Nintendo Revolution

by Don Kaufman When Major Minor’s Majestic March was first announced, it seemed like a perfect fit with the new Wii MotionPlus accessory. After all, it's a title based on simulating a marching band, so one would think that the added perks of the new feature would have been irresistable. However, creator Masaya Matsuura said that it was not meant to be. "We tried to adapt “Major Minor” to MotionPlus, but doing so didn’t really make it any more fun than it already was," he told MTV Multiplayer. "Maybe MotionPlus titles need to be planned as such from the beginning. The basic structure was pretty much determined before it arrived, so there wasn’t a huge advantage to adapting it. And what’s more, the controller would become bigger, so we gave up on the idea."

by Gary Adamo While there's still quite a divide between those who think that Wii Fit can help people lose weight and those who think it's just a gimmicky toy, count one more high-paid athlete that credits Nintendo's title with helping shed a few pounds. Reliever Heath Bell of the San Diego Padres was playing the Wii game with his kids when he received something disturbing news upon standing on the balance board. “It said I was obese,” Bell confessed. “If you’re obese, it makes (your character on screen) fat. I was disappointed that I was that big. I literally took the game to heart. I did the work but I kind of credit the Wii Fit.” The pitcher lost 25 pounds altogether.

by John Finnegan Game show titles don't exactly take advantage of the full capabilities of the Wii, but they still seem to sell pretty well nonetheless. There's already one The Price Is Right available on the console -- are you ready for one more? According to a person who claims to be involved with the project, a new version of TPIR is ready to come on down, so to speak. Here's the unconfirmed information from JC_Ludia, by way of Goldenroad.net:Yes, we are working on a new version of TPIR - and it will blow your socks off! Unfortunately, I can't talk about it much right now. All I can say is that once again I'm the lead designer on the project, and we're hard at work on it.

by Gary Adamo While Nintendo's new DSi, currently available only in Japan, is certainly exciting, there's a certain sticking point that's understandably upsetting some gamers. It's not backwards compatible with Game Boy Advance. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime was recently queried about the frustrating move, and as always, the man was super-positive about the situation. "Consumers always adapt pretty easily to new technology, and I have no doubt they will do the same with Nintendo DSi. Game Boy Advance fans can always fall back on their GBA or older Nintendo DS systems when they want to dip back into their GBA libraries," he said.

by Jerry Mitchell Red Fly Studio is the developer behind Mushroom Men: The Spore Wars, the Wii platformer published by Gamecock. The game has received respectable reviews, garnering a 72 on Metacritic to date. But Dan Borth, CEO and creative director of developer Red Fly Studio, is refreshingly honest with his uncertainty about how sales will go. "I don’t know if “Mushroom Men” will sell –- that is not up to us. I certainly hope it will," he offered to MTV Multiplayer. "Traditionally, launching a new [intellectual property] on the Wii is difficult, and since it is also our very first game and we are a brand new studio, the deck is stacked against us. We could get lost in the holiday shuffle and among the shovel wear, but ultimately it is up to our publisher."

by Marcy Franklin At the moment, Studio Walljump has yet to release a single title. But they've got Wii on the brain, and their first WiiWare puzzler, Liight, is scheduled for release this quarter for somewhere between 800 to 1000 Points. And it looks like that may just be the tip of the iceberg. "We have loads of ideas for future games, and sometimes it’s hard to stay focused on Liight and not get sucked into some new idea. I think it’s pretty safe to say we’ll stay working on the Wii, but there’s nothing we can announce yet," Studio Walljump's Nicholas Trahan said in a recent interview with Wiiloveit.com. Trahan seems like a diehard old-school Nintendo fan -- he named his son Link!

by Don Kaufman What's the longest stretch you've gone playing Wii without taking any sort of break? Unless you're part cyborg, it appears that soccer star Paul "Gazza" Gascoigne has got you beat. According to a published report, Giscoigne is not only conquering addiction to drugs and alcohol, but also to Nintendo's console. The Sun reports "he became addicted to the console while living alone in hotels last year, once playing its tenpin bowling game for six days solid." Wii Bowling is certainly a fun game, but one day shy of a week straight does seem a bit excessive to the casual observer. Gascoigne has now given up his beloved gaming system altogether, the paper revealed.

by Jerry Mitchell A few days before the end of 2008, Nintendo revealed that the Wii Between Us Channel (or Wii No Ma in Japanese), would be coming to Japan. Yes, Japanese Wii owners will get their very own video distribution channel sometime in Spring of this year. And it will be free, at least in the beginning. But what about the rest of the globe? A Europe rep told the website Spong that "Nintendo is intending to start the free-of-charge service in Japan in Spring 2009. We are considering expanding the service outside of Japan however we have no confirmed plans at present."

by John Finnegan At Nintendo's Fall Media Summit in October, it was revealed that Sin And Punishment 2 was in the works for Wii. "After we saw how many people downloaded it on the Virtual Console, we got the message that North America wants Sin & Punishment as well. In 2009 you're going to be playing... and you're not going to have to import it," teased EVP, sales of marketing, Cammie Dunaway. Since then, virtually no details have been released about the upcoming title. Gamasutra recently caught up with Treasure CEO Masato Maegawa and asked about why the company was returning to the rail shooter.

by Gary Adamo 2009 has arrived and it looks like Nintendo has recovered from their holiday festivities enough to add two more titles on the Wii Shop Channel. First up is Kirby's Dream Land 3 on the Virtual Console side, hailing from back in the Super NES days and costing the standard 800 Points. VC-Reviews was disappointed by this entry in the series, proclaiming that the VC title "could've easily been a great game - It mostly relies on exactly the same things that made the previous Kirby games so good, but for some reason HAL decided to drastically change the gameplay by making it too slow and too easy. Diehard fans will no doubt get some enjoyment out of this title, but it isn't very hard to see why it's usually considered the worst Kirby game."

by Gary Adamo As more and more of the best of the year awards come out, Super Smash Bros. Brawl has been receiving its much-deserved kudos. But surprisingly, when IGN named its Wii Game of the Year, SSBB was not named. Instead, World Of Goo, the little WiiWare game that could, took the top spot. The reasoning from the crew at IGN: In a showdown to the death, 2D Boy's magnificent physics-drenched puzzler edged out SSBB for this year's top award. Partly because Brawl, with its welcomed extra characters and stages, ultimately hasn't changed much from its predecessor. And partly because Goo feels so fresh and new, not to mention innovative. Full of brain-teasing puzzles and engulfed by beautifully stylized graphics, it's a WiiWare game that redefines what is possible on Nintendo's download service and simultaneously puts the majority of retail titles to shame.