Doctor Who Theme in Mario Paint

“This video is bigger on the inside.”

I used to love Mario Paint. (via)

Kotaku - New Nintendo Release Exacerbates Lefty Gamers' Lament - Art style: base 10

New Nintendo Release Exacerbates Lefty Gamers’ Lament

DS game Base 10 is reportedly unplayable by lefties.

Innovative Nintendo game help system to debut this year

Innovative Nintendo game help system to debut this year

I actually really like this idea. I hate giving up on a game I paid good money for, but no matter how hard they try, there will be frustrating levels that you just want to skip.

News: Nintendo Channel Reveals Hard Truths About Wii Play, Boom Blox, More

News: Nintendo Channel Reveals Hard Truths About Wii Play, Boom Blox, More

Looks like this could be a very effective way to see what games are worth your time.

Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo Expands His Empire

Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo Expands His Empire

Nice New York Times profile of Miyamoto.

Dr. Mario Online RX Hits North American WiiWare

Dr. Mario Online RX Hits North American WiiWare

My family plays a vicious breed of Dr. Mario on our old NES whenever we’re home. Now it’s finally on Wii with online play.

WiiWare: Anti-Consumer Out of the Gate?

With its very first big title, Nintendo has already set a bad precedent for its WiiWare service. Square Enix’s Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A King costs $15 to download, but you only get one playable army. To get the rest, you’ll have to pay $1-3 for each extra feature. This was an issue with Lumines on XBOX Live a year-and-a-half ago. I believe in that case you had to buy four different products to get the entire game. Arguably you can look at it along the rationalization that you only have to pay for features you want, but most people saw it very plainly as nickel and diming. Nintendo should have seen that happen and avoided it for WiiWare, but they were probably too busy back then not manufacturing enough Wiis to care (or perhaps swimming in piles of DS money). Offering bona fide extra content for a fee is fine, but selling an under-featured game and expecting players extra for stuff that should have come in the box is not. Developers can levy whatever arguments they’d like about what content justifies coming in the original package and what should be extra, but as a consumer it’s pretty easy to apply the “I know it when I see it” test.

60

If you’re playing Super Mario Galaxy, I recommend fighting Bowser as soon as they give you the chance (at 60 stars, I think). You can’t unlock the purple comets until you do, and it’s best to not have to do all those at the end.

Wii Fit Sorta Works

Fairly long piece on Kotaku about Wii Fit, which the reviewer has been playing every day for a month. I like his point that you really could just go out and jog and lose more weight, but that the game gives you incentive by keeping track of your progress. Sure, you could do this with a pad and pencil, but most people aren’t and need the push.

Wii Menu 3.2

If you were wondering what the Wii update from this morning does, the answer is: almost nothing. It just provides a new way for games to tell you that they have a patch available for download.

Whither Wii

With the Wii, Nintendo made the argument that its new generation of games would be about innovative game design and not raw graphics power. Now that we’re into year two of the system, I find myself thinking about how it stacks up against the XBOX 360.

Off the top of my head, here are the big Wii games that Nintendo itself has published:

• Wii Sports
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
• Super Mario Galaxy
• Smash Bros. Brawl

These were all big games for Nintendo, yet I think only Wii Sports qualifies as a major part of Nintendo’s argument. It’s easy to pick up and play with no prior gaming experience. It’s accessible to everyone. The Wii remote’s usage is very intuitive and fun. You couldn’t substitute a normal gaming pad and maintain the same level of immersion. The graphics are simple but endearing. I don’t think the same can be said for the other four offerings listed above. Zelda, admittedly, began life as a GameCube game, and it doesn’t make large use of the Wii remote aside from aiming one’s bow, which isn’t much different than it would be if you were using a mouse or a joystick to aim. Ditto for Metroid. It works nicely, but isn’t so much better than using a mouse on a PC that you’d never want to go back. Collecting Star Bits in Mario Galaxy with the remote pointer is fun, but you could remove that aspect from the game entirely without reducing it very much. Smash Bros., from what I understand, just uses the Wii remote like any other button smashing pad, and you’re fairly encouraged to just use a GameCube or Classic Controller instead.

All of these games were great games, but I think you could put them onto a 360 and they’d play almost identically (and likely look better). In fact, as I think about places where innovative controls drive the experience and graphics take a second chair, the big examplar right now is Rock Band, which isn’t even available for the Wii (yet). And for more traditional gaming, on the 360 you also have Mass Effect, BioShock, Portal, Half-Life 2, Halo 3, Gears of War, and so on. Those are all games I’ve wanted to play over the last year but can’t because I don’t own a 360. Putting myself in the shoes of a 360 owner who doesn’t have a Wii, I’d certainly have wanted to play Zelda and Mario Galaxy. Metroid I was never a big fan of, but it has its pull, and I’ve never been into fighters too much to care about Smash Bros., but again, your mileage may vary. Point being, that’s seven for the 360 and two for the Wii, and neither of those two games are must-plays because of their specific Wii-like attributes, they just happen to be manufactured by Nintendo and thus exclusives to that system.

Now, Wii was a surprise hit to some, so there were studios that didn’t start working on games for it until it was proven to be a success. Additionally, there are studios that aren’t interested in doing anything other than making the same old games, and making them prettier and prettier, so the Wii just doesn’t appeal to them. You can call it lazy, but it’s silly to say that there was anything wrong with the types of games that existed prior to the Wii, so why not just keep making them and making them prettier? Especially when Nintendo itself is still publishing its old standards without adding in much motion control innovation. And this is a very tricky battle for Nintendo to win. Given any “standard” game that could exist both on the 360 and the Wii, the 360 version is always going to look prettier, and is going to have better online integration. So even if versions of Portal, BioShock, et al did come out for the Wii, the 360 copies would still be preferable. I’ve yet to see a multi-platform game where the Wii version added anything to the experience that greatly improved it over the 360’s. Wii Spore could probably beat out any 360 port, but that’s mostly because it would be more closely able to emulate the points and clicks on the Mac/PC version.

I don’t want to come off sounding like I’m unhappy with my Wii. It’s loads of fun. It doesn’t break down all the time like a reported 30% of 360s do. And the price is nice. Post WoW I’ve been a very casual gamer, so it’s not like I’m devoting hours a day to gaming, anyway. The flow of Wii games coming out has been sufficient for my needs, but it you’re only going to buy one system, I think the trade-offs make the Wii a hard call if you’re going to be buying more than one game every 1 ½ - 3 months.

Nintendo has sold enough consoles, and is far less expensive to develop for, that one would think there would be plenty of money in developing exclusives for it. All of the mini-game games have shown that all sorts of interesting things can be done on the Wii, but very few developers have managed to stitch those proofs-of-concepts into full-length gaming experiences. I’m quite certain it can be done, but I’m still waiting to see the cards laid out on the table.

VGChartz says the Wii has now outsold the XBOX 360.

VGChartz says the Wii has now outsold the XBOX 360.

So much for being the underdog.

Super Mario Galaxy dated: Nov. 12, 2007 - Joystiq

Super Mario Galaxy dated: Nov. 12, 2007 - Joystiq

Nintendo announces online Wii Mario Kart, Wii Wheel - Joystiq

Nintendo announces online Wii Mario Kart, Wii Wheel - Joystiq

Due out in early '08.

WiiFit gonna make you sweat - Joystiq

WiiFit gonna make you sweat - Joystiq

New Wii game based on building physical fitness. Man, the screenshot that has a meter reading "overweight" is pretty harshly motivating.

Phantom Hourglass Dated for the US

Phantom Hourglass Dated for the US

Comes out October 1. Sweet.

Serebii.net Diamond & Pearl Pokédex

Serebii.net Diamond & Pearl Pokédex

Pac-Man and Ninja Gaiden Are Out for the Wii Virtual Console Today

Pac-Man and Ninja Gaiden are out for the Wii Virtual Console today

Google Launches Google Reader for the Wii

Google launches Google Reader for the Wii

Has specific commands for the Wii Remote.

WSJ - Wii and DS Turn Also-Ran Nintendo Into Winner in Videogames Business

WSJ - Wii and DS Turn Also-Ran Nintendo Into Winner in Videogames Business

Take a look at the sales chart. The DS is a great system that doesn’t get enough press.