nintendo

With the video game market credited for racking up $7 billion in annual sales, even trade shows about the industry are big news for legions of loyal gamers. With the demise (or at least downsizing) of the Electronic Entertainment Exposition--the gigantic video game show held in LA each spring--smaller events, such as the Game Developers Conference are picking up the slack.

The show floor is bigger than last year's, and companies such as Sony and Nintendo have set up large E3-style multimedia booths, making the event's higher public profile one of the biggest stories coming out of GDC … Read more

The rumors were true: Nokia's N-Gage is returning, but it will be a gaming platform available on several new phones rather than on a single gaming handset. Gaming blog Kotaku was among the first to report on the news, which Nokia will expand upon at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. Top mobile publishers such as EA, Glu Mobile and THQ Wireless are said to be on board, and Nokia is showcasing at least six N-Gage games, including versions of such well-known franchises as Brothers in Arms and FIFA 2008.

Nokia's press release specifically mentions that … Read more

As any avid--and increasingly, non-avid--gamer can tell you, the Nintendo Wii is harder to find than an urban square mile without a Starbucks. Up until recently, I was one of those people vainly rechecking Amazon.com and calling every Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA within a 30-mile radius to see if they had any in stock. It was frustrating, of course, but not for the reasons you may think. Constantly hearing "not in stock" wasn't the problem; rather, it was annoying because the whole process took a lot of work. And this was after I thought … Read more

When public relations companies send games to reviewers, they seldom send just the game. Usually it's the game, plus some colorful tissue paper, a snow globe, a mouse pad, or something like that. That's known as "swag," which is used by marketing departments and public relations firms to help build up hype about products.

Sometimes said marketers/PR reps make strange choices.

We recently got sent Wario: Master of Disguise for the Nintendo DS. It's the usual story of Wario stealing treasures and whatnot, this time using a magic wand (read: DS stylus) that can … Read more

Nintendo can't seem to make up its mind. The company was no longer manufacturing GameCubes or developing titles for the console, according to company spokesperson Perrin Kaplan (quoted in a GameDaily interview earlier this week). That prompted a slew of teary-eyed GameCube retrospectives and obituaries. Now comes word from Nintendo's U.K. arm (as reported at Eurogamer) that the company is "still continuing production of GameCube hardware and GameCube software."

That's enough for Kotaku to declare the 'Cube as being "still alive and well," but it's missing the real story. Whether or … Read more

Wiiminder is a site that adds functionality to your Wii browser. Navigating to Wiiminder.com on your Wii provides you with multiple tabs, a search tool, an address bar, and a really neat drag and drop favorites folder that's much snappier than the one that ships with the Opera browser. Best of all, all the buttons disappear when not in use, saving precious screen real estate. There's also a tie-in with Finetune, the Internet radio service I looked at earlier this month.

Wiiminder takes care of several issues I found on my comparison of the Opera browser to the Playstation 3's. … Read more

Nyko sent us its new Wireless Sensor Bar and a Charge Station for the Nintendo Wii, so I took it home for the weekend and gave it a spin. This is only a first look, but the results for both devices were very promising.

The Nyko Charge Station is an all-in-one battery dock for Wii controllers. It comes with two rechargeable battery packs, two rubberized covers, and a two-slot charging dock for the Wiimotes to sit in. The battery packs replace the AAs that normally charge the Wii remotes, and the covers have a small hole in them so the … Read more

It's a bit late for Valentine's Day, but this was just too cool to pass up. Plus, if you're adventurous, it could be a nice wholesome President's Day long weekend activity. Flickr user "Bakalov" has made chocolates using the packaging from the Wiimote and nunchuck. Just remember, it's the packaging. This epicurean Nintendo fan was not actually filling his Wiimote with chocolate. Got it? Good.

As Kotaku said, "Everything is better if you fill it with molten chocolate.

Nintendo threw a little shindig last night, and I went to sample the company's upcoming wares. The games Nintendo showed off included Super Paper Mario, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, and Mario Party 8. Frankly, all three games look darn good.

I spent the most time on Super Paper Mario, sequel to the excellent GameCube RPG Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and it's even weirder than its predecessor. Unlike the straight role-playing in previous Paper Mario games, Super Paper Mario is a puzzle-filled platform game with some loose RPG elements. The titular 2D plumber gets the power to … Read more