But don't expect to take home a copy early.

Our resident retail mole and NWR Forums regular UncleBob has informed us that his Walmart store has already received shipments of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Nintendo's all-star fighter for Wii. This delivery, and presumably many other deliveries in the Walmart chain of stores, comes eleven days ahead of the official March 9 North American release date of the game.

Nintendo's official European site confirms the use of text-based chat rooms for online friends waiting to race. Updated: Chat will be limited to a choice of pre-determined phrases.

Update: IGN has learned from Nintendo of America that the text chat feature will be limited to a selection of pre-determined phrases, and therefore will not be input via an on-screen or physical keyboard.

Following last week's announcement of an April 11th European release date for Mario... Read more...

Exercise software and Wii Balance Board to be available for £69.99 in the UK, €89.99 throughout the rest of Europe.

Nintendo has announced estimated retail prices for its forthcoming body awareness and exercise tool, Wii Fit, in European markets. Including the advanced Wii Balance Board peripheral for measuring weight and detecting physical action, the Wii Fit package will retail for £69.99 in the UK, while elsewhere in Europe the price will be €89.99.

Nintendo wants you to find your inner Pokémon.

TWO NEW NINTENDO DS GAMES LET PLAYERS EXPLORE THEIR INNER POKÉMON

Randomized Dungeons, Online Features Fuel Latest Mystery Dungeon Adventures

REDMOND, Wash., Feb. 26, 2008 – Ever wondered what it would be like to become a Pokémon? With the April 20 launch of Pokémon® Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Pokémon® Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness for Nintendo DS™, hand-held gamers will soon find out.

Another day, another "Brain." Sega's take on the brain health genre features online play and DLC.

Sega Ships Brain Assist to Retailers in North America

Creativity and Perception Skills Increase with the Help of New Brain Teasing Game

SAN FRANCISCO (February 26, 2008) – SEGA® of America, Inc. today announced that Brain Assist™ for the Nintendo DS™ portable handheld system has shipped... Read more...

Move along, nothing to see here.

If your Wii is glowing tonight, it's because Nintendo has released Wii Menu version 3.2.

Compared to the last Wii Menu revision (which updated the Check Mii Out Channel), this update apparently doesn't do much at all beyond upgrading your Wii to version 3.2U. According to Nintendo's website,... Read more...

The Leipzig Games Convention, held annually since August 2002, will be moving to Cologne in 2009 and rebranded GAMESCom.

The German Federal Association for Entertainment Software (BUI), creators of the Games Convention, have announced there is to be no further support for GC Leipzig from 2009, with the creation of a new consumer show based in Cologne in the East of Germany as replacement. This would allow the show to further expand, as it has been over the years to become the largest consumer show in the world.

Electronic Arts pushes buy-out offer on Take-Two Interactive.

For weeks, there have been rumors speculating that Take-Two Interactive would be subject to an acquisition bid. Many thought Viacom would seek to buy them out at a one-time price of $1.5 billion. It turns out Electronic Arts wants Take-Two shareholders to part at $25 a share, roughly a $2 billion... Read more...

Miis return to the Kodak Theatre.

Wii fans everywhere must have smiled tonight as Jon Stewart and Jamia Nash, a young

singer from the film August Rush, spent a few seconds volleying

the tennis ball in Wii Sports, projected on a huge screen at the 80th

Academy Awards. Stewart wrapped up the game and returned to his hosting

duties by questioning whether he should be out of breath from playing

Hardcore and casual battle for the top spot!

Another great week for Super Smash Bros Brawl, it’s already looking like it will match Wii Fit’s sales within one or two weeks. Apart from Brawl, sales were pretty low all round this week. Even the latest Naruto game on Nintendo DS only managed a meagre 17,000 units.

Meanwhile Super Mario Galaxy moved further down the charts to No. 28.

Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Pay & Play will be Nintendo's version of micro-transactions. Also, find out what Nintendo is doing to address Wii's storage space problem. (Hint: Nothing).

Nintendo announced today that it will soon add WiiWare games and pay-to-play content to Wii's Wi-Fi connection service.

The Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Pay & Play service will allow users to spend Wii Points to purchase content or services for Wii games, extending the capability and longevity of... Read more...

The main man behind Super Smash Bros. Brawl reveals his technique for modeling and balancing the roster of characters, revealing some interesting secrets along the way.

In one of the more anticipated sessions during GDC week, Masahiro Sakurai of Sora, Ltd. gave a revealing look into the thought process and design of the character roster in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which will be releasd in North America on March 9th.

Sakurai kicked things off by showing... Read more...

The two gaming legends discuss the creations that spawned an industry. Also, hear what the creator of Pong thinks of the Wii.

Ralph Baer, inventor of the Brown Box game system, and Al Alcorn, creator of Pong, entertained a crowd of onlookers at Game Developers Conference eager to see how the two industry icons spawned a video game revolution.

Baer kicked off the hour-long session with a lengthy introduction to his background... Read more...

One of Japan's most respected composers talks about the creative process in making soundtracks for games like Killer 7 and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles. Also, a smashing surprise visit by Brawl.

Masafumi Takada of Grasshopper has had his hand in a number of unique video games over the past ten years. While working with names like Shinji Mikami and Goichi Suda, Takada's have become fairly well known. Today, during his Game Developers Conference session, Takada explained the processes and challenges associated with working on games, and what he does to translate the visual style of games into appropriate music.

Among the first games are International Karate and Uridium.

Nintendo has announced that the Commodore 64 will be added to the European Virtual Console's expanding roster of formats. Games for the classic home computer system will be available on the Wii Shop Channel for 500 Wii points (£3.50) each, equaling the price of NES games.

International Karate,... Read more...

Two of Nintendo's biggest 2008 titles will launch within two weeks of each other for PAL gamers; the wait for Brawl goes on without a date.

Nintendo has announced that Mario Kart Wii will be coming to Europe on April 11th, to be followed by the release of Wii Fit just two weeks later on April 25th.

Widely considered to be two of the most crucial first party Wii titles launching in Western territories during 2008, both games will... Read more...

The game music-based concert returns to San Francisco.

VIDEO GAMES LIVE™ ANNOUNCES SPECIAL GUESTS FOR ANNUAL GDC PERFORMANCE IN SAN FRANCISCO

Skywalker Symphony Orchestra and Choir to Perform

Meet & Greet Includes 30 Game Composers, Designers and Talent From Popular Franchises Including Halo, Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Myst, Kingdom Hearts, Metroid Prime, Mass Effect, Guitar Hero, BioShock, Gears of War, Crysis, Sonic, Special Guests from Japan and Many More!

Phantasy Star II and Ninja Gaiden III make up another good week for the VC.

Two New Classic Games Added To Wii Shop Channel

Feb. 18, 2008

Some gamers get skeptical when Roman numerals populate the title of a game. But make no mistake - this week's offerings are no mere sequels. They are some of the most highly regarded classic games around. So stock up on some Wii Points™ to battle the Dark Force or complete an action-packed trilogy.

In software sales, five of the top ten games are on Nintendo platforms.

2008 starts off with a virtual dead heat for console hardware sales, with all charted platforms selling within 50,000 units of each other:

January 2008 U.S. Hardware Sales

Wii – 274k

PlayStation 3 – 269k

PlayStation 2 – 264k

Nintendo DS – 251k

PlayStation Portable – 230k

Xbox 360 – 230k

Rehab centers plug in the Wii with results.

Nintendo's Wii system has seen increasing use in hospitals. Some health care professionals are calling it "Wiihabilitation."

"They think it's for entertainment, but we know it's for therapy," said Lt. Col. Stephanie Daugherty, chief of occupational therapy at Walter Reed Hospital. She believes the Wii is a powerful tool in physical rehabilitation.