Watch This Morning’s Nintendo Direct Right Here

Nintendo’s top man told viewers about upcoming firmware updates, Miiverse smartphone integration and new games for the company’s Yoshi and Zelda series. And bombs about new titles from the Xenoblade team and a Shin Megami Tensei/Fire Emblem crossover were dropped, too. If you missed any of the above, you can watch the whole thing in…

This Is the Latest Game from Xenoblade‘s Creators

Monolith Soft showed off its latest game today in a short trailer. The game footage showed a protagonist running across a field, slaying monsters, and flying around in a jet pack. The trailer also showed what looked like a motorcycle. A very cool motorcycle. And it seems like there will be lots of monsters, giving…

Nintendo Is Remaking The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker For Wii U

You’ll be able to play The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker on your Wii U this fall. No, the Wii U isn’t suddenly getting backwards compatibility to support the GameCube. Nintendo’s remaking the game. Yep, Nintendo is remaking the cartoonish GameCube Zelda game and giving it the full Wii U treatment, complete with new graphics…

Surprise! Fire Emblem Meets Shin Megami Tensei In This New Nintendo Crossover

Holy crap! Fire Emblem and Shin Megami Tensei are crossing over in this new Wii U game, announced at the Nintendo Direct today. We don’t have any details on the surprising crossover: all we know is that it’s a collaboration between Atlus and Nintendo’s developer Intelligent Systems. You might recognize Atlus’s Shin Megami Tensei as…

The People Behind Kirby’s Epic Yarn Are Making A New Yoshi Game

Just look at that adorable twine Yoshi. This new Yoshi game, made by the folks who made Kirby’s Epic Yarn was announced for Wii U this morning. We really enjoyed Kirby’s Epic Yarn, a Wii game starring a knitted version of the obese pink furball that came out back in 2010. We don’t have many…

According to Nintendo, it won’t be until E3 that we get new Smash Bros. info.

New Wii U Mario And Mario Kart Games Will Be Revealed At E3

Nintendo today promised that new 3D Mario and Mario Kart games are coming to Wii U. That shouldn’t surprise you: Mario and Mario Kart are staples of any Nintendo hardware platform. But the new 3D Mario is coming from Nintendo’s A-Team, the developers responsible for classics like Galaxy and Super Mario 3D Land for 3DS,…

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,…