@Ryno In March they offered Paper Mario from the N64, now this is Mario RPG from the SNES, different games. Though Paper Mario was the pseudo sequel of the SNES title, so I can see the confusion.

Definitely getting SMRPG, debating on Maboshi's Arcade (I passed on it last time it was offered).

I think the only thing I am going to miss is the death of their "Gold Guy" logo, such a fond memory seeing that little guy in the corner of the box art in the early 90's. For the record, Fate of Atlantis was probably my favorite game associated with them.

Star Wars games will continue to live on regardless, so no need to go Chicken Little about this.

If I hear / read Mega Drive / Genesis and Chiptune music in the same sentence, I always think of Toejam and Earl. Sure the SNES may of had cleaner sounding music (especially when you compare the same game released on both platforms), but Nintendo was never this funky:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXPPxZYHcEs

Odd that they have the Super Mario Kart banner for the SNES multitap (which didn't support it), a better substitute would be Secret of Mana, which was the only game I've ever used it for.

Sorry for the nitpicking Thomas, great article nonetheless.

@Will-75 When I first saw the article, escapeVektor was the first title that came to mind as well (after the BIT.TRIP series of course), so it's lack of mention in the main article is a bit confusing.

Although I do like their selections (Bubble Bobble Plus is another one of my favorites), Vektor was more worthy of the limelight than most, especially since he's made his way to 3DS and Vita now.

@eigafan Thanks for that tidbit of information, the 480i output only really squelched any desire I had for getting one of these in the future. I could live without the wifi and SD card support, but decreasing the resolution is a death knell for my interest.

Looks awesome, though.

@Starwolf_UK I'm betting on the same thing, that Nintendo will still be releasing some more Selects titles in 2013 for the Wii. It only makes sense, as all they have to do is come up with a new cover art and just reprint some of the classics. By comparison, Gamecube had about four times the amount of Player's Choice games, though that included a good amount of third party games.

@Krimbatize It doesn't look like we'll get any coins, as it doesn't even show up in my Club Nintendo registered products. I tested this by downloading the Youtube channel and a demo from the shop channel yesterday. The demo is already listed in my registered titles, but no Youtube Channel.

And I was hoping for some free coins as well.

Well, lets look at the history of the Wii launch + 1st year in terms of 1st party title releases (NA release dates):

Nov '06: Wii Sports, LoZ TP, Excite Truck
Jan '07: WarioWare Smooth Moves
Feb '07: Wii Play
Apr '07: Super Paper Mario
May '07: Mario Party 8
Jun '07: Big Brain Academy Wii Degree
Jul '07: Mario Strikers Charged
Aug '07: Metroid Prime 3
Oct '07: Battalion Wars 2
Nov '07: Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn, Super Mario Galaxy, Link's Crossbow Training

I think they already space out their releases and they certainly do not 'tend to release too many titles at the launch', as Mr. Iwata puts it.

@Wheels2050 Thanks, I'm trying to have all the years done before Wii U launches, so about a year a week, and I'll be set.

Great article Gaz, way to sum up the Wii in such a short space.

I've actually been working on a retrospective on most all of the notable Wii games by year, still have 2009, 2011, and 2012 to go, but shameless self promotion aside, I encourage you all to take a look, starting with 2006.
http://www.cheapassgamer.com/list.php?do=view&listid=907

@MYCO (and @singie1 to some extent) Battalion / Advance Wars really needs to be brought back into the fold, especially on the Wii U with the gamepad. Though Pikmin 3 will be in someways similar, an RTS / 3rd person shooter hybrid with Battalion Wars on a larger scale would definitely be awesome.

Just to reiterate what TruenoGT pointed out earlier, the reason why Nintendo 1st party titles will be more than likely 720p is to have the extra processing power for the 480p gamepad screen (which seems to be an active feature in all 1st party games), while still maintaining the 60 fps on the big screen.

Honestly in any case, 720p and 60 fps on the big screen would be much better than 1080p and ~30 fps, as a smooth running game looks miles better than a higher definition game IMO.

Excellent video, only gripe I have (which is nothing to blame on the band) is that out of all the cool retro homages, the guy in front of him takes a picture of the Halo logo. Not saying it didn't look great, but I guess that's the age we're living in...

Even the box art player seems to be laughing at those who purchased it, it would be even more offensive / awesome if EA did this intentionally.

They will have VC GCN games, no doubt, but I'm guessing by their current price model ($5 NES, $8 SNES, $10 N64) that the price point for these games will be in the $12-15 range. At that point I would honestly prefer a disc-based release with a true HD remastering for a $20-40 price point, as I doubt they would do that for a VC release. Plus with a physical copy they can add more features to justify the higher price, and also physical copies actually have sales and drop in price over time.

Just my two cents, disc based GCN re-releases with HD remastering and additional features is what I would prefer.

I think the 'Basic is for the core' argument will make much more sense in about a year or so, when not only all of the advertised 3rd party games will be released (plus more obviously), but also a few more 1st party IPs from Nintendo are available as well. Gamers will regularly own two or three consoles, and will sometimes even purchase a console just to play a few AAA exclusive titles. For them, the cheaper price will offset the extras they don't care about, or become more cost effective down the road (software prices drop much more readily than hardware prices, cheaper third party accessories, cheaper external storage solutions).

At launch day, I think it's safe to say that the Deluxe model is just the better value, and judging at the presales, it's what most people will prefer. Again, one year down the road, this argument will be much more compelling.

While this does look fun, after looking at the video, am I the only one who thinks this is a bit too frantic for the tablet controller, that it will be hard to concentrate on both the main screen and the tablet at the same time?

The way I see it, this is the key quote from the article:

"The question really becomes how to open up video gaming to a wider audience. Nintendo works on this question 24/7. Playstation and XBox have little incentive to do that."

The article headline paraphrases and includes the wording 'Creativity and Originality', which honestly is very different than the quote above and is causing a lot of the confusion. Opening up to a wider audience simply means promoting and pushing genres equally across the board (with some new ideas here and there to draw in the non-gamer). Not to be made as a general statement, but when I ask my PS3 and XBox 360 owning friends and family members, nine times out of ten they are currently playing one of three genres: FPS, Western RPG, or Cinematic Action/Adventure. Occasionally I hear racing and sports, but for the most part the first three dominate the genres selected by my (limited) sampling pool. That's not to say that PS3 and XBox 360 lack a variety of genres to choose from (which they have a wide selection for sure), but I rarely hear games like Journey or Catherine being mentioned by the face to face general populace.

Nintendo gamers (either by choice or by necessity) generally own a wider variety of genres, since they can't rely on the big budget third party titles that the HD consoles get. This leaves the door open for Nintendo to market towards a broad (and sometimes niche) audience (see Nintendo published titles like Endless Ocean, Sin & Punishment, Fortune Street, as well as their own developed titles Punch Out, Smooth Moves, and Rhythm Heaven Fever), which result in a variety of titles Wii owners will purchase (again, almost in necessity due to lack of the big name third party titles).

So that is my take on it, Nintendo consoles and handhelds are easier markets for lesser third party titles to penetrate, and Nintendo follows suit by publishing / developing games that normally would not get attention otherwise. PS3 and XBox 360 already have a good market pull in the aforementioned genres, so in turn Sony and Microsoft's products go along with the demands of that market.

Not much more to add to the conversation, though I think everyone can stop analyzing technical specifications when it comes to classifying console generations. The PSone, Sega Saturn and N64 were all considered consoles in the same generation, yet the graphical capabilities of each system were very different, with the PSone being the worst tech-wise, yet came out on top that generation sales-wise. Even tossing in the '64-bit capable' Atari Jaguar system in that same generation (3 years earlier than the N64), technical specs alone do not classify a generation.

I agree with most of the comments here that Capcom's quote is being taken out of context, the next console generation will not fully begin until the Wii U actually has other competing home consoles released in a similar time frame.

A great reward for sure (one I won't be getting since I've played the N64 version enough, plus I have melee on hand should the desire arise), but the cynic in me is wondering if NA Club Nintendo is offering good (but pricey) awards such as these to drain the coin economy down before offering the gold nunchuck again. I guess I'll see with the next few games released...

This game still looks awesome, however the PAX demo video is very telling and separates this from the original in many ways. Each puzzle room is broken down into separate levels, in which your performance is ranked based upon collection rate of the water droplets and time taken to complete the level.

Its looking a lot less like metroidvania and more like a standard puzzle platformer, but again it's looking great nonetheless.

Seeing as how it's been a full year since the WiiWare service has received another purchase worthy game (IMO, MotoHeroz last year in September), this is definitely great news.

I wonder if anyone can confirm the 1000 points cost, as that would make it even more desirable. I think this will have the DLC Hell Temple for an additional cost, but $10 would be a great starting point for the base game.

Mario Kart has always been the most memorable to me when played couch multiplayer, which divides me on which is my favorite...
1) Super Mario Kart with my older brother growing up
2) Super Mario Kart 64 with my high school friends (so many wasted, enjoyable nights)
3) Mario Kart: DD with my then girlfriend, now wife (we still play this from time to time)

I have yet to play more than 5 minutes of MK Wii, but if I had to choose, I would say my most favorite MK is DD in terms of its true co-op play. Here's hoping that in another 20 years we'll still be playing MK in its newest iteration.

Other M articles certainly have a way of generating comments, don't they?

In my own quick summary I loved Other M for the parts that were good (general gameplay, boss fights, graphics, mixture of gameplay modes (2D, third person, first person)), enough so that I could ignore some of the groan-worthy dialog. Keep in mind I thought the story and cutscenes were entertaining, I just feel like with the actual dialog progression we warped back to 1996's Resident Evil level of presentation. In reference to the parts I liked, TN was responsible for that, so I would give them another stab at it.

One (minor) thing that needs to be gone in any sequel are those high heels on Samus' Zero Suit. Equal parts illogical and sexist, such a dumb idea...