JANUARY 2004

January 4th 2004:

IMPORTANT UPDATE! PLEASE READ! For reasons that escape me, I am currently unable to send e-mail to anyone with an "@aol.com" address. So to those AOLers who tried to contact me during the past 24 hours, rest assured that I tried to reply to your messages, but since AOL blocks my replies (apparently for spam-related reasons), I will not try to send any more e-mail to any AOL member until I've received firm confirmation from my internet provider that the problem has been fixed. (Hint: This might be a good time to call AOL and complain...)
According to Pokémon Aaah, the e-Card series compatible with the japanese version of Pokémon Colosseum (for Game Cube) is now out in Japan. Apparently, you can only use these e-Cards once you've beaten the "Story" mode, and these Double Battle-e cards allow you to fight trainers and even capture certain Pokémon. It is not known yet if the same e-Reader features will be included in the american version of the game.
I've been informed that there is one other variant of the "Bagon (50/97)" promo, which I added to the e-Card Catalog. This promo is identical to the Scrye/InQuest/GenCon variants, but this one doesn't have any stamp on it. It does have the "Black Star Promo" symbol at the bottom of the card however. Gosh, how many variants of this "Bagon" promo do we need?
The news items for December 2003 have been moved to the News Archive section.

January 10th 2004:

The card scan of the "Bagon" Gen Con promo has been added to the e-Card Catalog.
Earlier this week, Planet Mega Man reported on some new information concerning the e-Reader features of Mega Man Battle Network 4: There will be 47 cards in the first series (30 "modification" cards and 17 "character" cards) and a second series is supposedly planned. Click here for all the available info. I hope the same e-Reader features will be included in the american version of the game... (Thanks go to Mega Boy for the heads-up!)

January 17th 2004:

I'm not 100% sure, but it would seem I can once again send e-mail to AOL members. So feel free to e-mail me. ;-)
Once again, I've got more news to report this week about the e-Reader support in Mega Man Battle Network 4, courtesy of Planet Mega Man: The first series of cards will be released on February 12th in Japan, and some details have been released in the latest issue of Korokoro magazine about the "modification" cards in this series. Click here to see the full article, and here to see the related magazine scan. Thanks go to Mega Boy for the news!
Earlier this week, I contacted Nintendo in an attempt to get the new release date for Series 3 and 4 of the Super Mario Advance 4-e cards. All I got for an answer was "first quarter of 2004". This may mean that we'll have to wait many more weeks for these cards, so if you're bitting your nails waiting for them, you better stop now or you may not have any fingers left by the time the cards are finally released. Amazon.com says they will be released on January 21st, but somehow I doubt it. Anyway, if I hear anything new, rest assured I'll let you all know. :-)
According to Pokémon Labs, the next expansion set of the Pokémon-e Trading Card Game will be called Pokémon-e EX: Team Aqua & Team Magma. It will feature over 120 cards and will be released next March. I added this information to the Future Releases section.
And speaking of the Future Releases section, I removed the info concerning the Pokémon Channel-e series, because I still don't have any solid evidence that this series is actually coming, and from the bad reviews the Game Cube game received in certain magazines, I'd say the chances of this series of e-Cards being eventually released might be rather slim...
I recently received a message from an anonymous hacker who's apparently been tinkering with his e-Reader, and he showed me something interesting:

This "Construction Escape" game (which is apparently a configurable generic clone of the old Game Boy game Alleyway) is a hidden application built into the e-Reader, like the "Pokémon Melody Box" and the "Pokémon Construction Action" application. I'm not sure if this screenshot is fake or not, but even if this is legit, it doesn't really matter, because I would say the odds of Nintendo ever making e-Cards designed to work with this hidden application are astronomically low...
As a footnote unrelated to the e-Reader, I would like to trade my sealed copy of the GBA game Ninja Five-O for a sealed copy of Activision Anthology (also for GBA). If you can help me with this, please let me know.

January 24th 2004:

To mark the release of "Pokémon Heroes" on DVD, I added the promotional "Latias (014)" and "Latios (015)" e-Cards to the e-Card Catalog. Rest assured I'll have the scans up real soon.
I also added the card scan of the latest "Bagon" promo to the catalog.
I fixed a little rarity rating error in the Pokémon Battle-e checklist (in the Checklists section). The checklist itself is unchanged, I just fixed the note at the top of the file. Thanks go to Mark Raby for pointing this out to me.
Just in case you live in Canada and are considering buying an e-Reader for yourself or someone else, Radio Shack is having a sale right now. I don't know when this sale ends, so you better hop to it. :-)
Okay, I think now should be a good time to set the record straight about something that people have been contacting me about over the last couple of weeks: Yes, I am aware that there are hackers out there who are "studying" the e-Reader, and I know that they found a way to dump the e-Reader data strips into files, etc., etc., but I'm not about to start promoting e-Reader piracy on this web site, so please don't bother me with this. Thanks.
By the way, please disregard last week's offer to trade Ninja Five-O for Activision Anthology on GBA. My good friend Tena was kind enough to buy me a copy of A.A. at her local video game boutique (but unlike the Wal-Mart edition of SMA4 she bought me a few months ago, I'll have to pay for it this time!) ;-P

January 31st 2004:

The card scans of the "Latias" and "Latios" Pokémon-e promos have been added to the e-Card Catalog.
Rumors of the e-Reader being released in Europe in 2004 are once again heating up, following the news reported by GameCube Europe that the "Eon Ticket" e-Card would be included with the next issue of Fox Kids Magazine in Belgium on January 29th (click here to see the article). As it turns out, all you'll find in this magazine is a coupon which you can send to the magazine's HQ along with your copy of Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire, and they will upload the Eon Ticket to your GBA cart, and then send the cart back to you by mail. There's no e-Reader involved, except maybe for the guys who work at the magazine. Thanks go to Mark Raby for the report.
Earlier this week, Capcom held a major press event where the company presented the games that it will release later this year. Among them was Mega Man Battle Network 4, and sadly, there was no mention made of any e-Reader support in the american version of the game, which is scheduled for release this summer. So unless we hear some official news to the contrary, I'd say we should assume that the e-Reader support in MMBN4 will be a Japan-only thing. Bummer...