nintendo

I just slayed a nasty-looking giant spider in the Skyview Temple. I got there thanks to The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. It came out last year, but I'm a little behind the times with my gaming. Maybe that's why I'm still enjoying the Wii when so many have consigned it to collecting dust.

Wii sales have slowed to a crawl, leaving Nintendo in a tough financial position. When the Wii first came out in 2006, it was next to impossible to track one down. It was the Cabbage Patch Doll of game consoles that holiday season.… Read more

Mountain Lion roars onto Mac computers and Netflix is getting some new competition:

Mac users can now upgrade their operating systems to version 10.8. The official CNET review praises Mountain Lion for its cloud functionality and useful updates to some core apps. However, a lackluster gamecenter and a dictation feature that requires an internet connection are a bit disappointing. So should you upgrade? If it were any more than $20 we'd say no, but the price for this update is just right.

Apple also announced its Q3 earnings, and while iPad sales soared, a drop in iPhone consumption … Read more

Nintendo's financial troubles just keep coming.

The venerable game maker announced (PDF) today that it generated 84.8 billion yen (about $1.08 billion) in revenue during the three-month period ended June 30, representing a 9.7 percent decline from the 93.9 billion yen it secured in sales during the same period last year. The company was forced to incur a net loss of 17.2 billion yen ($220 million), which, while disconcerting, was actually better than the 25.5 billion yen figure from last year.

Nintendo's financial position becomes even more concerning when one considers its … Read more

The Korea Customs Service (KCS) has uncovered what it believes is a piracy ring dedicated to copying Nintendo games and creating bootleg cartridges to sell online.

According to the Korea Herald, 25 people were involved in the ring, including 15 online shopping mall managers. The KCS believes the individuals have sold at least 90,000 pirated games and cartridges worth approximately 100 billion won ($87.2 million).

Advertised as "100 percent authentic" with a "perfect after-sales service", the ring is thought to have distributed illegal copies of Nintendo DS games alongside R4, DSTT and DSTTi -- … Read more

Nintendo's 3DS XL might be larger than its predecessor, but the gaming handheld also comes with a few improvements that could make using it a tad bit more enjoyable.

In a recent question-and-answer session with Nintendo chief Satoru Iwata, Takashi Murakami, part of Nintendo's research and engineering department, said he had been working on reducing the glare in the 3DS XL "for quite some time." And it appears those efforts proved fruitful.

"Reflectivity on the Nintendo 3DS was about 12 percent," Murakami told Iwata in the interview. "We decreased that to about 3 … Read more

Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's 3DS sales are going strong in the U.S., according to numbers the two companies released today.

The numbers, gathered by research company NPD Group, show Nintendo maintaining a 75 percent market share for portable hardware and Microsoft's Xbox holding onto the top spot for console sales.

This is Xbox's 18th consecutive month at No. 1, with its sales making up 47 percent of current-generation console sales, Jeff Meisner, editor of the Official Microsoft Blog posted today.

The sales equal 257,000 units sold in June with total retail spent on … Read more

The world is annoyed with Facebook, but I'm stressed out over zombies:

Last week, Facebook automaticly changed the email address displayed in profiles to be the Facebook email that no one uses. Well the drama doesn't end there. Some smartphones that sync contacts with Facebook have auto-updated address book info with Facebook emails. Do yourself (and your friends) a favor and make sure the right email is listed in your profile. If you think you're missing emails because of this change-up, click on Messages in the left-hand column, then click on Other. That's where Facebook hides … Read more

Despite more than a year of teases, one critical aspect of Nintendo's Wii U remains a mystery: the pricing.

With two E3 gaming expos now under its belt, we know plenty about the Wii U. Nintendo has showed off many HD games and fully revealed the second-screen GamePad tablet.

Earlier this month, CNET Senior Editor Scott Stein mused on the Wii U's retail cost, saying: "The Wii U needs to undercut the competition and be practically an impulse purchase. Is that even possible?"

To answer that question, perhaps we should look at Nintendo's past.… Read more

It wasn't that long ago that the Nintendo Wii was one of the most sought-after items on the planet. Especially around the holidays, when supply simply couldn't meet demand. The then-revolutionary game console was selling on eBay for double, triple, even quadruple its $249 list price.

Now you can get it for 80 bucks.

Specifically, GameStop has the refurbished Nintendo Wii console for $79.99, plus $4.99 for shipping (and not including sales tax, where applicable). That's the lowest price I've ever seen.

Of course, Nintendo's next-generation Wii U console is just around the corner, … Read more