Hello folks and welcome to another 'exciting' edition of the weekly digest, Cube-Europe's exclusive retrospective look back at the last seven days in the world of Nintendo. Welcome to you all- whether you're receiving this by email, or via C-E itself. Incidentally, you can have this very article delivered to your inbox on a weekly basis- just input your email address into the form on the main C-E page, and you're away.

Anyway, there is certainly no shortage of news to get stuck into this week,. And where better a place to start than the Zelda Collector's Edition disk on Nintendo Europe's infamous Stars Catalogue. A mere few hours was all it took for the disk to sell out completely (there were 500 in total up for grabs) but at the somewhat extortionate price of 4500 stars, not far off the price of the GB Player(!) but then look what you're getting for your (albeit virtual) 'money'. The original Zelda in all its glory, its side-scrolling sequel, the timeless Ocarina of Time, and the splendid Majora's Mask, along with a demo of the Wind Waker. A couple of documentaries top the package off. Could it be a nice little collector's piece for the future? You never know. I'm eagerly awaiting my own, that's for sure�I'll let you all know what it's like when it arrives.

This week the fascinating Donkey Konga music title and its Conga Drum controller will hit the shelves in Japan. Until now, Nintendo had not mentioned an American or European release for the game. Until now, that is. However, Nintendo has confirmed with us that it currently is working on a western version of the game. We are told that 32 different songs are currently being selected for the American and European versions. The release date still remains unclear as it heavily depends on the music license required for all the different songs. Great news though, and we'll be keeping an even closer eye on what is sure to be one of the highlights of 2004.

Now this is getting ridiculous. According to various sources SCi will announce this week it has signed up the rights to the latest game developed by Toby Gard, the creator of Lara Croft and the original Tomb Raider game. Toby Gard quit his job as lead designer at Core Design, the developer of Tomb Raider, in 1997 after a row about the "sexing up" of Lara. Since then Gard has spent years (and we do mean years) developing Galleon, a new game which he believes is "his best yet". Galleon is 'due' to be 'released' in 'Spring 2004' first on Xbox, and a 'bit later' on GameCube and PS2. Head on over to our preview for more info on this action adventure game: Galleon Preview. Have you ever seen so many apostrophes in a sentence? Frankly, I'll believe Galleon has been released when I see it with my own eyes- and no sooner.

Now, here's a nice Christmas heart warmer of a story for you. After rocketing up the charts the past several weeks, the Nintendo GameCube has now officially reached No. 1 -- it's America's top-selling home video game console, according to direct sales data from the nation's leading retailers. The Nintendo GameCube sold more than half a million systems to consumers during Thanksgiving week, easily surpassing its console competitors. Among all game devices, it trailed only Nintendo's portable Game Boy Advance, which sold almost 600,000 units to U.S. buyers during the week. "All along, our business plan for this year was to maximize consumer interest and sales during the fourth quarter," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "But frankly, we're overwhelmed by how successful we've been. Our price cut of Nintendo GameCube has ignited sales to the degree that it may turn out to be the best-selling console for the entire month of November. We're tracking to sell more systems in the last eight weeks of the year than we did in the previous 10 months combined." Well, fair play to Ninty- but George, don't go pretending this was your plan all along, please...

After extensive polling it has been found out what games people like, and what games people don't like. A joint survey commissioned by ELSPA (the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association, acronym fans) found the UK's top 30 games. The top five games voted most popular by the public are: Sonic the Hedgehog, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Pac-Man, Tomb Raider and Space Invaders. Here are the top ten for you reading enjoyment:

1 -1991- Sonic the Hedgehog
2 -1998- The Legend of Zelda : Ocarina of Time
3 -1983- Pac-Man
4 -1996- Tomb Raider (Lara Croft)
5 -1980- Space Invaders
6 -1997- Final Fantasy VII
7 -1985- Elite
8 -1985- Super Mario
9 -1998- Half-Life
10 -2002- GTA: Vice City

Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire come with bugs, as well as bug Pokémon. Eh? Well, here's the problem- The glitches in the game are caused by malfunctions in the cartridges internal clock. According to reports, time-dependant dates -such as the lottery tickets and berry growing, are being affected by the malfunction which occurs sometime after a year has passed in the internal clock. Nintendo has asked Japanese gamers to send their cartridges into the nearest Nintendo service centre for a free repair. Deleting saved games will NOT help to negate the problem as it is an internal error. No news whether or not this will have a similar effect on European gamers, but Nintendo has said that there are no problems with Pokemon Colosseum as a result of this glitch in the GBA games. Not really a huge problem, especially considering that Ninty almost entirely axed the real-time feature from the last set of GBC Pokemon games�

Acclaim, eh? What will they think of next? According to reports, Acclaim have begun preparations for a brave (read: attention grabbing) new marketing campaign to promote their newest offering "Gladiator: Sword Of Vengeance". Dubbed 'bloodvertising', this new method involves placing 'blood packs' in posters for the game on the streets equipped with that will ooze out time-released red liquid onto the posters and the streets. Preparing for this, Acclaim have hired cleaners to monitor the posters and ensure that hygiene and safety laws are maintained on the streets. Acclaim are clearly now spending more energy on 'wild' and 'innovative'marketing campaigns which are entirely disconnected from gaming to promote their wares. No such thing as bad publicity, Acclaim? Think again.

Sega have announced that Sonic Heroes is to ship early in America. But not only will it ship early on January 5th but it will ship for the Nintendo Gamecube only on this date, which is a full three weeks before the January 27th Stateside release on the Xbox and Playstation 2. No word yet whether Sega will repeat the trick for the European release, but its fairly doubtful. Speaking of Sega, the company has recently announced -along with its partner in crime THQ- two new Sonic the Hedgehog games for GBA. Entitled Sonic Battle and Sonic Advance 3, the latter title will presumably follow in the none-too-shabby footsteps of its two predecessors. It suffices to say that Sega have said that both of the games are set for an early 2004 release in North America, so we can assume an approximate early Summer release over here.

Well, that's your lot for this week, digesters. Emails and comments to the usual address- that's [email protected] if you didn't know by now- and I'll get back to you soon as possible.

Sl�n anois!
Mark Cullinane