How is it going? I have been a loyal reader since the dawning of your

site back in 2001! I have a question! Do you feel good about Gamecube's

current performance in the market? I think Gamecube is doing fine! I

looked at some sale ratios for Gameube, and it's doing pretty good,

especially in America. It's not selling more than Xbox or PS2, but the

games are selling like hotcakes, anyways take care, and may we continue to

worship our God, Nintendo!!!!

I'm not sure which games you think are selling like hotcakes. Even Resident Evil 4 sold...well, not that great considering how amazing the game is. It took the game five months to sell half a million units, according to Capcom's own figures. Other big name GameCube titles like Metroid Prime 2: Echoes sold even worse...much worse. I expect Zelda to do very well this holiday season, and Pokemon XD is a solid bet, but I don't see much chance for any other GameCube titles to really break out with huge sales. But hopefully several good titles will perform decently well and prove that there is still an audience for GameCube software. After all, we've still got several months after Zelda before the Revolution will be ready, so publishers need to feel that it's worth releasing a few GameCube titles during that time or else we Nintendo fans will have to stick with handhelds for new releases.

Hey Windy, I heard you might be defecting to Planet GameCube! I hope this is totally untrue, because I love your daily GameCube Q&A, Nintendo Nation 4evar!1

-TheYoungerPlumber

Heh, nice one. For those who don't know, Steven "WindyMan" Rodriguez used to do a great job running the daily Q&A section for NintendoNation, before that site imploded and we stole their most talented staff members. Windy was my top pick to revive the PGC mailbag, but he's too busy with his real job to do it consistently, so you get me instead.

Hay guys.

So I've been a pretty hardcore DDR player for about a

year now, but have never really been able to play at

home because it conflicts with my hardcore Nintendo

fanboyism (meaning I don't have a PS2 or XBox, cannot

play home versions). So as you could probably guess

I've been looking forward very much to Mario Mix.

My only concern with it is the pad. As an upper heavy

player, it becomes very difficult for me to play on

thin, feeble pads like the one shown to us a few

months back. So I spose my question is: Will there be

other Gamecube pads for me to use? Do they make PS2 to

Gamecube adaptors I'll have to find? Or am I stuck

with that thin little scrap?

You're right, the official Konami pad that comes with DDR Mario Mix is VERY thin. Konami has never offered a superior alternative for their PS2 dancing games, so I don't expect that they will on GameCube either, but all hope is not lost. Third-party accessory companies may well see a market for something better if the game sells well. Furthermore, there are indeed PS2-to-GC controller adaptors that will probably work just fine for DDR Mario Mix. We won't be sure until the game is out and can be tested with various PS2 pads, but that won't be long now. I'm expecting the Japanese version to arrive at my door any day. The only adaptor I've tried is Nyko's PlayCube, which does a great job and can be found at most mall gaming stores for about five bucks. I was able to use it successfully to play the dancing mini-game in Shark Tale (GC) with my PS2 dancing pad, so I'm predicting no problems with DDR. Hopefully all the high-quality metal pads and Red Octane thick foam pads will work just as well as my cheap knock-off.

There is this game that is out called: "Knights of the Temple". I am a history major and I am perticularly obsessed with European Midievil history (And to narrow it down even more, I am totally obsessed with knights). So here's the problem, this game, aparently, is alright out in Europe, yet it is not out in the states.

Now I begin to ask my questions: 1. Is this game going to come out in the States?

2. If no, than is there a free loader that can play European games on US gamecubes? (I know there's one that allows you to play from Japan on American consoles).

I heard it was a mediocre game, but I don't care. They seldomly make games about knights, I want this one!

Please answer this one.

Charles

1. I have to admit, I've never even heard of this game, and I generally stay on top of U.S. game announcements. That leads me to think that the game will stay in Europe.

2. Datel's Freeloader disc is all-region, so yes, it will let you play European (PAL) games on your U.S. (NTSC) GameCube. There's no guarantee it will work on every single game, but it seems to be compatible with the vast majority of GameCube titles. However, I've heard that the PAL>NTSC conversion is buggier than the more straightforward Japan>U.S. conversion (both Japan and the U.S. use the NTSC television format). You may want to check around online to see if anyone else has tried this game with the Freeloader. By the way, there are other GameCube titles with knights. Konami's King Arthur comes to mind, although it's not great either. And of course, Nintendo's own Fire Emblem for GameCube comes out later this year. It's chock full of knights and wizards.

I have some questions that I've been thinking about.

1.) Do you think Metroid Prime 3 will have Online Multiplayer?

2.) Is WWE: Day of Reckoning 2 coming out the 29th of August. Since its

not on your site and other sites say the 29th/30th.

3.) Do you think Nintendo will change their mind and support HD? They

don't have to have the HD thing built in. It can come seperately like

the DVD feature.

4.) Which REV games you think would look good in HD? I think Metroid

Prime 3 (omg, that'd be 100% awesome) and The Legend of Zelda.

P.S. Great site. I like the previews and such.

1.) If MP3 has any multiplayer at all, it will be very different from the multiplayer mode in Echoes. I think people at Nintendo and Retro got the feedback from players that multiplayer in Echoes was neat but not very important compared to the single-player adventure. Plus, Metroid Prime: Hunters now has multiplayer deathmatching pretty much covered for the Metroid franchise.

2.) That's strange that we didn't have a date for it, and I'm glad you pointed it out. EB Games says 8/29, so we'll go with that until I hear otherwise from THQ.

3.) Well, HD capability depends on the graphics processor as I understand it, so I think Revolution would at least have to be set up for future HD expansion...it doesn't seem like the kind of thing Nintendo could retrofit without any initial preparation. Do I think Nintendo will change their minds? It's certainly possible, given the amount of time before Revolution comes out and the volume of dissent from some Nintendo fans. At this point though, we don't even know for a fact what Nintendo is currently planning to support (480p, widescreen, etc.).

4.) I think most any game would look good in HD. That's the point of HD, to look good. But some games look almost as good even without HD, depending on how they're designed.

P.S. Thanks! Summer is preview time, so there will be a lot more in the next few weeks. We try to update most of our previews before review season officially starts in the fall.

Keep those letters coming!