Reading GameCube Weekly and I found this, can anyone back this up?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>[ Super Mario Sham ]

Several secret sources close to the... source, are
telling me that not all is what it appears to be with
Super Mario Sunshine. Following the vicious Zelda hate
that spread on the internet, Miyamoto is doing something
different with Mario. What we're seeing in screenshots,
and on video of the new Mario game is not what's really
there. Not only are these visuals several months old,
they don't represent the style we'll be seeing at E3.



>>[ Sega Gets Cold Feet ]

Following the dramatic drop off in Xbox sales in Japan,
Sega developers are rethinking their Xbox exclusives.
Even with MS flat out offering to pay for development,
some studios are wondering if they aren't being led off
a cliff. Expect some exclusives to become "premiering on
Xbox" instead at E3.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyone heard anything else?

i wouldn't be suprised by the mario news... it seems like all the screen shots are from the same level/board.....


maybe they do have something up their sleeves... or it could be that they don't want to show too much before E3...

When is E3?

middle of may i think

May 22-24, Wednesday-Friday because of the Memorial Day weekend.

I highly doubt the Mario rumors but I kinda believe the SEGA ones.

While I'll doubt that we'll see a drastically different Mario at E3, I almost guarantee you it will be better than the screens that have came out so far. Reports have said that the textures in the game are just filler and are actually textures from Mario 64, so they are likely either hiding something, or just want to save how good the game really looks for E3. Who knows?

As for the Sega MS thing. That is definitely possible. Sega is a Japanese company. They are going to be turned off from making games exclusive to the X-box if continues to sell poorly over their. I imagine most of the games will still come out as exclusives as long as the sell well over here. Maybe some of the games will be multiplatform in Japan and X-box exclusive in the U.S.?

Planetgamecube reported that the textures you've seen in recent Mario Sunshine pics are merely 'filler' textures taken from Mario 64 and that the final game will look much, much better.

But IGN debunked that in a recent chat. Apparently they're not placeholders at all.

But that was IGN...

In Miyamoto's recent multi country rip through Europe to promote the GC, he commented that he's "deliberately hiding much of Mario form the public until E3".
He also commented that the textures were place holders ( I didn't read the IGN article so I don't know who said it) , but that he was intentionally trying to make the game look more like an "evolution" of Mario64 instead of an entirely new look.

In addition he mentioned that so far all the screen shots have been of the first section of the game. In fact not just the first section but the VERY first part of the level.

Oh and he's suggested that the "water" gun isn't limited to just water.