Wii-U will be awesome, just like every other Nintendo Console ever released.

Is it just me, or is using any type of game console while driving generally a bad idea? People have wrecks from texting while driving; I'm sure linking your DS up to your satellite system while you drive is just as bad, if not worse.

There is a very nice curling minigame on Super Mario 64x4 DS where you sling turtle shells across the ice onto a bull's eye. It worked perfect with the stylus.

NES, SNES, and N64 all launched in the US with a huge Mario title. additionally, Game boy color, Advance, and DS launched with Mario remakes.

Quite frankly, it is better to have to wait for a well-polished game than buggy rushed junk, But I got bored really quick with the 3DS prior to Zelda 3D and the eShop updates. The 3DS simply was launched too early. It is awesome now...

I've been hitting up Super Mario RPG (SNES). My cart has a brand new CR2032 battery in it, so no worries over randomly deleted saves.

I remember being in a couple of wifi races where 5-6 of the racers glitched. I never voted for Maka-Wuhu personally, but when another racer chose it, i was like "game on!"

I am glad though that Nintendo finally patched this, because it really is a beautiful course when played correctly.

So, is it confirmed that the glitch still works in Time Trials and G.P. mode? I would hate to lose my Maka-Wuhu Rosalina ghost.

Once again I've gotten obsessed with my NES as of late. I just finished building an arcade controller for NES:
@N04/sets/72157629736738048/">@N04/sets/72157629736738048/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/30203515@N04/sets/72157629736738048/

My 3DS is jealous, LOL!

There's not enough lady gamers in the world...

I was nine at the time in 1990. I begged my mom for a Nintendo for years, and it was all I ever wanted for Christmas. Finally got one at age 21 and fell in love with it.

Take a hint, people:

20+ thousand for the gold cart.
10 thousand for the grey cart.
55 bucks for a translucent blue reproduction cart at retrousb.com

Guess which version of Nintendo World Championships I have

I'm currently building an arcade controller for the NES out of 1/2 plywood, using real arcade parts. It should fit nicely on a table of in a lap. The dimensions are 18" x 8" x 4" (not including the height of the joystick). The idea for mine was to match the overall style and maintain usability, rather than being an exact scale replica. IMO, the coffee table is ginormous and a bit impractical.

The Wii was the best thing ever to happen to Sony. Why? People kept breaking their flat panel LCDs and plasmas with flying controllers, so Sony made a hefty profit on TV sales!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAXemHSPP3Y

Okay, it's like this, Mario ate some magic mushrooms and then fell asleep had some strange visions about his friends, in a land full of strange monsters and vegetables. I'll bet the developers were on opium when they thought up the game. Either way, it's a great piece of nostalgia. Hmmm, maybe Nintendo should look to it's roots for inspiration? Some of the greatest rock songs of all time were written/performed while high.

LOL, just kidding, seriously kids, don't do drugs...

@hydeks What strict policies? It's not like the game has any content in it Nintendo would consider objectionable. I've even seen Angry Birds Plushies at various retail stores, so it's obviously popular enough if they're worried about sales numbers. Just release it for DSi and score a little bit of extra revenue off it. Then give the DSi version some exclusive levels not found elsewhere to give people who already own it for other platforms the incentive to download it again. Even a budget-level retail DS release would likely sell boatloads. I would definitely buy it in a cart format.

Why can't they just release it for DSiWare? I don't own any Apple products, so I never got to try this little gem of a game. I'd like to play it, but I can't...

Maybe they will someday release it as a download, to be played on the Wii-U tablet?

Never been to Paris, but I saw the Eiffel Tower through a pair of Opera glasses while sitting in a Tram at the Airport. I was returning home from Italy in 2005. Would like to take the fiance/wife someday to see Paris.

I wonder if it's available to download onto museum patrons personal 3DSs. In other words, could I D/L the tour onto my own 3DS, rather than using the museum's handhelds? It would make a nice souvenir sitting on my 3DS home menu as proof I'd been there.

For years, "Super Mario Brothers 4" redirected to "New Super Mario Brothers" on Wikipedia.org Now for whatever reason, it redirects to "Super Mario World."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Brothers_4

There was also a Pirate GB title called "Super Mario 4" which presumably sucked big time. People are delving way too much into this issue.

People say Sunshine was the black sheep of the Super Mario 3D series, much as Super Mario Brothers 2 was the black sheep of the 2D series, being originally ported from Doki-Doki Panic, which wasn't even a Mario game at all. As a result, Super Mario Brothers 2 stands out as being more unique and unusual than the others, but a lot of game mechanics and enemies from Mario 2 were incorporated into later games, such as Bob-ombs, Shy-Guys, Sniffits, Pokeys, and even the mechanic of picking up and throwing enemies/shells.

Mario Sunshine is a product of the collect-a-thon movement, which was vastly popular in the 64/Gamecube generation, with 240 blue coins sprinkled throughout the game. They also had a completely different gameplay mechanic/powerup, the Fludd Pak, which may be passed off as gimmicky to some. Once you get used to it, it works almost flawlessly. In this instance, Sunshine was more a product of gaming trends, rather than a pioneer.

SMB and M64 in particular single-handedly shaped the 2D and 3D platforming genres. SMB2 and Sunshine were unique diversions to the formula, and then games such as SMB3 and Mario World perfected 2D, while Galaxy 1 & 2 really perfected 3D.

Now we have modern "2D style" games such as New Super Mario Brothers DS/Wii, which are more throwbacks than truly unique or inventive, and new "3D style" games, the first of which is Mario 3D Land, basically also a throwback game.

In summation all Mario games, 2D or 3D, are great, but serve vastly different roles in Mario history:

2D:
SMB - revolutionary
SMB2- unique
SMB3 - perfection
SMW - more perfection
NSMB DS - throwback
NSMB Wii - throwback

3D:
N64 - revolutionary
Sunshine - unique
SMG1 - perfection
SMG2 - more perfection
SM3DL - throwback

Not included in the list are ports and remakes:

Super Mario All Stars SNES
Super Mario Deluxe GBC
Super Mario Advance series GBA
Super Mario 64x4 DS

No offense, but I'm not eating this rumor. It's got enough sodium in it to send an elephant into cardiac arrest!

For better or worse, as with the 3DS, I will be buying this on day one!

I doubt seriously I could bear to play this game without the iconic colored Red, yellow, blue pills. Lack of color spoils this title. Ditto for Pacman.

Get Tetris instead.

Tetris has a history ripe with controversy. I own a copy of the legendary Tengen Tetris black cart for NES. Between the Tengen and Licensed versions, the Tengen version gets about 90% of my Tetris playtime on NES. The best modern version of Tetris is Tetris DS (the original version with 8-bit inspired retro goodness, not the cash-in "Party" version). Expect to pay 50 bucks for a used copy on Amazon or Ebay.

It was just a month ago when TMNT disappeared from Wii VC, and as well every downloadable Turtles game available was also removed from PSN and Xbox LIVE.

Recalled or discontinued physical media (cart or disc) become highly treasured collectables; whereas recalled or discontinued digital downloads become overnight vaporware.

The CPU had better be a quad-core, and clocked at least 2.0Ghz !!!

Every 5-6 years, release a new console. It will be the six year anniversary, rounded a day so that it falls on a Sunday.

Um, Mario is more popular, therefore he drinks Coke.
Luigi is an underdog, so he will naturally reach for the Pepsi.

Since the videogame industry was still in it's infancy at the time, I really don't believe that they had standard release dates back then. Retailers likely just started selling stuff as soon as they got their hands on them. Nintendo was probably rolling things out as quickly as possible, and usually, the East Coast and West coast get stuff first, then is slowly spreads throughout the middle parts of the US, first the large cities get it, then it goes everywhere else. Different geographic regions would have gotten the goods on different dates, so there may have been literally dozens of geographic launch dates.

With modern launches, they usually have entire warehouses full of product months ahead of schedule. A month before Wii's launch, I saw insider photos of huge warehouse pallets full of Wii boxes, waiting to be shipped. Those products usually make it to the retail stock rooms in back of the store about a week ahead of launch. Retailers have a contractual agreement to withhold sales of product until launch day. Eventually, this culminated into midnight launch parties, etc which are heavily publicized...

I just don't believe they had that exact type of infrastructure back in the 80s. Little emphasis was placed on launch dates back then. Preorders were unheard of, because the retailers themselves had no way of knowing when products would arrive.

Get WarioLand 3 out, My all-time favorite Game Boy Color game! WarioLand II is my second favorite, btw. I also like how WarioLand II has secret exits, so you can play through the game differently each time.

To be honest, I was bored to tears with my 3DS in the first couple of months, prior to the release of Zelda and the eShop update.

Nintendo gave us a number of free-to-play items on 3DS, and I'm not talking about apps like Nintendo Video either. Exitebike 3D and Zelda four swords were free for a limited time.

IMO, "freemium" is a pretty stupid buzzword. If you want the ultimate "freemium" experience, just build a PC with Linux on it

Game Stop is next if they can't learn to stop ripping off consumers!

Design it like the NES, with it's two-toned gray, black trim, and ribbed plastic vents along the top. Oh, and give the controllers red buttons!

All of the previous Nintendo consoles, NES, SNES, N64, Game Cube, as well as GB, GBC, GBA, GBA-SP, and DS all had distinctive looks as a console. Their competitors, the Sega Genisis, DreamCast, PS, PS2, PS3, Xbox, and Xbox360 also had distinctive looks. The Wii looks like a generic white box with a CD slot on it. That's one reason why I bought an acrylic blue case mod for it, with blue LEDs. Even if the Wii-U is to be white, at least give it some textured plastic, and a nice trim design to make it distinctive. Also a dark gray gunmetal finish along with lighter gray and black trim would be cool.

The stand is even more useless than the charging cradle. The only practical purpose I can see it being useful is maybe as a TV stand for watching Netflix.

This guy seriously needs to remaster the opening battle scene from "Saving Private Ryan" with 8-bit sound effects!

Again with the "a" versus "an" debate? That depends on what your preference for pronunciation is.

If you spell it as an acronym, it should be:
"I want an N.E.S. for Christmas."

If you pronounce it as a word, it should be:
"I want a Nes for Christmas."

Also be aware that US/Canadian English spelling and grammar rules have subtle differences compared to UK/Australia/NZ English, like "color" in American versus "colour" in British.

I saw these the other night at Gamestop. It's a good strategy to sell more games imo. They should sell codes for every 3DS/eshop exclusive title (no DSIware though).

I finally broke down and ordered one last week. It is a very nice system. And guess what? My copy of Super Mario RPG actually works on this unit!

Considering that there are no category in which both Mario AND Zelda are directly competing, I'd say both!

It's also equally likely than none will win, but I'm sticking to the "both" camp to support my fanboyism.

Cape Mario would be difficult to implement in a 3D game. You would have to go from a side mechanic to a forwards mechanic, then it would function more like the Wing Cap in Mario 64, which was itself awesome, and likely directly inspired by the Feather/Cape in Super Mario World.

On the topic of guided jumps, it makes sense now that some of the later levels of M64, Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride, it was so difficult to get the last shines. I remember nearly getting the "Stomp on the Thwomp" Star, and I just had to long jump over to a platform with the star plainly visible, and somehow I fudged the jump, falling to great depths, hitting a ledge hard (taking off 4 health counters), then falling again to the bottom of the clock tower almost in the same spot where I started the level (losing another 4 health wedges, KO'ing Mario), and falling off the ledge once again into the bottomless pit, with zero health (I was already dead anyway from my two falls and a grand total 8 damage wedges, but exiting via the pit at the bottom just adds insult to injury). Maybe if Mario 64 had the option to steer mid-flight (the 2D Marios can all steer mid-flight), I would have recovered, rescued the star, and saved my ego.

And Hayashida, please consider a level editor in future 2D Marios. People have been creating new Mario levels illegally for over a decade, now give the fanboys what they want so they don't have to continue hacking old Mario games.

It's funny how Marios jumps are parabolic in nature, and the algorithms necessary for Mario's precision can be expressed as a series of simple 8-bit signed integers (from -128 to +127). So next time you decide to rescue the princess, you can get your jump on and your 8-bit math as well!

Speaking of Cameos, somewhere in Mario Galaxy 2, there is a PacMan made out of star-bits which is briefly visible before you warp to a new area. I forget which level it's in, but I have seen it. They claimed it was sposed to be a chain chomp, but it looked like PacMan to me.

I think it would be cool in Mario could "pull a Kirby" and inhale his enemies. For example, inhale a hammer bro to throw hammers!

@Capt_N: Nintendo had the perfect opportunity to include all four of the plumbers, Mario, Luigi, Wario, and Waluigi in a real Mario game. That game was New Super Mario Brothers Wii, which featured 4-player simultaneous action. Wario could have been player 3, and Waluigi could have been player 4. If you recall, Wario was already featured as a side-kick in M64x4 DS. But instead of Wario and Waluigi, we get a very generic Blue and Yellow Toad. What a waste!

I bought Wii Play because I needed an extre Wii-Mote. Rather than pay $40 for a Wii Mote, I payed $10 more for a Wii. Game. Target shoot, Laser Pong, and Pool are my favorites. For extra replay value, try playing Target shoot and Laser Pong by yourself with two Wiimotes - for a game that's normally pretty darn casual, it turns into a hardcore exercise in hand-eye coordination when your attention is divided between two pointers!

For the record, SMG, SMG2, MKart, NSMB, and SMashBros are all excellent AAA titles.The fitness and dance titles don't appeal to me, but I'm not so naive that I realize just because a game don't appeal to me doesn't make them bad.

I like the idea of smashing cockroaches with the 3DS screen, kinda like those bugs in SMG Hiney Hive Galaxy that fall on their backs and don't hurt you but just die when you kick them. I guess some people have an aversion to cockroaches ( the "eww" factor) so I can see why they left that one out.

Ouch! That's gotta hurt. I wonder how much stuff gets lost with the translation to Wuu-U next year?

They should make a "wtf" section at the top next to retro!

I'm sure somebody either photoshopped that screenshot, of used the in-game texture editor with the 3DS camera.

By the way, Hooters is kind of overrated anyway. My fiance and I ate there once. They have great food and hot wings, but we'd probably eat there more often if it weren't for the skimpy atmosphere.

Monkeys and Apes throw poo at each other. It's nice to know humanity just dropped a few pegs on the evolutionary latter. Oh, and I feel sorry for the janitors who had to clean that up.

Stooopid Hooligans...

@Capt_N: If there are N64 cloned hardware in existance, i'd certainly like to know of it. It is common knowledge that many of the pirate famiclones aka SuperJoy III came in the shape of a fake N64 controller.

I simply stated that an N64 hardware clone would be cool. They've already done it for the 8- and 16-bit systems. The N64 had a much beefier processor (over 25x faster clock speed of SNES), so a simple all-on-one-chip solution probably wouldn't cut the mustard, but i'm not saying it can't be done, though at this time, an ARM processor with a software emulator and an appropriate graphics chipset would probably be cheaper to manufacture than true N64 cloned hardware. N64s are also cheaper and easier to come by than SNES/NES consoles, so the demand is probably lower. Give them time...

That sucks. First Turtles and now this. Well, Turtles i can understand as it is a licensing issue. At any rate, the Wii Virtual Console is losing games now. Please tell me this ain't a preview of more things to come. This is not a trend I'd like to see continue.

That reminds me, back in 2005, I filed a patent for a motion-sensing joystick that didn't require a base stand. I should probably go sue Nintendo for damages.

-Sarcasm

Ah yes, the indestructible cartridge? Where are the good old days when cartridges were thrown about and nothing but the gentlest blowing on the contacts (or possibly Q-tips + alcohol) was required to get them to work again? Digital downloads will be lost forever with time; nobody will be playing them 20 years later on forgotten hardware. My NES as well as the original Super Mario Brothers cartridge still works, even though it is 25 years old by now.

@bonesy91 all the TMNT games on PSN, Xbox, and Wii VC are already gone now. Don't count on it.

They've already cloned NES, SNES, and Gen/ MD systems; do you think they will clone the N64 next? Since patents expire after 20 years, N64 clones will be coming up around the corner, depending on when exactly the patents were filed.

I own a PowerPak NES and I love it, but I'm not planning on buying flash carts for any of my other retro systems ATM.

@The_Fox Last I checked, it was $199 USD for an Xbox 4Gb:
http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-360-4GB-Console/dp/B003O6JKLC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330518426&sr=8-1

So it is confirmed that hybrid DS/3DS carts are possible? Why has nobody yet used this technology for new DS releases? The Game Boy Color had a huge catalog of games (black carts) which were backwards compatible with the Game Boy.