NOA's new president gives Sonic his very own nametag during a visit to Redmond. Picture included!

Today Nintendo of America released a pretty awesome photo of Tatsumi Kimishima, the new president of NOA, welcoming Sonic the Hedgehog to NOA headquarters in Redmond, Washington. Feast your eyes upon this...

What a sight! Nintendo's announcement also mentions that Mario and Sonic have sold a combined total of 175 million games since 1983.

Capcom of Japan puts down talk that its Biohazard (Resident Evil) franchise may yet reach other systems.

You may have heard recent rumors that Capcom could end its exclusive deal with Nintendo for the Biohazard/Resident Evil games if the GameCube doesn't start performing better in Japan. Today, Capcom of Japan firmly trounced those reports. You can see their announcement (in Japanese) at the link above, but here's a translation to English, courtesy of GameCube Europe:

As your wallet can tell you...there was a ton of money dropped on Video Games. Who were the big winners? How'd the big N do?

Video Games, Hardware Sales Hit Record in 2001

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Spurred by the launch of three new game machines, U.S. sales of video games and related hardware reached $9.4 billion in 2001, shattering 1999's record of $6.9 billion and topping the Hollywood box office for the year, according to a report released on Thursday.

Just a few words about our poll that we posted last week, and what you can do to support Planet GameCube!

Hello Planet GameCube Readers!

As you can see, we’ve posted a new advertisement on our site for Pay Pal donations. This is part of our spring fundraising drive. As you know it costs us an arm and a leg to keep Planet GameCube operating at full speed every day of the week. We are trying as hard as we can to get advertising, but even with that, our traffic grows exponentially, as does our bandwidth costs.

Sega is teaming up with Racing Champions to crank out some game-related merchandise.

Racing Champions recently signed a deal with Nintendo to produce collectible figures based on its numerous game franchises. Now Sega has followed suit, signing its own deal ith Racing Champions to release a line of products based on its own gaming series including Sonic The Hedgehog, Virtua Fighter... Read more...

In other surprising news, humans require oxygen to survive.

THQ Announces `Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones' for Game Boy Advance

Exclusive Game Based on ``Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones'' Scheduled to Release Along with Film Premiere

CALABASAS HILLS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 6, 2002-- THQ Inc. today announced ``Star Wars®:... Read more...

So what happened of importance today at Milia? Four new GameCube titles were unveiledand also a new launch title.

A new games developer (since January 1st) Merscom has announced two GameCube titles. These are Darkened Skye and Outlaw Golf. Both games are expected to be aimed at older gamers and are novel approaches to the fantasy and sports genres.

Although Nintendo has not yet approved them it is expected they will be released before the year-end.

I bet you forgot about this GameCube exclusive. See what new goodies have been uncovered.

The Brits over at CVG have scored an interview with Foo Katan, CEO of the developer of Die Hard, Bits Studios. The interview reveals new information, like the game being an FPS, more focus on puzzle elements, and the fact that the game might not be 100% GameCube exclusive after all. It's a good read, so click the link above to read the whole thing, after checking out these exerpts below:

If you thought the screens were odd, check out the package art for the upcoming Japan release of Doubutsu Banchou!

Pre-orders have begun, and the package art for what may be one of the most oddly styled games in Nintendo's history is out. If you haven't forked out the yen for a pre-order slip, you'd better hunt one down now!

Also, check out our Animal Leader preview as well!

Check out the box art for the upcoming Japanese release of Biohazard, aka Resident Evil!!

Game Watch has obtained the package art for the much-anticipated Japan release of Biohazard on March 22!

Many thanks to Game Watch for this great info!

Due to the overwhelming amount of people e-mailing us daily asking about Eternal Darkness's release date, we're clearing this issue up one final time.

ETERNAL DARKNESS IS NOT COMING OUT NEXT WEEK.

Yes, we are aware that on Nintendo site Eternal Darkness is slated for a Feb. 12th release, it is getting pushed back.

As we reported a while ago, the game is still being tweaked, polished, and is not finished yet.

There is NO official release date for Eternal Darkness at this time. Speculation puts the game's release sometime after April.

Post-press conference information about European advertising, demo disks, Mario Sunshine, VCD playback and 2 mystery games!

As expected, David Gosen of NOE and Stephen Bole of Nintendo France gave the launch details which had been previously announced by webcast at the press conference.

New details include the advertising budget for Europe, which is expected to exceed one hundred million Euros (around $87m). 8cm... Read more...

Things are about to get a lot scarier! Ubisoft announces Nightmare Creatures for Q2 2003.

Ubi Soft and Kalisto announce worldwide publishing agreement for Nightmare Creatures 3

Sequel to 2 million selling Nightmare Creatures 1 & 2 set for release on consoles in 2003

5 February 2002 - Developed by Kalisto Entertainment, Nightmare Creatures 3, Angel of Darkness (working title)... Read more...

Wrestlemania X8 is still a few months away, but THQ is keeping us busy with four new games for Nintendo's systems.

Yesterday, THQ announced that it had shipped Sonic Advance, Columns Crown, and Puyo Puyo Pop to retail stores across America. All three games are being published under THQ's GBA co-publishing deal with Sega. Sonic Advance, coincidentally, is the first game released in America to feature GBA/GC connectivity. (The link cable will be released next week alongside Sonic Adventure 2 Battle.)

Electronics Boutique is selling a number of GBA titles for dirt cheap! Get yours now!

In case you haven't had your eyes open, EB is selling some of their GBA software at really good prices through their online store.

Notable among their offerings are Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (Konami) and Frogger's Adventures (Konami) for $19.99, even less than what they're asking for pre-owned copies!

Capcom has announced 2 seperate Biohazard packages for Japan when it releases next month. Zombie killin' importers be alert!

There will be 2 versions of Biohazard released in Japan. You can get Biohazard with or without a memory card. Whether it's a special edition memory card or not is still to be determined. Also the number of blocks Biohazard requires is still unknown.

Pricing of Biohazard is 6800 yen alone, 7800 yen with a memory card.

It may or may not be indicative of anything, but NOA has an interesting poll on its web site...

NOA's GameCube Zelda profile has a poll asking gamers what they think of the "toon-shaded" Zelda. So far the overwhelming majority prefers a realistic look while a decent number claim not to care. It seems Americans don't like the new look as a whole. Shigeru Miyamoto has claimed people are getting... Read more...

Nintendo of Japan updates its web site with more information on the game that Charles Darwin would love to play.

Nintendo of Japan has recently updated their website with information about Doubutsu

Banchou. Most of the information is covered in our preview, but Nintendo

has also released additional screen shots and information. Doubutsu Banchou will utilize 13 blocks of memory. To see more about the game, simply follow the links

Planet GameCube hiring? If you’re reading this from Australia, and have excellent writing skills…read on.

Planet GameCube is looking for an Australian Correspondent. We’re looking for someone currently resides in Australia, and knows and understands everything that’s going on with Nintendo in Australia. You constantly comb the web and other sources for anything and everything Nintendo.

You... Read more...

The industrious folks at Core Magazine have posted an interview with Namco's President, Youichi Haraguchi (translated from Famitsu).

There's not much new info here, but GameCube is mentioned a few times such as in this quote:

Haraguchi-san: As previously announced, we plan to release Soul Calibur 2 simultaneously on all three consoles. Outside of that, we're working on several GameCube titles which are targeted for early 2003.... Read more...