Your roundup of everything Gamecube

Welcome one and all to the Gamecube Digest. Well I can't call it the 'Weekly Digest'! There hasn't been one for over 2 mouths! Mark is away so I am going to take over for now � with some faithful help from Conor. You'll only find Gamecube news here, since Wildo will be launching the super-special DS Digest quite soon indeed. So let's just dive right in!

Could we see the Revolution in 2006? Well Reggie Fils-Aime, the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Nintendo, dropped some hints in an interview to IGN earlier this mouth. "Nintendo will bring its next home console, out at roughly the same time as the competition." He also added that they will follow Sony's timetable, in order to provide the new machine before the PlayStation 3. And the latest information and rumours are telling us that the PS3 in hitting homes in 2006! While we would hazard a guess that any rumoured 2006 release for Sony's next home console would be Japan only, or maybe America, at least it means we'll be seeing a lot of the 'Revolution' from Nintendo in the months ahead. E3 should be eventful.

It has been announced by Capcom that it plans in releasing the highly anticipated Resident Evil 4 in Japan on January 27th 2005, but the European date is still stick on Q1 2005. No doubt any RE fans were devastated to learn of the delay (we were still holding onto the thin thread of hope that'd it see a pre-Xmas release), but hey, I'm sure you've got enough games to keep you busy this Christmas. Nintendo has announced new titles that are to be added to the Player's Choice range for Nintendo Gamecube. It's a good line-up actually. We've got more of EA's stable franchises; FIFA 2004, LOTR: Return of the King, MOH: Rising Sun, Harry Potter and NFS: Underground. Sonic's fairly getting into the mood too, with Heroes, Mega Collection and Adventure DX, as well as Billy Hatcher And The Giant Egg, one of the funnest platformers on the Gamecube. For less discerning GC owners there's Finding Nemo, Simpsons: Hit And Run, Enter the Matrix and the latest Crash Bandicoot and Spyro titles. Probably the best game now down to �19.99 is Capcom's Resident Evil Zero, a game with a superb narrative and some sweet visuals.

An impressive 30+ games are now in the Player's Choice range, including: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Soul Calibur II, F-Zero GX and Mario Party 5 and many more 3rd party titles. All for �19.99. Nice.

And for all those cheaper game you'll need a huge memory card! The new memory card for the Gamecube from CodeJunkies will gives you 64mbit of storage space: 16 times the size of a standard memory card. All that and it will come with a USB port which will allow you to connect the memory card to your PC, and using the Datel software you can download game saves from the internet and copy them back to the memory card. There is no date for this yet but there is a price; �19.99.

In encouraging news to all frustrated European fans, Nintendo is going to spend �5 million on its Christmas marketing blitz! This Christmas, Nintendo is set to continue the success that the GameCube has enjoyed throughout 2004 with a 20% lift in year on year sales. A selection of exciting bundles will be launched this Christmas giving more people the excuse to own a Nintendo GameCube. Let's hope the TV ads are better than that horrid Donkey Konga commercial � which is just ammo for Sony fans.

And it is not just Nintendo that to bring out the big numbers! Sega recently said that their 'Big Hitter' of last Christmas; Sonic Heroes (which is now on budget ranges for all consoles) has sold 1 million copies in Europe alone! Those sales certainly crept in through the back door - that's one Super Sonic!

Elsewhere, Nintendo is 'cracking down' on games pirates in America, ordering a temporary ban on those trashy little Nintendo-themed products you always see being sold in kiosks and stalls. It's nice to see them doing something against the evil that is games piracy, although they are bigger fish out there than American kiosks.

Nintendo of Europe was kind enough to sum up some of the releases you may expect in the first three months of 2005. So these are the games you going to want to own after Christmas, great for when you have no money!

January
07: The Legend of Zelda Four Swords (Nintendo)
07: Megaman X Command Mission (Capcom)

February
04: Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (Nintendo)
25: Mario Power Tennis (Nintendo)

March
11: TimeSplitters Future Perfect (EA)
18: Mario Party 6 (Nintendo)
18: Resident Evil 4 (Capcom)
18: Viewtiful Joe 2 (Capcom)

Here's an update on site news before I round off. We've got verdicts on the frankly insane Donkey Konga and Shark Tale, the game based on the recent animated film. We've also got two Public Roundtables, focusing on storytelling in games and the titles that tickle our readers the most. Over at the Staff Roundtable, we take a teary-eyed look at the franchises we went to see revived. Old fogies unite. And we happily present our very first DS game preview; Super Mario 64 DS (what else?).

Well that is it for this time. I think Mark or I will back as the news is rolling in thick and fast.

Bye Bite!