The new black remote controller will be available with a black Wii MotionPlus add-on for $50. The black nunchuk will sell separately for $20.

"The Wii Remote revolutionized not only how people play games, but also who plays them," said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. "The new color lets people customize their setup, and the controllers make great stocking stuffers for players of any age."

The meeting, which we're told will start at 10 a.m., will be headed by John Riccitiello and available to all Electronic Arts employees via internal webcast. Employees of the publisher will be allowed to ask questions of Riccitiello following the presentation.

Employees are being encouraged to watch the presentation with team members to spur discussion about what is talked about. Meanwhile, Black Box employees are being asked to be in the studio today to "clear the air and communicate with you openly about what's going on at Black Box."

"At that time, we'll send out further communications and be holding sessions to help separate truth from rumour and share important news about our studio with you."

Stay tuned and feel free to commiserate in the comments.

Update: The layoffs at Black Box studio did indeed happen today, though the company-wide Town Hall meeting is actually scheduled for Feb. 4, not today.

Xbox Originals [Xbox.com]

MTV's Stephen Totilo dropped word of an interview he did at DICE with Criterion's creative director Alex Ward. Criterion recently produced Black, a shooter that Ward claims is injected with deeper, political substance.

Anyhoo, Totilo talks about "beating" Black, inspiring a rant in which Alex Ward chastizes the use of the word "beat." He asks if when you listen to a new CD, do you say you "beat" it? Or when you go to the library do you say you "beat the first floor" and "beat the second floor." Or "beating" all the movies in the cineplex. He then talks about "beating" War and Peace, all three thousand pages.

In short: Alex Ward is wacky. Like really, really wacky. Brian Ashcraft

He Prefers The Word "Played" [MTV]

The source didn't have any more details, but did say the new models were expected by the end of the year. When contacted Monday, Nintendo declined to comment. I suspect it's because they were too busy rolling around in giant piles of cash giggling.

Confirmed: Nintendo Announces New Wii Colors [GameDrift, thanks for the pic too]

Specificall, the report says that both Army of Two for the PS3 and Xbox 360 and Crisis for the PC will be hitting by March 31, 2007. They also say that there is a Sims 3 in development (my socks were just blown off with that news, who would have thunk it?) and that the uber-popular franchise would also be coming to the PS3 and Wii. PS3 Sims = meh. Wii Sims = Holy Remote-Playing Goodness. Of course the DS version was absolute crap.

Finally, the company announced that they are working on a new Lord of the Rings game (shocker), a new SimCity (shocker) and a new Black (shocker).

So to summarize: Two new IPs and 50,000 sequels. Brian Crecente

Sims 3, Wii/PS3 Sims, next-gen Black, new SimCity & LOTR coming [Gamespot]

Remember the Matte Black DS Lite? It was created by a depraved mind who took a nail file to his DS to deglossify it. We all reacted with horror, but the results? Not bad.

Looks like a wise native of Singapore was listening. The result? The wonderful SHOCK! Matte Black replacement DS Lite case.

Here's their product description:

Cool Black. The color of distinction that sets you apart from the rest of the crowd. Experience the aura that follows you wherever you go. You'll be sure to turn heads and attract the beautiful and tasteful, someone like yourself. Take Cool Black for a walk and you'll be taking sophistication to an all time high.

As an African-Irishman myself, I can attest that black (and being black) is cool. But being set apart from the rest of the crowd? That's called being a minority in a racism-fueled hegemony of honkies... honkies like Crecente and Ashcraft. That aura that follows you wherever you go? That's the ethereal glow of the ebony god, a quality which some call "pimpdom." And — of course — the beautiful and tasteful will always be attracted to you, as the popular DVD series Hot White Chicks and Big Black &% $! has so expertly proven. Florian 'Word Up' Eckhardt

Shock! DS Lite Replacement Case [NDS-Central, Thanks Mallika!]

Ask and ye shall receive... a couple months after the Euros and the Japanese. The Black ("Onyx") and Pink ("Coral") DS Lites are coming to the States on September 13th. Hit the jump for the press release. Florian Eckhardt

NINTENDO LAUNCHES NEW DS LITE COLORS AMID RECORD-BREAKING GAME SALES

Onyx and Coral Pink Follow Sale of 1 Millionth New Super Mario Bros.

REDMOND, Wash., Aug. 24, 2006 - The only thing more fun than new Nintendo DS Lite hardware colors is trying to keep up with the breakneck sales of the software to play on the popular little portable! On Sept. 13, two new colors - Onyx and Coral Pink - join Polar White, which is enjoying its own incredible sales peak and getting noticed everywhere.

The new colors also complement numerous DS games, including New Super Mario Bros. , which has hit the 1 million unit sales mark after just 12 weeks on sale in the United States. That's an average of roughly eight games sold each minute continuously since launch, making it the fastest-selling DS title in the United States for a 12-week period. Overall, DS system and game sales are both up more than 300 percent in July alone.

"Not only are the DS Lite screen and battery life incredible," says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. "but the new colors just add another element of fun, allowing people to 'personalize' who they are by the color, or colors they pick."

Several other DS games are burning up shopping baskets. Animal Crossing : Wild World already has sold more than 800,000 units, and two brain games - Brain Age : Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day (sold 4 million units worldwide) and Big Brain Academy (nearly 2 million sold to date worldwide) - are part of a phenomenon of people wanting to feel as mentally sharp as possible by playing daily.

The best part for Game Boy Advance owners is Nintendo DS Lite plays their entire library of up to 1,000 Game Boy Advance games in single-player mode.

The Official Nintendo Player's Guide for New Super Mario Bros. is now available at retail. For more information about the game, visit mario.nintendo.com.

The worldwide innovator in the creation of interactive entertainment, Nintendo Co., Ltd., of Kyoto, Japan, manufactures and markets hardware and software for its Nintendo DS , Game Boy Advance and Nintendo GameCube systems, and upcoming Wii console. Since 1983, Nintendo has sold nearly 2.2 billion video games and more than 375 million hardware units globally, and has created industry icons like Mario , Donkey Kong , Metroid , Zelda and Pok mon . A wholly owned subsidiary, Nintendo of America Inc., based in Redmond, Wash., serves as headquarters for Nintendo's operations in the Western Hemisphere. For more information about Nintendo, visit the company's Web site at www.nintendo.com.

Faithful reader Erik has been corresponding with wily Nintendo over the possibility of a DS Lite release in delicious black. He's really kept at it but they remain non committal, saying maybe we'll get one and maybe we won't, but just don't bet on it (subtext: just buy a white one now, fanboy, and when we release the black in three months, buy that one too):

We most definitely understand your desire to see the Nintendo DS Lite system released in Black in North America. While I was not personally involved in the resdesign of the Nintendo DS Lite, I can tell you that it is likely that aesthetics were taken into consideration. At this point, there are no changes to the color that will be available when the system is released. We may release additional colors at a later time, and it may be that one of the colors will be Black. Only time will tell. Your enthusiasm and support is appreciated, and your e-mail will be forwarded along for further review.

Further review, how exciting! By that she means it will be printed and pinned onto cubicle walls next to xeroxed Dilbert strips. Notice that there is no acknowledgement that the release date has already been broken.

Thanks for your intrepid badgering, Erik. Your Kotaku Scout merit badge for "Pestering Nintendo Customer Service" is in the mail! Eliza gauger

For those that get excited about things like different colors, this post is for you. A photo of an actual black Wii console for consumer consumption or more likely a debug unit (which are usually black) has hit the internet. Real or not, expect Nintendo to release the Wii in every shade short of baby-shit green. Brian Ashcraft

Pic Here [Digital Battle]

Criterion confirmed that Black will not be coming to the Xbox 360 afterall. The studio's Alex Ward said the only time gamers will see Black on the 360 is in a few years when Black 2 hits.

That's disappointing. While I enjoyed the game on the PS2, I felt that a more robust console would have allowed the team to bring the fully destructible environments to the multiplayer arena, something the game is sorely lacking. Well, that and less sketchy AI.

Black Not Coming to Xbox 360 [Eurogamer]

Black (PS2, Xbox)
Criterion's highly anticipated shooter that's garnered below-great scores shoots its way into retail. Will you still pick it up?

Super Princess Peach (DS)
Peach takes a leading role to save Mario and Luigi, armed with nothing but her umbrella and copious amounts of tears.

The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth II (PC)
EA's second LOTR real time strategy game ships with new Elven and Dwarven races, plus a create-a-hero mode.

24: The Game (PS2)
Fans of Jack Bauer and creepy, zombie-like renders will surely snag this semi-real time, high-production-value action title.

Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (PSP)
The PSP port of last year's Ys for the PlayStation 2 adds more mini-games and more portability to the long running RPG series.

FIFA Street 2 (DS, Gamecube, PS2, PSP, Xbox)
Yo, yo! New locations, new tricks, new arcadey soccer action — it's FIFA Street 2, cuz.

Final Fight: Streetwise (PS2, Xbox)
"Gritty" update to the classic arcade beat-em-up. I'll leave it at that.

What are you getting this week? Let us know in the comments.

BLACK 2 will find it's way to next-gen hardware according to comments made by Criterion's Alex Ward to Eurogamer. Game hasn't shipped yet and Criterion's thinking sequel. At least they're optimistic.

We reported in January that EA was cutting the price on current generation games, but GameDaily Biz pointed out that these price cuts extended deeper than the Madden and Medal of Honor games that were originally among the reduced price titles. What else? How about EA's first person shooter Black due Feb. 28 and The Godfather both hitting shelves for $39.99? Sounds good.

EA Lowering Prices on Current Gen [GameDaily Biz]
EA Cuts Price on Current-Gen Games

Criterion and EA's run and gun Black is gold. The shooter, heading to Xbox and PlayStation 2 at the end of the month, has some of the slickest visuals imagineable on the PS2 and Xbox. With the Criterion team (Burnout makers) behind the FPS, I actually believe the hype when they say "taking it to the limit" rather than simply writing it off as PR tongues flapping.

Mike at A+E Interactive stirs up more interest in EA's first person shooter, Black by posting a few notes about the game after wading through the PS2 demo. From everything we've seen so far, it looks like the hype is warranted.

Black — the most eagerly anticipated first-person shooter since? [Mercury News]

GameSpot reports that EA's Black is being prepped to ship on Feb. 28 of 2006 for Xbox and PS2. The game takes the over-the-top explosions and destruction of the Burnout games and puts it in an FPS. Everything I've seen looks pretty impressive, but how well the game holds up beyond "breaking stuff" remains to be seen. At least now I know I'll be seeing it in February.

EA Planning Black February [GameSpot]

IGN has an exclusive video of Criterion's upcoming FPS Black. The clip is little more than gun porn, but God, it's hot. Environments blow apart like action movie sets, the guns spit bullet shells everywhere and it sounds like a warzone.

But, Killzone looked great in video clips, too. It remains to be seen if Black will have the AI, mission design and playability it takes to make a great FPS.