Yamauchi shares thoughts on his successor as Iwata takes command to further Nintendo's success through quality software.

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Bloomberg has just run an article on the recent transfer of power at Nintendo. It discusses why Hiroshi Yamauchi named Satoru Iwata as his successor as president of Nintendo Co. Ltd., the possible changes in the transfer and what hasn’t changed: Nintendo’s commitment to games. Lots of good stuff here, from what role Yamauchi will take now to a look at Iwata’s early years at HAL, so take a look below:

Wanna know something cool about June 24th?

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Everyone knows that the long-awaited Eternal Darkness comes out June 24th in North America. Did you also know that day is the lunar eclipse? Of course, the "coincidence" was fully planned and besides being just generally cool and creepy, it may be a clue that eclipses factor into the game's story, which has been previously indicated by promo art.

Nintendo announces the opening of its largest website EVAR...for Europe. Gaming 24:7 baby! Get the first word here.

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NINTENDO UNVEILS NEW OFFICIAL WEBSITE FOR UK

Gaming fans to get VIP 24:7 treatment with new Nintendo site

7 June 2002 - Nintendo, the world's most successful video games company, today announces the launch of its biggest internet experience ever - the new official Nintendo website for the UK.

Reported as big news all over, Nintendo wants to focus on games, rather than hardware.

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Today, Nintendo went public with a sentiment that many have thought would come sooner or later: that today's consoles are as powerul as they need to be, and the company want's to focus on compelling software, and not having the most powerful hardware platform.

It's... Read more...

GameCube's first RPG (or something like it) is finally here.

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Developed by From Software, Lost Kingdoms (or Rune as it's named in Japan) is a card-based RPG with heavy focus on combat. The game is being published by Activision in North America, and it should be on retail shelves this week. Here's the press release with more info:

Legacy of Goku and Dragon Ball Z Collectible Card Game are topping GBA sales charts.

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Infogrames announced today the complete sell-out of their first shipment of Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku for Game Boy Advance. The 300,000 units sold make Legacy of Goku the most successful Infogrames product on a Nintendo platform ever, and the company has ordered 250,000 for its second shipment. (You can reach Jonathan Metts's impressions of an early version via the sidebar link.)

Now that E3 is over, it's time for the Game Critics Awards Best of E3 2002! Check out the newly announced nominees. Of course, we all know that the Louie Awards are more important.

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With E3 done with and everyone given time to relax; it's finally time for the nominees for the Best of E3 2002 awards. So, without further ado, here they are.

Best of Show

DOOM III (PC)

Metroid Prime (GC)

Neverwinter Nights (PC)

The Legend of Zelda (GC)

The Sims Online (PC)

Perhaps it thought that 50,000,001 was just a bit out of its reach.

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Nintendo Sees 50 Million GameCube Sales by 2005

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese video game giant Nintendo Co Ltd said on Thursday it aimed to sell 50 million of its GameCube game consoles globally by March 2005.

It still has a long way to go, however, to catch Sony Corp's PlayStation 2, the dominant home video game platform worldwide with more than 30 million units shipped since its debut in March 2000.

That crazy annelid wants more of your money.

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Majesco's newest Super NES to GBA port, Earthworm Jim 2 was originally developed by Shiny (currently working on Enter the Matrix). Although Jim's first appearance on GBA was developed internally by Pipe Dream Interactive, Majesco has commissioned the sequel to a company called Super Empire. The game should be in stores later this week for the new standard GBA software price, $29.95.

Bomberman Generation for GameCube and both Bomberman Max 2 games for GBA are headed to retail shelves.

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IT'S BOMBS AWAY AS MAJESCO SHIPS 'BOMBERMAN' TITLES FOR NINTENDO GAMECUBE(tm) AND GAME BOY(r) ADVANCE

Critically Acclaimed Franchise Returns With Timeless Game Play

EDISON, NJ, June 04, 2002 - The beloved Bomberman is back and explodes this month as Majesco,... Read more...

You are not ready.

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Click Here. (5.37mb Windows Media)

A round up of the recent news updates on the website of Nintendo Japan including Memory Card 251’s release date, financials, and 2 services to be discontinued.

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In addition to E3 and the stepping down of Yamauchi Hiroshi, there has been quite a lot of news with Nintendo in Japan.

First off, Nintendo announced that the Memory Card 251 will be released alongside Mario Sunshine on July 19. The Memory Card 251 will retail at 2000 yen (around $16 US). On a side note, the Wave Bird controller has not yet to receive a release date.

For all you World Cup heads out there, Electronic Arts has begun simulating the entire World Cup 2002. Check out the preliminary results...

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If you're following the World Cup in Japan and Korea, you might want to check out the results of how a PC and PS2 (damn you EA, always blowing off Nintendo) played out the world cup. Dig it...

With the release of EA SPORTS' 2002 FIFA World Cup game, we now have the... Read more...

Nintendo has released a statement that their Lawson Loppi rewrite system (known as Nintendo Power) will be ending on August 31st.

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The Lawson service, which allows consumers to write Super Famicom or Game Boy Color games onto flash cartridges, will end on August 31st. From September 1st and onwards, Nintendo will be accepting returns of the cartridges for refund. They will stop selling flash cartridges for the Super Famicom and Game Boy (known as Super Famicom Memory Cassette and Game Boy Memory Cassette) on June 30th.

...in the U.S. - find out what the deal is with the cutest little hamster EVER!

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Cartoon Network will be running Hamtaro twice every weekday starting today! Check your local listings for details.

Mostly PS2 titles, but Nintendo's animals and giants are still hanging on.

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PS2 titles dominated the charts with Square's Final Fantasy XI taking the number

one spot. Nintendo is still in a drought of games for the GameCube, which explains

its lack of presence in the top 10. However, Animal Crossing is still holding

on to the 16th spot since its release half a year ago. Kyojin no Doshin resurfaced

We've been talking about it for over a week. Now you can read the entire Nintendo developer roundtable transcript, including PGC's contribution!

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GameSpot has finished transcribing last week's Nintendo developer roundtable discussion, in which Miyamoto, Iwata, and Tezuka, along with translator Bill Trinen, talked about the GameCube E3 lineup and answered a few questions from the media.

Naturally, PGC was there... Read more...

UPDATED: UK developer Codemasters announces several titles for GameCube to be released in 2003.

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Update: We have confirmed through Codemasters PR that all these games are being released in North America, even the extremely European-sounding Club Football. Of course, they're still being released in Europe too, as you'd expect with any Codemasters games.

Codemasters... Read more...

Say it ain’t so Mario?! Reports from various sources say that it’s likely Spaceworld will not take place this year. Get the first details right here.

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Planet GameCube has learned that Nintendo will probably not have a Spaceworld Exposition this fall. According to sources Nintendo is realizing more and more how global E3 is, and has decided to pull the event. This has yet to be confirmed by Nintendo.

During our E3 interview with Beth Llewelyn, Director of Public Relations for Nintendo of America, we asked about the status of Spaceworld:

Would you believe Miyamoto's people are working full-time on Metroid Prime?

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During the Nintendo developer's roundtable at E3 last week, PGC's own Jonathan Metts (that's me) got to ask Shigeru Miyamoto about his specific involvement with Metroid Prime. His answer was more than a little surprising.

First, Miyamoto-san described his level of involvement with the game as being "very high".