Laruent Fischer will be filling in the role formerly held by Jim Merrick.

When Jim Merrick announced that he'd be coming back to Nintendo of America from its European counterpart (before leaving the company altogether), Nintendo didn't say who'd be taking over for the marketing maestro. According to 1Up, Laurent Fischer is up for the job.

Formerly the marketing director for France, he had this to say:

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

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... Read more...

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... Read more...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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... Read more...

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... Read more...

Nintendo’s spokesman reaffirms Nintendo’s affordable pricing with a tangible figure.

In an interview with News.com, Nintendo Vice President Reggie Fils-Aime discusses his company’s New Year’s resolutions.

Most significantly, Reggie reiterates that Nintendo’s new console will be affordable at less than $300.

Since you mentioned pricing, I assume the Revolution will be accessible to gamers for substantially less than $700?

An interview doesn't really reveal anything new, but you're still going to read it anyway, aren't you?

Revolution Report was doing the rounds at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, and caught up with John Swinimer of ATI.

The conversation that followed was about ATI's involvement with the Hollywood graphics chip that will help to power Nintendo's upcoming Revolution console. Here's a passage from the interview:

Nintendogs Nintendo's best nominated game; Resident Evil 4 notably absent.

The Academy for Interactive Arts and Sciences have revealed the finalists for the ninth annual Interactive Achievements awards. The awards celebrate the best videogames of the year, as voted on by industry peers. The ceremony will take place at the Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel and Casino on February 9.

Presenters at the awards ceremony will get a little something to play with after the show.

The Golden Globe Awards are Hollywood's warm-up performance to the Academy Awards that will take place later this year. Just about everyone in Hollywood from television and film was in attendence.

Award presenters for the ceremony receive a gift package valued at over $62,000 for their troubles. Among the items included are a $22,000 trip to the Antarctic, a $15,000 tour of a Canadian diamond mine, and $1,250 pair of jeans.

Yuji Horii comments on the controller's interactive potential.

At a London press event for the European release of Dragon Quest VIII on PS2, the creator of the RPG series mentioned his feelings about the Revolution controller. From Eurogamer:

I like the idea of interactivity with the hardware, so there, where you mention the Nintendo controller, it's a... Read more...

Capcom reveals the first original DS game for the Blue Bomber.

Following its debut in a Japanese magazine this week, Rockman ZX now has its own official website (in Japanese). Rockman is the Japanese name for the character known elsewhere as Mega Man, and this is his first original game for Nintendo DS.

The website doesn't have much information yet, but... Read more...

Move along, nothing to see here.

You may have heard rumors this week that Nintendo is about to announce the widely expected redesign for its Nintendo DS system. However, Nintendo of America has issued this statement:

"Clearly, Nintendo DS continues to be one of the most popular and talked-about video game systems available.... Read more...

Hop online and get yours now!

4 Color Rebellion has discovered a nice little gift from Nintendo in Animal Crossing Wild World. Fans who log on to Nintendo WiFi Connection can receive a letter and present from Nintendo's president, Satoru Iwata. To get the present follow these simple steps.

Go talk to Copper and tell him you want to sign on to Nintendo WFC.

The man who liked talking about Nintendo's plans more than anyone else won't be doing it anymore.

Jim Merrick has been working for Nintendo for almost 12 years, and today he's calling it quits. The former marketing head of Nintendo Europe was slated to return to Nintendo of America, but apparently he had second thoughts and decided to leave altogether.

The official company line? "After... Read more...