Mario Gamecube U.S. release date!
 

Nintendo updated with some new release dates:

June 24th:
Eternal Darkness
Memory Card 251 ($19.99)
Wave Bird Wireless Controller ($39.99)

August 26th:
Super Mario Sunshine

Star Fox Adventures is listed as a fall release.

source:
Planet Gamecube

A first-party memory card bigger than 59 blocks? Sweet!

Also, the price on the Wavebird is nice, only five bucks more than the standard controller.

Woohoo! Thats my birthday! Maybe, if my wife loves me, I'll be getting Mario for my b-day!


Guess I gotta get a gamecube first.

I've heard it called a lot of things, but never "Mario." But hey, whatever floats your boat. ;)

rotfl

Call it what you will - "Mario" - whatever gets that little Italian plumber to clean the pipes.

Finally --the Mario game that would have been ideal for launch.

It's great to hear that Mario has a release date but I'm also excited about June 24th -- that's going to be one happy, albeit expensive, day.

great prices on the mem card and controller.

dont forget bout wrestlemania!

Maybe by August I should get a Gamecube! What is the expected release for Metroid Prime?

I love how both Wrestlemania X8 and Star Fox are featured in Nintendo's newest commercials and atleast one of them doesn't even have a set release date yet. Talk about deceptive advertising.
Edit-In fairness, it doesn't say available now for any of the games, but to play devil's advocate it also doesn't say anything about coming soon :)

The mere mention of a concrete release date for Mario Sunshine has many people scrambling for their own GCs. Just think what exclusive titles like Zelda, Metroid, Eternal Darkness (depending on how that turns out), the US release of Resident Evil, various Rare games, etc. will do for the system's fanbase. A bigger fanbase means increased everything for us day one supporters. The Gamecube has arrived!!! :)

Only thing that doesn't make sense is the new memory card. I mean, they will have many people buy it just because it is official, although a superior card exists for the same price (although such cards are typically more faulty). When people that aren't as brand loyal compare the features, the Interact is the easy choice at that price point. Just get the SD thing out already...

It is pretty sad to see Nintendo doing this. But in reality, its what people want. People want Nintendo to start competing more directly with Sony and MS, two companies that employ this tatic.

On one hand you can say Nintendo is finally competing head on, on the other you can wish they would take the high ground like they had previously.

Another way of looking at this is this: Nintendo put Starfox on the GC box, it may be a method of letting unconnected gamers that it is coming.

The Interact card sells for $29.99, $10 more than Nintendo's proposed price point. Also, nobody makes higher quality products than Nintendo. So which card is the best choice again?

If your only criteria is memory/$$$ ratio, then yes the Interact card is superior. However, my main criteria in getting a memory card is reliability and I will always trust a first-party component rather than something reverse-engineered by another company. As I said in another thread, it's not much of a value if the card fries all of your data. You might as well not buy a card at all in that case.

I have never had anything but trouble with Interact products, so I will definitely wait for the official Nintendo memory card.

You are absolutely right. I wasn't even thinking when I wrote that, which is strange since I just shelled out $30 for mine a few weeks ago. So that's 500 official blocks in two cards for $40 as opposed to 1000+ unofficial blocks for $30. Pretty fair exchange, I guess. In an ideal world, I would stick with all official accesories, but the fact remains that I'm a broke college student, and the Interact card suits me just fine for cheaper.

glad to hear about the memory card. i guess there's no word on the SD memory adapter i read about so long ago?

sweeeeeeeeeet. It'sa me Mario!!!!! Clearly can't wait for this one. Hmmmmmm A week or so before class starts......I should be able to knock it off in time before class. Awesome...can't like games get in my GPA way;) I will always remember the fate of Tribes...Freshmen year haha 2.5 ouch!

I like that they're finally competing more in line to Sony & Microsoft. Can't wait for Wrestlemania.