Pedro was a picky gamer as a kid. He recounts how the SNES helped him overcome that.

Growing up, I was a bit of an underprivileged kid, so I was lucky enough to have receive a Super NES for my birthday. I loved the hell out of Super Mario World, and when the local video store bought games to rent, I was in heaven. Of course, there was one tiny problem: I was deadly afraid of trying new games, especially those that looked unfamiliar to me.

Pedro looks back at the importance of the development houses in charge of these highly wanted games.

At last year's E3, when the 3DS was revealed for the first time, Nintendo presented the audience a video featuring all of the most prolific and important developers, all singing the praises of the 3DS’s technology. This year, Nintendo did the same thing with the Wii U. The message is clear: Nintendo... Read more...

Jon gives us five ways that Nintendo can improve its online relationship with its fans.

Regardless of the North American fate of Xenoblade, Pandora's Tower, and The Last Story, the furor surrounding Operation Rainfall has exposed what is perhaps Nintendo's greatest weakness: its lack of meaningful online interaction and communication with its consumers.  In this era of social media,... Read more...

Jon wonders if Operation Rainfall could mark a turn in Nintendo's fortunes.

Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point is a book that I've had sitting around for a while, and recently I've decided to finish it off (yes, even my Kindle has a backlog). It attempts to answer the question of what contributes to certain products or behaviors going "viral", and breaks down the elements... Read more...

What games should you be looking forward to this summer? Not many!

Hopefully, if you're a Nintendo fan, you're enjoying the solid 3DS launch line-up, the eShop, and the two solid June releases (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D and Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D) that are unfortunately, no matter how you shake it, more or less ports. The summer, specifically... Read more...

We are off to a great start, aren't we?

As a big fan of downloadable titles on any given platform, I was thrilled by the arrival of the Nintendo eShop on June 7th. Quickly, I prepared my Nintendo DSi to transfer my DSiWare to the shiny new Nintendo 3DS. I knew it would cost me my game saves, but I was happy to have a bunch of games with... Read more...

Also known as Xenoblade Chronicles: The Chronicles. Will this game ever be released?

Recently there has been widespread uproar relating to the absent North American release of Xenoblade, following the confirmation of the European release in September this year. The game was released in Japan as Xenoblade on June 10, 2010. It is Monolith Soft's second game under Nintendo, the first... Read more...

The RFN co-creator gives his thoughts on the newest Nintendo console.

Nintendo unveiled their new home console, Wii U, which will launch at some point in mid-to-late 2012. Initial reactions from the gaming community during E3 2011 seem to be mixed, but the stock market is pretty unified in their view. They don't like it. Nintendo shares dropped 5.7 percent with the... Read more...

And why we need to take the gaming press with a grain of salt.

Handhelds are dead. I have heard that phrase uttered on far too many a podcast in the wake of this E3's press conferences to not vent somewhere about it. Just last year, the Nintendo DS sold seven million units in the United States alone, surpassing any records for annual home console or handheld ... Read more...

Guest Writer Aaron Edwards tells what he thinks Project Café needs.

For the last console generation, the Wii has stood apart from its competition. Where Microsoft and Sony pushed the boundaries of graphics and processing power, Nintendo stuck with a simple but noble motto: gameplay comes first. As a result, we received the Wii: a console with power just above that... Read more...

StreetPassing ain't easy, but there might be good days ahead.

When Nintendo announced StreetPass back at E3 2010, it seemed like a fantastic idea. Unfortunately, there is a harsh reality for the service outside of Japan, specifically North America: our culture makes things such as this nearly worthless. In Japan, the concept of StreetPass is likely mind-blowing,... Read more...

The releases on Nintendo systems from April to June look terrible. Are we just spoiled or is this awful?

While most of us are still busy loving the hell out of Pilotwings Resort and Super Street Fighter IV on our shiny new 3DSes, there is still a large chunk of the Nintendo faithful that either couldn't afford or didn't want the 3DS at launch. If you're one of those people, I'm sure the next few months... Read more...

To those watching, Hudson's downfall wasn't a surprise, but it was still a sad occurrence.

Today, Hudson Entertainment is shutting its doors, with all operations subsumed by Konami. Growing up with a TurboGrafx-16, Hudson has held a special place in gaming for me, and I wanted to reflect a little on their closing.

I will note that I have a tiny bit of history with Hudson. Hudson Entertainment... Read more...

With Nintendo's Virtual Console service expanding to 3DS, maybe it's time to address some problems with the original version on Wii.

Despite a few notable releases in 2010 (Ogre Battle 64, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, and Final Fantasy II/IV), Nintendo's Virtual Console service is in its worst dry spell since the Wii launch. It's been a long, slow decline since the days of Nintendo releasing three classic games every Monday, like... Read more...