Nintendo colours Pokémon Advance
Say hello to Ruby and Sapphire
The interminable Pokémon franchise is to receive its next boost in the shape of Pokémons Ruby and Sapphire, owners Nintendo have announced, and the games are to be made available in Japan on November 21st, with the promise of a European appearance before the end of 2003. As with previous Poké-duets, Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire will differ from one another largely in terms of creature content. Owners of both games will be able to build up the biggest army of the cute and cuddly warriors imaginable - until the next pairing anyway. Confirming the deal, Nintendo's David Gosen announced that the GameBoy Pokémon series "has sold over 23 million units across Europe alone." In a further display of might, it was pointed out that Pokémon is now the biggest videogames franchise of all time, with over 31,000 individual licenses worldwide. Nintendo: keeping lawyers busy and away from your children. Yesterday Nintendo wouldn't be drawn on too many details of the new Advance iterations of Pokémon, but we get the impression that fans won't be disappointed. After all, ignoring the sheer volume of the things for a second, Pokémon GameBoy games are uniformly excellent, and if you enjoyed the others, Nintendo's penchant for sending out poorly detailed screenshots during a game's development shouldn't put you off these ones. Related Feature - Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire screenshots (GBA)