Alright, alright, forgive the distortion, but if you've bought a next-gen console — and worldwide, more than 60 million of us have — then you are "wealthy or hardcore gamers," according to everyone's favorite video game software analyst, Michael Pachter. I don't consider myself hardcore. And my aforementioned $1,500 rent apparently qualifies me as wealthy.

Pachter's reasoning, in comments to GamePro, is that the next-gen consoles are not truly mass-market items yet, and won't be until their price point dips to $199.

"Around 90% of last-generation console sales were made at the $199 price point or below," he says. "Only wealthy or hardcore gamers have purchased consoles so far, given that the PS3 is still $399, the 360 is still $349, and the Wii is still $249. When prices drop below $200 (probably in 2010), the mass market [for 360 and PS3] will emerge."

The Wii just isn't big enough for all the stuff it offers. That's not conjecture, that's fact. So what are Nintendo doing about? Well, when Nintendo's Laurent Fischer isn't pissing you all off by calling you names, he's promising that - snide comments aside - Nintendo know there's something wrong, and are working on it.

We definitely detect that they [gamers] are serious and we know there is an issue in this, so it's something that we're working on.

Great! So we're getting an external storage solution, then?

Wii Update 3.3 Kills Freeloader Too? [Update]

Oh dear. I'm getting reports starting to trickle out of Australia that the latest Wii update (3.3) has done more than block the Twilight Princess save-game exploit. I'm hearing it's killed Datel's Wii Freeloader as well, which if true, will not go down well in Europe and Australia at all. Especially with Smash Bros' imminent - and very late - release in PAL territories in two weeks serving as a poignant reminder of just why so many people own a Freeloader in the first place. I'll update once we get some confirmation either way.

Update: OK, got enough verifications on this to bump it up to "confirmed".

First Balance Board Blog got hold of a rather bizarre YouTube clip that features — women in jogging leotards? dudes with horrid combovers in corsets and black socks? — running to a 60-Minutes style stopwatch. Nothing in the vid suggests it's a promo for a game, much less one using the Wii Balance Board, so methinks viral marketing straight away.

But BBB got hold of the video's poster and subsequent confirmation that PheroseSoft, a seven-person team made up of former devs for EA Canada Burnaby and Rockstar North, is developing something called "WiiMove." It should be available by WiiWare sometime after October this year, Balance Board Blog reports.

A representative of PheroseSoft told BBB that "the game looks to put an unexpected slant on the Wii Balance Board." Ya don't say. The video's after the jump.

Those naughty librarian eyeglasses might say say yes-yes, but a New York City woman says, no-no, they're not hers. You see, there's Lauren Bernat, aka Wii Fit Girl, who hulaed her way to 2 million YouTube views about three weeks ago, and then vowed it was not a viral marketing scheme. And then there's Lauren Bernat, mild-mannered librarian, who's been deluged with Facebook requests from cretinous pic collectors admirers who'd like to better know Wii Fit Girl. Non-Wii Fit Lauren wants everyone to know she's trying to get a job, and the attention isn't good for that.

Apparently, using anything other than disposable "crap-assed gas station batteries" turns a Wii Wheel driving experience into that of a 1978 Datsun heading down to the shore. And no, that's not a desirable mod. Not for Don at videolamer, anyway. He swears that using the battery packs from the React Recharge Dock for the Wiimote reduces the 'Mote's weight and makes it drive off center when placed in the Wii Wheel.

Quoth Don:

Was the weight difference, a very noticeable one, messing with the ‘mote’s center-point?

Yes, in fact. Replacing the rechargeable pack with a standard set of crap-assed gas station batteries made our karts dead center again.

Now I’ve got to figure out how to add weight to my charger packs. That or play Kart at an odd angle.

So, fair warning, considering that the React dock runs about $50, if you Kart like hell and are considering eco-friendly ways to keep your 'Mote juiced. Does anyone else have the same kind of issue, or just this guy?

Peripheral Disdain [Videolamer, thanks taidan]

That's a little nugget couched in a defense against charges Ubisoft has a crappy lineup for Wii and doesn't care. Oh but they do care! The lineup is crappy for a reason! Read on.

The Conduit: About Damn Time

IGN got a trailer for "The Conduit," up yesterday. The Wii FPS is being developed by High Voltage Software and it still needs a publisher who wants to take a risk on a darker, edgier title for the family console.

"Deathmatch Authorized," ... "About damn time." Is that a message? Maybe someone's getting a little impatient?

The Conduit: Videos [IGN, thanks reader Mark L.]

Quickjump reports that, according to a Nintendo news release, Disaster: Day of Crisis, being developed by Monolith Soft for the Wii won't make its July 2008 release date in Japan and has been delayed indefinitely.

Reason for the delay: lengthen the development process to improve the quality of the product. That has back-to-the-drawing-board written all over it, IMHO. The game involves surviving/coping with repeated natural disaster strikes while taking down a rogue military unit that's seized a nuclear weapon — 24 meets The Day After Tomorrow meets The Core meets ... So it will need big visuals and super realistic physics to be a winner. Maybe that's the problem, who knows.

Disaster: Day of Crisis Delayed Indefinitely [Quickjump Network, thanks El Cernex]

Of course, that assumes there will even be a Wii stripper pole game. Peakaboo Pole Dancing says it's in talks with developers and publishers but, you know, "talks" doesn't exactly mean "deal." But Peakaboo, to MTV Multiplayer, confirmed that the sensuous Ms. Carmen Electra probably will not have any role on this pole, despite an announcement that implied she might.

Additionally, [Peakboo Rep Simon] Kay said the game probably won't involve Carmen Electra. When I asked if Electra was ever asked to be involved in the first place, the response was no. But is there a chance she could be involved in the future? "Unlikely... but not impossible," Kay said.

Wii Pole Dancing Intended for Fitness, Fun for Men and Women [MTV Multiplayer]

It will not be a port, according to Ubisoft. Nintendic, citing the latest edition of Edge magazine (I couldn't find the story online) quotes Ubi thusly: "It's connected to the game in a very interesting way, but it's not a port. A complementary experience, shall we say?"

Not sure exactly what that means, but the game's publisher also told Edge, "We are investigating it very seriously. You would never see a port of the game we're making however. That'll never happen."

The unnamed Ubisoft spokesperson acknowledged that Prince of Persia: Two Thrones Rival Swords, last year's port of Rival Swords The Two Thrones, was a little disappointing. "The controls were not fully optimised, did not take full advantage of the Wii, but a lot of people saw the POP universe could certainly have a home on Wii."

Sounds like Ubisoft wants a do-over?

Ubi "Investigating" Bringing Prince of Persia to Wii [Nintendic]

G4: Video of Force Unleashed for Wii, Duel Mode

Iwata: Wiimote Clone Not a Threat

Mario Kart Wii, the other half of our nonstop new release blitz for the past month, releases today, too. So all is not GTA IV. If any of you backsliding heathens skipped church to snag your copy, assuming ya don't have blue laws forbidding the sale of video games 'afore 1 pee em in your county, let us know what you think in the comments.

For those who've been consumed by all things Niko and Liberty City, you can see what the fuss is at the following links.

Justify Your Mario Kart Wii
Mario Kart Wii Driving School Impressions
The Kartokumentary
Mario Kart Wii Across America
A 6-Year-Old's Take on the Wii Wheel
Going Online With Mario Kart Wii (And Hands On With That Wheel Thing)

IGN Watermark in Okami Cover Art

In an interview with IGN Saturday at the New York Comic-Con, the Epic Games president Mike Capps lays down the law: No Wii game is ever forthcoming from his company. The reason? "We go forward, not back." Apparently the Wii is not next-gen to him.

I'm not gonna poke the snake of what-is and what-ain't next-gen. Let Capps do that for himself:

Before you get all excited, this is a mod, not a Wii laptop. I saw this and racked my brain for an actual real world use, ending up with a vision of a Wii on a beach hooked to 1.4 miles of extension cord, and some Charles Atlas musclehead shadow-fighting with Wii Boxing.

If you can think up a more practical reason for a 7-inch flip-up LCD screen on your Wii, let me know in the comments. Pretty much everything I imagine involves an airstream trailer, a card table and a generator. Or a post-apocalyptic world where normal televisions do not work.

Wii Gets Even More Compact With Personal Seven-Inch Screen [Game With a Brain]

OK, at risk of starting a deluge of copycat messages into tips, here's another kit-bashed Wii wheel. The reason this is worthy is a) the engineers are remarkably honest about how bad it performs, and b) they sound like three middle school-age at-risk kids and I want to encourage them to stay off the mean streets by building Wii wheels.

"If anyone ever needs another wheel, doesn't mind it handling a little bad and looking ... hideous, just remember that if you look through all that leftover rubbish and you might just be able to save yourself a bit of money," writes Lee Brady, whose friend Colin engineered the wheel. Lee and Shane were, I dunno, QA leads.

These kids prove that half the fun of mods is spending all day making something that an extra $15 will buy (though I think these blokes are UK, by the use of "rubbish"). They're working on another, with breakthrough technology that allows use of the B button.