The Wii U’s Miiverse Comes To Smartphones This Spring

Smartphones will be able to access the Miiverse—the Wii U’s social network—sometime this spring, Nintendo announced this morning, with a dedicated app for smart devices to follow sometime later. In short, it sounds Miiverse will have a mobile-optimized website soon. Miiverse is the hub where Wii U players connect with others, sharing comments, thoughts, images…

In Japan, Mother 2 is coming to the Wii U’s Virtual Console this March.

The Wii U Is Getting Its Own Virtual Console This Spring

This spring, the Wii U will get its own version of the Virtual Console—you’ll be able to purchase and download Nintendo and Super Nintendo games to play on the Wii U and separately on your GamePad. We already knew that a Virtual Console was coming to Wii U, but Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata announced further…

Nintendo Says The Wii U’s Load Times Will Get Faster This Spring

In this morning’s Nintendo Direct broadcast, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that the company is aware of complaints of long load times. Iwata said that two system updates—one in spring and the other in summer—will improve load times and add new features to the system.

This Week’s Android Charts: Why Hello There, Super Hexagon

Slipping quietly onto Google Play over the weekend, Kotaku game of the year contender Super Hexagon performs its seductive dance on Android owners, spinning it’s way into this week’s top charts. The spiraling shape will make you go insane, but that hasn’t deterred Android gamers from getting a taste of the game that’s drove iOS…

This April, Dragon’s Dogma‘s Dark Arisen Expansion Brings the Changes You Wanted

Capcom announced a substantial expansion to their sprawling action RPG last September, but left fans wanting as to what exactly was coming with the Dark Arisen add-on. Today, we finally get a look at what’s coming to Dragon’s Dogma‘s fantasy universe with the add-on launches in April. Two trailers debuted today, with a bigger glimpse…

North Korea’s Propaganda Computer Games Are Violent, Crude and Cartoonish

While North Korea has the propaganda of military parades down pat, it needs to work on how it uses computer games to indoctrinate. Actually, it just needs to work on computer games. And once it has that down, the country can focus on brain washing. Uriminzokkiri is a web portal that pushes North Korean propaganda…

How One Store Explains the Xbox 360’s Lack of Popularity in Japan

This sign was apparently spotted in Japanese retail chain Momotaro, and it does an interesting job of explaining why the store doesn’t have many Xbox 360 games. The poster reads, “Teacher! Why are there so few new Xbox items at Momotaro? Is Xbox not popular?” Below that in green, it reads, “That’s not the case!…

As Far as Dollhouses Go, This Is Pretty Darn Amazing

This is not a real Japanese house. It looks like one. It is, well, a dollhouse—a dollhouse that looks like it’s straight out of the Japanese manga and anime YuruYuri. But it’s not. Someone made this. That’s a small, 100mm figurine of middle schooler Akari, a character from YuruYuri. In the manga and anime, she…

How a Foxconn uniform and an iPad ended up in a Chinese art museum.

This Is The Anime Nerd Equivalent of Seeing Jesus in Toast

You know when people see Jesus in potato chips? Or in toast? This is kind of like that, but less delicious and not religious. That is, unless you think watching anime is some sort of holy experience. A recent thread on 2ch, Japan’s largest bulletin board, was pouring over this image by Johannes Schedler at…

Report: NeoGeo X’s Production Is Coming to an End [Update]

Released this past December, the NeoGeo X apparently won’t be produced anymore. According to Japanese site Gamer, production for the system is ending as of this month. Even though the machine carried the SNK and NeoGeo brands, the console was not designed and manufactured by SNK. Instead, it was the work of tech company Tommo.…

Anime Females Vs. Real Women: Which Do Japanese Geeks Like Better?

The eternal question of whether or not otaku (geeks) like anime ladies over real ladies has apparently been answered. Or something! Over a four day period last fall, a Japanese tech firm used a free Senki Zessho Symphogear iOS app to poll male anime fans, asking them what kind of females they liked: 2D, 2.5D,…

American McGee Retracts His “Tricked” Remarks in an Apology of Sorts

While in a Reddit AMA, game designer American McGee said that EA wanted to “trick” gamers into thinking Alice: Madness Returns was as dark as its marketing and called this tactic part of a “race to the bottom.” Today, Shanghai-based McGee offered a correction or an apology of sorts. “Allow me to expand on my…

Juri Will Kick You in the Face. And You Will Like It.

As far as Street Fighter characters go, Juri Han is unique. She’s the first Korean Street Fighter character and the sole Taekwondo fighter. She’s also tough, evil, and very cool looking. And that’s exactly why Juri, who debuted in Street Fighter IV, has quickly become a fan favorite. It’s easy to see why cosplayers would…

A Game That’s Nothing But A Never-Ending Boss Fight

This sounds about as fun as being stuck in an endless loop of rainy Monday mornings, but there’s at least merit in the idea: Endless Boss Fight is a game that is, quite literally, an endless boss fight. Taking the “go as far as you can” ethos of running games like Canabalt somewhere a little…

“Dead Space 3’s Parisian Art Exhibition” Is Not A Joke Headline

On February 7 at the Dernier Bar Avant la Fin du Monde in Paris, France, EA and Geek-Art will be putting on a show to promote Dead Space 3. Because when I think co-op space shooting in the dark, I think of Paris, and paintings. For those of us nowhere near the city of love,…

Team Fortress? No, This Is Queen Fortress

Reader Brandon passed this video along yesterday, which he helped make, wondering if we’d ever seen it. I had to say “no”, which tore me up inside, because it is absolutely perfect. Sadly ineligible from winning a Saxxy award due to its use of copyright material, that won’t stop it winning hearts here today, because…

There’s A Lollipop Chainsaw Figure, And It’s Hideous

Cult game, attractive (and scantily-clad) protagonist, you’d have bet the house on someone coming out with an official Lollipop Chainsaw figure. And, eventually, someone has. Though they really shouldn’t have bothered. Unknown Japanese company World Scope, perhaps explaining why they’re unknown, are behind this official Juliet Starling piece that looks like something you’d expect with…

I Don’t Remember Diablo III’s Barbarian Looking Like This

Bogdan Gabelko is a 3D artist who has worked for companies like Crytek. You may have seen his work before, like the Cammy piece we featured in 2011 He’s now working at Blizzard. Lucky dog. You can see more of Bogdan’s work at his CGHub and DeviantArt pages. To see the larger pics in all…