Nintendo

Hope you weren’t thinking of getting a Wii U from GameStop this year; their waiting list is over 250,000 strong

ESRB Opens No-Cost Ratings Service for Digitally Distributed Games

Downloadable games sold through the three console makers’ online services will be rated by what the Entertainment Software Ratings Board is calling a “streamlined, no-cost service,” in a statement released today by the ESRB. The new “Digital Rating Service” gives developers and publishers access to a “brief but detailed online questionnaire” to define a product’s…

This New Professor Layton Commercial Is So Bad It’s Kinda Good

It comes full circle! What is it with Nintendo and Penelope Cruz, by the way? Do they have some sort of Penelope Cruz commercial quota to hit this year? Genuinely curious.

Pro Wrestler Who Dresses as a Classic Nintendo Wrestler Gets In Trouble At WWE Show

The New Jersey-based wrestling league Pro Wrestling Syndicate has a guy wrestling for them who goes by the name Star Man. The inspiration for his character? The star-faced character from the old Nintendo Entertainment System game Pro Wrestling (the one the “A Winner is You” meme comes from.) Star Man isn’t in the big leagues…

The Nintendo 3DS’ Other Problem Appears To Be The DS

Nintendo says the 3DS’ sales in the U.S. are “weaker” than hoped. Experts will blame everything from the popularity of gaming on tablets and phones to a not-yet-overwhelmingly-great software line-up for the 3DS. Maybe…. But maybe that darn Nintendo DS is to blame. From the beginning of April 2012 through the end of September, the…

Skylanders Completists, One of These New Wii Bundles Knows What You Want

Nintendo may have an all-new console coming out in justa few weeks, but that’s not going to stop them from tempting folks to pick up a Wii any way they can. The company just announced two new bundles for their aging hardware, one of which is designed to get rabid toy collectors like Kotaku‘s own…

The Nintendo Anime of my Dreams

Seeing as my anime preferences fall within the boundaries of “giant metal death machines”, and not “girls with enormous cute faces”, I haven’t enjoyed much Japanese animation in the last decade or so. But so help me I would watch this show. Especially if it was about the girls’ attempts to rescue a couple of…

Why Japan Should Thank Nintendo. And Why It Shouldn’t.

Spend any time on Japanese websites, blogs, and forums, and you’ll eventually see it: ありがとう任天堂. It means “Arigato Nintendo” or “Thank you Nintendo”. “Arigato Nintendo” is a meme in Japan. It first appeared on popular Japanese game site Sinobi in 2009 in a piece that detailed the staggering first day sales of New Super Mario…

Nintendo Says the 3DS Is Doing “Weaker” in the West Than Expected

Nintendo really turned things around for the 3DS. For a while, due to a variety of reasons (some out of Nintendo’s control), things did not look good for the handheld. Now, there are a bunch of games, and the 3DS is really starting to come into its own. That doesn’t mean it’s meeting Nintendo’s lofty…

The Result of Nintendo’s Investigation into Underage Foxconn Workers

From the sound of it, kids as young as 14 could have assembled the Wii U. Last week, Nintendo issued a statement to Kotaku, saying it was looking into the matter. Today, Nintendo offered Kotaku an update on the results of its investigation. According to Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America’s senior director of Corporate Communications,…

Weird Nintendo Swag Lets You Make Your Own Mario Moustache

Not that Nintendo needs to really sell the Wii U right now, since the first shipment is guaranteed to sell out on name alone, but they’re selling it anyway. Part of that sell is this random piece of retailer swag that…lets you…make your own Mario moustache? Shaped like a Wii U, you put the goop…

You Might Be Able To Buy Some Wii U Games Early

Days before I bought a launch-day GameCube, I bought a GameCube game. Super Monkeyball, if you’re curious. It’s not unusual to be able to buy new games for a new console before you can buy the console itself. The evidence is mounting that you’ll be able to do so next month with some Wii U…

Yes, You Will Have To Use Origin To Play EA Games On The Wii U

Since 2011, all of EA’s games released on PC have been tied to Origin. PC gamers who wanted to play Battlefield 3 or Mass Effect 3 logged in through the orange-hued Steam competitor, and now it seems that Wii U owners will do the same. As IGN reports, recent changes to the EA privacy policy…

You’ll Never Believe What Game Character This Volcano Erupted

When Kyoto resident Clifford Brown was in Kagoshima on vacation this spring, he noticed something familiar in the swirl of volcanic ash in the sky. He noticed Yoshi. On his Flickr page, Brown recently uploaded the photo and titled it, “Yoshi Volcano”, adding that it depicts a “Yoshi shaped eruption from Sakurajima”. Sakurajima or “Sakura…

Let’s Remember A More Colorful Nintendo

Graphic artist Jillain Kristen has a good perspective on Nintendo, exchanging the gray-scaled consoles with her colorful nostalgia of playing with them as a kid. The result is this series of prints, all delightfully colorful. She explains the inspiration to me in an email: I wanted to design out the consoles in really child-like and…

At Least One Person Is Already Waiting In Line For The Wii U

Isaiah-Triforce Johnson, who is actually named Isaiah-Triforce Johnson (I’ve seen his passport!), has made a name for himself as the first person to buy just about every piece of Nintendo hardware in recent history. He was the first to buy the Wii and the first to buy the 3DS. Now he wants to be first…

The Wii U’s First TV Commercial is Awful

Nintendo has its work cut out for it with the Wii U once the initial, and inevitable first wave of early adopters dies off. They say lightning never strikes twice, and given the original Wii’s success with the mainstream was white hot lightning, you’d be forgiven for thinking the company couldn’t possibly pull it off…

Modders Bring PlayStation’s All-Stars to Super Smash Bros. Brawl

From the moment the concept leaked around Thanksgiving last year, PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale has been slapped with labels like “PlayStation Smash Bros.” So, OK, fine, here you go. A bona fide Sony Smash Bros., courtesy of four Super Smash Bros. Brawl modders. The modders—ExorcistRain, Frusciante, KTH and Kingskull95—have delivered a Smash Bros. with all…

This Nintendo Bootlegger’s Middle Name Is Success. Really.

Justin Success Brooks—yes, success is his middle name—made about £600,000 selling cartridges and discs loaded with pirated Nintendo games from 2009 to 2011. He’s now headed for the slammer, or whatever they call it in the U.K., following a guilty plea last week. From the report, it sounds as though Brooks, 41, was selling his…

The 3DS’ Biggest Hits Can Be Pulled Straight from the Interwebs in This Week’s Nintendo Download

In the continuing saga of Nintendo getting a clue about how gamers want to get their experiences, the House of Mario is making Super Mario 3D Land, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Mario Kart 7 and Starfox 64 3D available from their eShop storefront. These downloadable versions will cost $39.99 each, just like…