Ending weeks of speculation, Sega officially announced today three new Sonic the Hedgehog titles, and much to the chagrin of anxious Sony and Microsoft fanboys, they're all for Nintendo systems. Specifically announced were a new Sonic Adventure and the Sonic Mega Collection for GameCube, and Sonic Advance 2 for Game Boy Advance. I'm eager to hear more about the Sonic Mega Collection...my early guess is that it'll consist of the Mega Drive (AKA Genesis) games, and none of the others that showed up afterwards. Since none of those were particularly good (except possibly Sonic R) I can't say I mind much.

	Sakura in America? Also announced by Sega today was a whopping five new Sakura Taisen games, two of which are being targeted for "a worldwide audience." While none of them have ever come out over here, Sakura is Sega's biggest franchise after Sonic in Japan, so weird as it may be, it's about time they brought it over here (it remains to be seen how much dating Americans can tolerate in their RPGs though).
	Mark Your Calendars August 13th is definitely one to watch...EA announced today that Madden 2003 will ship for all systems on that day, and in a totally different genre, Duke Nukem Advance will come out as well. And don't forget -- that's a mere two weeks before Super Mario Sunshine comes out!
	BloodRayne Movies Team Xbox has posted new movies from BloodRayne, the spiritual successor to Nocturne, a PC title from a few years back (which also spawned three pseudo Blair Witch sequels).
	Q Cheap To go along with the price drop of the GameCube system, Panasonic has lowered the price of their Q hybrid DVD/GameCube to ~$290. This system has become the importer's dream, as it is easily modified to play any region games and movies (although it's still too expensive to be worth it IMHO).
	Haven Previews GameSpot and IGN have new previews of the upcoming action game Haven: Call of the King online tonight.
	Bounty Hunter Shots New shots from LucasArts' Bounty Hunter can be found at Computer and Video Games this evening.
	Ghouls n' Ghosts Trailer Also at CvG is a trailer from Capcom's Super Ghouls n' Ghosts remake for GBA.
	GT Concept 2001 Preview While it probably won't come out here, GT Concept 2001 is set to be released in Europe this week, so GameSpot has posted their impressions of the game.
	Sony Loses Cash Not even the might of Sony can avoid the economic turmoil these days...the company announced a loss of 5 billion yen for the first fiscal quarter.
	Purty PS2s One way they can attempt to recoup some of that loss is of course by releasing limited edition PS2 systems in Japan. These come with a vertical stand and DVD remote in addition to the translucent console.

Console Game of the Evening: Double Dragon for the Atari 2600. Yep, you read that right...when Atari attempted to bring back the 2600 to compete with NES and SMS, Activision ported a handful of recent games to the aging hardware, including this one. Suffice to say, it doesn't resemble the original in the slightest. It's an admirable attempt though.