Plot twist: It's actually everything else in the shop that's upside-down.

Doesn't really bother me - I don't play Time Trials competitively, and online I'm pretty middle-of-the-pack (generally finish between 3rd and 7th). The people making use of this are likely to be the ones who were gonna be ahead of me anyway, and you have to finish something like 9th or lower (when there's 12 players) to actually lose points, so I don't see it affecting me much. I'm not going for an uber-high online score anyway.

I'll be there from about 9pm. Work and family visit to get through first. Sigh, responsibilities

Number of the beast. Bowser must be in pole position.

_{Up 666%? Must mean they've sold another 666 Wii U's}

I'm now hitting the tracks!

Ugh.

Don't get me wrong. The telly ad is cool. The other promo material is cool. Crossover advertising, I can get behind that.

But the kart in the game, on the other hand. It's incredibly lazily detailed (completely flat textures, low detail model, the glass isn't even transparent) and sticks out jarringly with the rest of the pack. It's setting a frankly terrifying precedent that Nintendo is willing to inject third-party corporate brands directly into its major flagship IPs in this manner for the sake of a marketing gimmick. A clearly huge amount of work went into creating a high-quality, detailed and incredibly polished game. And yet the Merc kart just looks cheap. Tacky. Rushed. You can feel a thousand meddling hands from both sides making dozens of little compromises until the end product is devoid of all potential charm or character.

It's a massive advert. Not to the players, but to other corporations. "Hey, look at this!" says Nintendo. "Make deals with us, we can get you brand recognition in our games! Not just the smaller projects like Wave Race - but our absolute biggest, pivotal titles! We're willing to be flexible on how much it fits into the game universe! Call us!"

Free DLC? Cool. I can live with it. Probably won't be downloading this one myself, but fine. But I'm worried about what it means for future games.

Haha, beautiful

My Wii U expected delivery date is Saturday, dang it. Unless it lands early, gonna be missing this.

Ah well, not like there's not gonna be tons of racing happening after Friday.

_{@Yai wait for me D:}

Robin Williams in Brawl confirmed.

Dang, VSauce3 would be a lot easier to listen to if he didn't enunciate every single sentence like it were a mind-blowing revelation.

Good lord, I hope that demo is not representative of the finished project.

"Not upside down, sadly"

Depends how the race goes, really.

Miss Skimpy Impossibreasts and Impa's ridiculous blade kill off a lot of the appeal for me, but I'm still looking forward to this

@erv @ScorpionMG I think MK doesn't use it because of the raw graphical capacity that would be required, given how much MK8 pushes the hardware. Split-screen requires two scenes to be rendered (one per player viewpoint), but at only half the vertical resolution per scene. Moving one display to the gamepad would require rendering both scenes at maximum resolution, which would be much more intensive.
Game like Hyrule Warriors and this can render on gamepad and TV at the same time because they aren't pushing the hardware as much, so the actual rendering is much cheaper.

Duke Sadness Forever

@PrincessEevee9 I was riffing off the scene in the Team Ninja-developed Metroid: Other M, where when Ridley appears, Samus promptly morphs into a little girl and starts crying.

I can't wait to see Young Link suddenly appear and break down in tears when Ganondorf shows up.

@Damo "Polygon put on its best games journalism hat and delivered a remarkable piece of reportage". In an article about selectively picking out negativity from the internet about a hot new product (which is somewhat akin to selectively picking out crabs from a barrel full of crabs), in order to stir up some good old-fashioned community ire. Whilst also accusing a website of insinuating racism for pointing out a lack of skin color diversity in the character roster. Self-awareness, dude.

The first patent — listed as “Virtual Body Control Device” — involves tracking a person's body and movements in order to replicate such actions in a virtual environment.

Neither console does this, they track the controller (well, the controller tracks an IR emitter and gyroscopic motion)

The second patent — "User Interface System Based on Pointing Device" — describes a portable device that is in communication with a camera, with which another device can use to track movements.

The Wii doesn't have a camera, the Wii U does but it is not used as a motion-tracking device.

Good luck, Philips.

Well I was totally unprepared for that.

hardcore gamers stay away from "the evil that's outside"

Door-to-door GlomTom salesmen, mostly.

Safest bet is probably a Pokémon X Tekken crossover, assuming the teased shot of HD Blaziken & Lucario is related. Second safest is a new game in the Stadium line, although I don't know why they'd change the name to "Pokkén" for that.

Or maybe the screenshot and trademark are entirely unrelated and there's two things headed our way.

Speculation ftw.

I never played the SNES original, but can attest that this is a fantastic game. My personal favourite of the 2D Marios.

Pre-ordered, aw yeah. About time I got in with the U crowd.

The ancient evil has been exhumed from the depths of the earth, and now it will consume us all!

The Wii Shop Channel Team, in the Wii Shop Channel Central Office

Nintendo Life's first 0/10!!! This game must suck!!!

Aaaand Amazon UK's price is back up to £249.99. That didn't last long.

B-Plus really need to confiscate their art designer's massive bowl of Skittles.

They aren't advertising Yoshi's New Island because it's cruel to subject children to a game that bad.

The Wii U only has one screen. The other screen is in fact a television set which is in no way part of the Wii U hardware.

/patent-troll-killing

As someone who's never heard of this game before seeing this article, and looked at the pictures before reading the text:

I assumed he was a girl in the left picture.

He still looks like a girl in the right picture.

Good job, localisation team. You've squashed that bit of gender ambiguity

Pretty certain he's supposed to look like a creepy, dodgy back-street dealer in both versions. I like this experiment with DLC

Nice compo~

I'm curious, do we have any images of what the t-shirts look like?

Well, I'm done for tonight. Had some great races, it was a lot of fun! Got to love Mario Kart, and these tourneys are awesome. Thanks for arranging them again, folks. I may have lost this time, but I'll returň͍̗̥̬͓̬͎̚̕͡! I'll be back some d̨̦͔̮͊ͤ̏͆͜ͅà͙̠͕̞̰̻͕ͨͬ́͝ͅy better than ev̵̸̰̭̋̚ͅe ̸̾ͣr̵̰̺͚̬͛ͧ͐̎̽͑́̓! The racetrack w̾ͧ͐͆̀҉̴̨̯̜̮̹i̙̻͍̓̈́͑̈́̂ͦͮ́͢ͅl̑͐͑ͧ̐͏̖͕͖̲̭͢l̵̒͒̈ͣͦ̉ͧͣ͏̟̩̻̭̫͍̰̀ ̴͕̬͕͎̘̻̺̲ͣͮ́ͮͩb̧̛̫̘̘̤̰̜̬͋̓̆̃̾̏̋͘e̘͆ͥ̈͌̎ͥ ̛͙͑̀͑́͝mͯ̌ͥ̋͐ͭͭ̔҉̵͓͎̞͔̟̙̪̹͞i̙̖̣͔̯̋̎̊͝͡͝n̡̦̜̱̬̯̞̅eͪͮ͛҉̰͉͘ I swear it! Those who face me will ş͙̮ͣ̍̈ͣ̏ͪ̕ụ̖̘̱͙̭̤̍̓ͧ̉ͥ͛͆̋͌f͔̼͇̠̳̙͎ͥͤ̀̅͡f̨̻̞̫̩̠͓̲͇̪́̑̎̈e̅̽҉̞̦͈͖r̵̺͉̟̭̩̺ͥͨ̑̅̃̄ͅ ̜͖̲̱ͦ̓͊̽̃̀̚͡f̵͎̭̫͈̬̠ͣ̌ͬ̚͘ĕ̬͙͔͚͈̾͒͒̀̿̍ͮ͝ͅa̸͔̖͖̼̪̪̬͓͛̌͆ͦ́͢r̷̰͉̣̬̫̺̈́ͫ̓ͭ̊̈́̿͞ and defeat THE TRUE VICTOR W̴͕͚̪̲̦͚̬͖ͨ͊Ì̑̈҉̨̠̲L̨͇͓̲̦̰̐ͨ͘L̖̩͚̰̜͚̪ͩͤͨ̅̑̆̕ ̥̲̩̟̩̱̹͓͗͛͒̚͝ͅR̢̯͚̳̰ͫ̊͛ͫͧ͢Îͤ͆͑͑̍ͧ̊̀͏̖̱S͒͌̾͏̞̺͔͚͖͙͓͇É̍͌͗̃̌̚҉̠͍̺̱͢ B͖̳ͤ̔̓͆̏͛̽̚Ë́̆̈͊̾ͩ͑҉͎̜̜W̡̤͖͚͇̣̹͍̖̉ͣ̍ͥ̀̎̐̍A̐͛̈̚͏̵̷̦̗̦͙Ŕ̢̝̪͓̗͉̰ͩ̽ͦ̂̊̈Ė̷̹̞͇̼̝͍̘̆̍ͣ

Yeah yeah, any excuse @ThomasBW84 :3

tbd's in my group now! Oh it is on, @theblackdragon >:3

3rd place in the first tourney. Not too bad :gentlemen:

Gonna hit the pure racing track next @ThomasBW84. Might see you out there!

Time to join the pack. My name on the track is Kai (on Twitter @RaylaxKai), shout if you see me!

Definitely picking this up... Next week. I'm incredibly broke this week D:

Called it. Arzest couldn't release a decent platformer if they were handed the complete source code to Super Mario 3D World.

@Damo Nope. Pretty certain everyone left-handed (including myself :3) is entirely more comfortable and familiar with the d-pad being on the left, given that's been the set-up of 99% of all controllers ever manufactured for any console :3

I suspect it's possibly even a slight advantage handling the bit of the pad with the most possible/precise inputs with my most dextrous hand :3

When he removed the sword, he found a piece of heart.

@skywake they also the entire original Pokémon series on Netflix. I'm wondering if that's a coincidence too

As a grown adult I will not be watching Pokémon on Netflix with Facebook sharing switched on

So 99 cents to play as Luigi?

Should have phrased it "We are issuing an update that significantly improves Super Smash Bros Brawl's online services by turning them off."