging information. Midway lists Nintendo Revolution as a target platform for this Unreal 3 engine-based title.

Although Midway has continued to support Nintendo GameCube through its waning years with Rampage: Total Destruction and Midway Arcade Treasures 3, many of its multiplatform titles (such as Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks) were never released on Nintendo's console. While Midway's plans for this game could change, this posting shows that it is interested in seriously supporting the Revolution.

Tom Clancy's latest and greatest won't show up until later this year, but it's still coming to GameCube.

Sam Fisher is returning to GameCube for at least one more mission, but you'll have to wait until the fall to play his newest game. Double Agent was only recently unveiled in print magazines, but Ubisoft wasted little time in revising the game's ship date. Although the official statement below is vague on the actual ship date, the publisher's financial statements, also released today, mention September 2006 as the magic month.

Today Ubisoft announced that its highly anticipated title Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Double Agent will launch in the company’s second quarter of its fiscal year 2006/2007. Splinter Cell Double Agent will be available in September for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the Xbox® video game system from Microsoft, PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system, Nintendo GameCube™ system and Windows® PC.

ONLINE-GET!

According to Nintendo UK General Manager David Yarnton, Nintendo's Wi-Fi service has just recently broken the three million mark as far as confirmed connections. Launching this past November, WFC has quickly grown to be quite popular, with more than an estimated half a million actual [active] users, according to Yarnton. To put that into perspective, it took Xbox Live three years to aquire 2 million subscriptions.

In other Nintendo UK news, the company has taken steps to increase WFC's availability by equipping Britain with 1000 new hot spots, meaning you'll soon be able to duke it out in some Mario Kart and visit towns in Animal Crossing at your local cafe and public transit station.

You could win sweet Tony Hawk prizes just for playing the excellent DS version over Nintendo WiFi Connection!

Update: See below for the new start time for the tournament! It's noon on Feb. 4th, not midnight as previously reported.

PGC is proud to help promote the first sanctioned online DS game tournament (that we know of, anyway). User Moellenium in the Tony Hawk's American Sk8Land (THAS) forums has organized a single-elimination tournament, and Activision has been kind enough to donate some great prizes for the winners.

Grand Prize: Custom Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (THAW) skate deck from E3 2005, plus one copy of THAW for GameCube.

Well, not yet. Japanese gamers can mark their calendars for April 20th, though.

Mother 3 (or EarthBound 2 in North America) has been in development for a very, very long time; after a number of years some fans even considered it vaporware. Fortunately, gamers starved for info were finally thrown a bone this past November. However, even though the game was confirmed to still exist, creator Shigetsao Itoi was reluctant to give a release date.

Until today, that is, when Itoi updated his website to let everyone in on the news: Mother 3 is hitting Japan on April 20th of this year. That's right; in a mere three months, Japanese gamers (and importers) will be able to get their hands on the RPG that's been a "work in progress" for over ten years. According to the Starmen translation, Itoi had this to say:

The evaluations are underway.

The deadline has passed, and we are now making our final selections from the top applicants. Those selected for the job (probably two people) will be notified later this week.

As always, I am humbled by the enthusiastic response to our volunteer positions. With dozens of great applicants for a job with essentially no qualifications, it is very hard indeed to choose just one or two people. If you are not selected, please accept my sincerest gratitude for the offer to help. I wish we could hire everyone with an interest in contributing, but it's just not practical.

We're going to be thankful for a lot more than a turkey dinner come Thanksgiving if Iwata holds true to his claim.

Japanese newspaper Sankei Shinbun had a chance to interview Nintendo president Satoru Iwata about his company's plans for the future. Chief among those plans is the Revolution console, and Iwata had some useful things to say on that subject.

The most important thing to come out of the interview is that Revolution will most likely launch before Thanksgiving in North America. According to Iwata, Nintendo has "no plans to miss out" on the holiday sales rush, for risk of losing retail support. There was no mention if a Japanese launch would come before or after this time period.