JULY 2003

July 1st 2003:

Although today's site update is rather big, the next couple of months are bound to be a little slow in terms of e-Card releases and e-Reader news, so this seems like the perfect time to start the Game & Watch Design Contest!! Enter the contest with your own Game & Watch creation, and you could win an e-Reader, or other prizes! Click on the Contest!! icon in the sidebar for all the details!
All the e-Cards of the Pokémon-e TCG EX - Ruby & Sapphire series have been added to the e-Card Catalog (pictures and serial numbers will be added shortly), together with the "Groudon ex (002)" promotional e-Card.
The checklist for Pokémon-e TCG EX - Ruby & Sapphire has also been added to the Checklists section (the serial numbers will be added ASAP).
Oh dear! Could it be? This article on the nintendo-europe.com web site gives a list of future game releases, and there is mention that the e-Reader will be released in Europe in November! Even better, it seems that four new NES games on e-Cards are coming in 2004, namely Soccer-e, Ice Hockey-e, F1-e and Volleyball-e! The news seems official, but I'm going to wait for a more proper confirmation before adding these new NES games to the Future Releases section. Special thanks go to Alvaro Riera and Rutger ter Maten for the news! (Note: Pocket IGN reported this piece of news in a recent article, and just so you know, I'm "Insidius". Thanks Craig!) ;-)
At the "Origins 2003" convention, held at the Greater Columbus Convention Center (in Columbus, Ohio) between June 26th and 29th, the new Organized Play manager for Pokémon-e by Nintendo, Dave S., was kind enough to divulge some interesting news: 1) The next Pokémon-e TCG EX series will be called EX - Sandstorm, and it will be released in September. 2) "Eon Ticket" e-Cards will be given away for free at Toys'R'Us locations starting on July 19th. I added the preliminary info about EX - Sandstorm in the Future Releases section.
Still on the subject of future releases, I've decided to add the Pokémon Battle-e cards to that section, since I'm 99.9% sure that the Battle-e series released in Japan (on June 27th) will be released in the US later this year.
A new entry has been added to Pixelboy's Diary. Again, this latest text wasn't written by me, but rather by my good friend Rutger ter Maten.
The news items for June have been moved to the News Archive section.
Hey! I just noticed that the counter at the bottom of the sidebar recently passed 10000 hits! I'd like to use this opportunity to thank all of you, my loyal visitors, for making this site a success! :-)

July 5th 2003:

It's been less than a week and I've already received an entry for the Game & Watch Design Contest! I added it to the Contest Entry Log section, along with a few Q&A items in the F.A.Q. section of the contest page.
Nintendo's official e-Reader site has been updated with new content, most of which is related to Pokémon-e TCG EX - Ruby & Sapphire. I think the NES games section has also been revamped, but I'm not 100% sure. On the front page of the site, you will find a link to an e-Reader survey. It takes less than a minute to fill out, so please perform your cyber-civic duty! ;-)
I received this e-mail from Alexander Ayers:
I updated the Animal Crossing-e Series 1 and Series 4 checklists, as well as the e-Card Catalog with this information. Thanks Alexander!
I also received an e-mail from F-Man, who says he was the 10000th visitor to this site last week. Well, you don't win anything, except my gratitude. ;-P

July 12th 2003:

With the release of Super Mario Advance 4 in Japan earlier this week, some new details came out about the e-Reader features of the game. I would give you all the details right here, but I'm a little pressed for time right now, so I'll just give you the links to two Pocket IGN articles written on the subject: Just click here and here. Also, if you want to see pictures of the japanese e-Cards, you can see them in the latest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine (issue #160, page 32). The picture is a little small, but still adequate. :-) The only bad news is that the US release of the game has been pushed back to October 21st.
A new contest entry has been added to the Game & Watch Design Contest section.

July 18th 2003:

All the scans of the Pokémon-e TCG EX - Ruby & Sapphire e-Cards have been added to the catalog, together with the serial numbers. The same serial numbers have also been added to the checklist in the Checklists section (which has been upgraded to version 1.0 as a result).
A few weeks ago, I reported that the "Groudon ex (002)" promo e-Card was available in the August issue of Scrye magazine and also in issue #170 of Nintendo Power. It turns out that the latest issue of InQuest magazine also offers the "Groudon ex" card.
A new contest entry has been added to the Game & Watch Design Contest section.

July 27th 2003:

Well, as one might expect, things are getting pretty slow on the e-Reader front, and it's bound to stay this way until the end of August. But I do have one small piece of news to report this week: Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire were released in Europe on July 25th, and the Battle-e cards that were included with the japanese and american versions of the games are NOT included in the european version. This may indicate that the "Gentleman Nils" and "Lady Astrid" promo cards will be packed with the e-Reader when it is released in Europe in November, but this has not been confirmed yet. Thanks go to Rutger ter Maten for the news.