Nintendo is attempting toys-to-life games in a far different way than Skylanders and Disney Infinity.

By the end of 2014, Nintendo, Activision, and Disney will be embroiled in a war that spans gaming and action figures. Much like the great plastic instrument wars of the late 2000s, the ongoing toys-to-life war is about to get even more contested with Nintendo joining the battle by launcing Amiibo later this year. However, their concept for their figures is way different than what the others have already done.

The RPG modes from the Game Boy games are gone as a focus on online play is now par for the course in the 3DS iterations.

After playing a lot of Mario Golf: World Tour, I kind of understand what Nintendo and Camelot were trying to do with Mario Tennis Open, a game that nailed the tennis gameplay but felt insubstantial. While past portable Mario sports games were focused on delivering a superlative single-player experience,... Read more...

Spoiler alert: It is very depressing.

A season changes and another month passes, which means we likely had more confirmation that the Wii U is not selling well. With very few, if any, releases, the expectations from month-to-month are dismal. But exactly how bad? According to analyst David Gibson, a little more than 70,000 Wii Us were... Read more...

Maybe it's not quite as sad as the blank screen in Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, but it isn't much better.

There’s no easy way to say this. The use of the GamePad for Mario Kart 8 is generic, boring, and dumb. When we first saw Mario Kart 8 back at E3 2013, there was a big horn in the center of the GamePad. When you were Wario, it would emit a fart noise when pressed. Surely, we all thought, that’s not what the final use of the GamePad will be in Mario Kart 8, right? Well, not entirely, but it’s not much better.

Even that new R.B.I. Baseball isn't coming to Wii U. That means the only new sports games on Nintendo systems have Mario in the title.

I carried a weird torch as a gamer 10 years ago. I was one of the few who was a serious sports gamer and only had a GameCube. That meant I had a whole lot of memory cards and rushed out to buy Madden and MVP Baseball on release day to game shop clerk's bewilderment ("Don't you mean the PS2 version...?").... Read more...

When exactly is Mario Kart coming out? Will Mario Golf ever come out on 3DS?

At the end of 2013, I laid out some self-admitted ridiculous predictions. It seemed natural to update those dumb predictions for each Nintendo Direct. So, let's take stock of what I was right on and readjust my predictions accordingly for the February 13 Nintendo Direct.

Here's what I predicted for the next few months:

Slashing projections and talking up changing business structures add up rough days ahead.

The idea of 9 million Wii Us being sold in the current fiscal year, which began back in April 2013 and ends March 31, 2014, was a joke back when Nintendo stuck by it after the Wii U didn't touch 500,000 units worldwide in the first half of the year. Well, it's no laughing matter for damn sure right now.

Release dates, a new Smash Bros. character, and a surprise or two. Not exactly going out on a limb here.

A new Nintendo Direct is coming in less than 24 hours, and the focus will be on 2014. Sounds exciting, huh? I think it does. But just what could be a part of the show tomorrow? (Note: I know the Direct says "previously announced Nintendo 3DS software." I stand by every prediction.)

Let's get the... Read more...

We're playing Super Mario 3D World and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Our first impressions await.

As of now, I've played about an hour or two of Nintendo's premier holiday 2013 games on Wii U and 3DS. My feelings on both Super Mario 3D World and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds are way more positive than I ever would have expected when both were announced earlier this year. Without even... Read more...

We compare the Wii U's opening months to the 3DS, Wii, GameCube, Nintendo 64, and DS. 

The latest financial report from Nintendo regarding the Wii U isn't too uplifting. From the system's launch in late November 2012 to the end of September 2013, the Wii U moved 3.91 million consoles. In the past six months, only 460,000 consoles have sold. Even the Wii sold more over the past six months.

For the second year in a row, Nintendo kills it at New York Comic Con.

Nintendo once again put together a pleasant showing to New York Comic Con, which was made even stronger by the fact that Microsoft and Sony with their fancy new consoles were nowhere to be seen. A month away from the next generation, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 were absent from the New York Comic Con show floor. Mario, Zelda, Wii U, and 3DS, though, were all over the place.

Nintendo might have finally figured out how to do Comic Cons after a few years of struggling.

I've been to four New York Comic Cons as a staff member at Nintendo World Report now. Over that time, I have seen a blossoming of Nintendo's appearance at the event, beginning with nothing and evolving into a spectacle that involved two show floor booths and one off-site event. It took longer than some companies, but Nintendo of America seems to understand how to do these fan-focused conventions now.

Animal Crossing on 3DS looks like it won't come out in North America and Europe until way more than six months after the Japan release.

Yesterday was an exciting day. We found out about a sequel to Pushmo/Pullblox called Crashmo/Fallblox. Level-5 announced they are bringing some of the Guild 01 games to the 3DS eShop in North America and Europe. European Nintendo fans stepped back from the edge of the cliff as they found out that Paper Mario: Sticker Star is coming out in 2012. Even with how exciting today was, I came away from it worried about one game.

We try to make sense out of Nintendo's launch windows.

Astute North American Nintendo fans might have noticed something different about Nintendo of America's Wii U release list when compared to Europe and Japan's. According to the North American release list, Pikmin 3, The Wonderful 101 (formerly Project P-100), and Wii Fit U are all slated to come out before the end of March 2013.

At a minimum, you're getting your cable, Netflix, and Hulu all in one place. Awesome, right?

Nintendo TVii was unveiled last week for the Wii U and most responses seem to range from "Oh, neat" to "Well, that's dumb." After thinking about it and talking with some of the folks at Nintendo behind the service, I'm somewhat of a believer in the potential of Nintendo TVii, even if I have some mild pessimism about its wide reach.

Neal mourns the end of Madden on Wii and its spectacular local multiplayer offerings.

The reveal of Madden NFL 13 on Wii U went as I expected to some degree. Outside of the missing features from the other HD versions (which, to me, isn't a ridiculous proposition given the tight development schedule Madden games are on), it is the first time that a Nintendo system is receiving a comparable version to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. I am excited for it, because I think using the GamePad for Madden could be awesome.

Can we channel Nostradamus? No, probably not, but damn it, we can try!

At some point over the next few weeks, Nintendo will drop a substantial amount of knowledge regarding the Wii U and its launch. It might come as early as next week, possibly during a Nintendo Direct, or it might come around Tokyo Game Show in September, which was around the time the Wii launch details were revealed back in 2006.

Two major 3DS games are delayed, making a thin line-up thinner in the important lead up to Wii U.

Nintendo unveiled the rest of their 3DS release schedule for 2012. While there are assuredly quality games littered in the next few months, there were two key absences: Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate. We could also refer to those games as the "ones that got the biggest push at E3 2012."

I'd still bet money on the Sunday before Black Friday, but maybe this is just crazy enough to be right...

When we found out that the Wii U was due out this year, an overwhelming majority of people pegged November 18, the Sunday before Black Friday, as the system's release date. After all, Nintendo's big release every year in recent memory has come out on that day. The Wii came out on that day in 2006. The DS came out on that day in 2004. It made sense; it was logical.

The world of 2D platformers has changed for the better since 2006, making New Super Mario Bros. 2's job harder.

I'm in the early stages of New Super Mario Bros. 2 (review coming later this week) and one thought is coming to mind throughout it: "Wow, this feels awfully similar to New Super Mario Bros. on DS."

As I play it, it makes more sense to know why it's called NSMB 2 and not NSMB 3DS. This isn't a sequel... Read more...