About Nintendo World Report
Nintendo World Report's beginning would technically be March 7, 1999. This was the day Billy Berghammer decided to use his free webspace on NConnect Internet Services and whip something up with Microsoft Front Page 98. Back in the early days of the Nintendo 64, Billy had worked on the N64HQ, one of the earliest and most legendary N64 sites on the Internet. The site closed, and he decided to take some time off from video game journalism. At this time, Billy had plenty of free time on his hands because he had been let go from his job a month prior. Unemployment can sometimes be a beautiful thing. Thus, N2000HQ was born.
The plan was for N2000HQ to be a news site that could be updated easily and cover absolutely everything that had to do with Nintendo's Dolphin (GameCube) and Atlantis (Game Boy Advance) projects. However, Billy soon discovered that the N2000HQ.com domain was already taken, so he had to come up with a new name and get a new domain to match it. The main goal was to be the first next-generation Nintendo news site on the Internet to cover these systems from beginning to end, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, worldwide. With that in mind, PlanetN2000 was created in the spring of 1999.
A month or so later, OperatioN2000 closed up shop. This by far was the best Dolphin site on the Internet, which had been started by Justin Nation about the same time as the N2000HQ began. Billy had also worked there, and he asked Justin if he could move the OPN2000's content over to PlanetN2000. Justin obliged and became a member of the staff, as did a few other people from the closing site. Yet, most of the staff was rather skeptical that PlanetN2000 would go anywhere. In the following months, the site built up a solid readership. When other major Dolphin fansites like Dolphin Cove and NintendoNation shut down, traffic increased even more. After attending our first E3 in 2000, and later that year, Spaceworld in Japan to witness first-hand the unveiling of the Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy Advance, hits and bandwidth consumption went through the roof. At that time, our free webserver host decided it was time we found a new home.
On March 7th, 2001, (our two year birthday) we closed up shop at PlanetN2000. In anticipation of Nintendo's new home console, we rechristened the site Planet GameCube. During the early years of the GameCube and Game Boy Advance era, PGC grew to become the largest independent Nintendo news and information website on the Internet, with over 20 staff members on four continents. As other multiplatform sites began charging for premium editorial content and forums access, we bucked the trend and insisted on providing all of our content free of charge, while funding the site through advertising, merchandise sales, and even out of our own pockets.
In April 2003, not long after the site's fourth birthday, Billy Berghammer accepted a job with Game Informer Magazine and had to say goodbye to PGC. He handed the site over to Jonathan Metts, who had joined the staff in the summer of 2000 after meeting Billy at the E3 Expo. Jonny got his start in the industry by creating his own Nintendo site, The Nformant, in early 1999. After joining the staff of PlanetN2000, he quickly rose through the ranks, going from Staff Writer to Previews Editor to Senior Editor to Managing Editor, before eventually being awarded the Director's chair.
When Nintendo first hinted at their next new console at E3 2004, later to be codenamed Revolution, we had come to realize that we couldn't call ourselves Planet GameCube forever. One thing was for sure, we knew we wanted a name that was not tied to any specific platform. We quietly applauded this decision when Nintendo revealed the Wii name to a dumbfounded Nintendo community the week before E3 2006. By then, the staff was toiling over candidates, and with the release of the console looming, we settled on a new name.
In November of 2006, PGC became Nintendo World Report. Just in time for the release of the Nintendo Wii, we recommitted ourselves to bring readers everything there is to know about Nintendo games. The GameCube and GBA coverage that carried the site for more than seven years lives on in the new generation, with Wii and Nintendo DS now dominating the Nintendo scene. NWR contains all of the archived content from the OperatioN2000, PlanetN2000, and Planet GameCube incarnations of the site, giving readers the opportunity to re-live the moments of our past, as well as the news of the future!
The experienced Nintendo World Report staff members have written for many publications, including N64HQ, 64 Source, NintendoNation, Next-Generation Magazine, Nintendo Gamer Australia, America Online, Fusion's Intelligent Gamer, Prima's N64 Guide, AOL Critics Choice, GamePro, and many others. We have been also been featured in major publications such as USA Today, MSNBC, CNN, CNN Asia, Famitsu, 64 Dream, and BBC Online. Staffers have also gone on to careers in the gaming industry for companies like THQ, LucasArts, G4, and Game Informer, just to name a few.
In the months leading up to the Nintendo World Report launch, Jonathan Metts decided to cut back on his workload in order to continue his college studies. About the same time as the Nintendo World Report launch, he passed the torch to Steven Rodriguez, who has been a part of the NWR staff since 2002. Steven has been a part of the Nintendo website scene since 1999, when he made a name for himself by updating the NintendoNation mailbag every day for an entire year. This tradition lives on today, where he can be spotted answering reader questions in the NWR Mailbag every week. In addition to his postal duties, Steven was News Editor of the site before becoming Director.
We hope you enjoy Nintendo World Report, and we thank you for your continued support and feedback.
Sincerely,
The Nintendo World Report Staff
