I still think these are both really enjoyable games - though you need to play the Wii version of The Power of Two as opposed to the Wii U version - and despite both being flawed, they're utterly charming and they deserved to do far better.

Oh, dear lord, subtitles. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING.

Yes, in a perfect world, this game would allow anyone of any gender to marry anyone else of any gender. Men could marry men and women could marry women, just as it should be in life. Here's the thing, though: this game is currently only available in Japan, and the fact of the matter is that Japan does not, and has absolutely no intention, or recognising same-sex marriage now or in the future. In all honesty, for Nintendo to combat this glitch by patching female-to-female marriage in would be a bad move and would reflect very negatively on Nintendo within Japan, even if the opposite would be true elsewhere.

So they had no other choice, really.

Given that prices are cheaper when buying from GAME online - Mario Kart 7 is £31.99 digital as opposed to £39.99 - I'd be very tempted to buy download codes if that trend should continue, yes.

My thoughts are with his wife and their family. Terribly sad news.

"I do not fear death. I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear."

A hairball, I am choking.

Not one single person who ever plays this game will go and kill a whale.

I still want to pick one of these up one day. I need something to play GBA games on, and as much as I adore my Micro, it's a little too small for me.

I read another comment, either here or on another site, from someone who had the exact opposite experience - Nintendo issued them with a full refund and a $50 credit on top as an apology. This is a rare occurrence and a very unfortunate one at that, and I really think Jon should contact Nintendo again and see if they're willing to do any more - and if not, lodge a complaint.

It should also be pointed out that the notion that purchases are tied to the hardware hasn't really been confirmed to be the case - Nintendo's said before that they're tied to the Nintendo Network ID, and although NNIDs can't be transferred between systems yet, that will be possible following a future update, which could very well be either the spring or summer update we've been promised. Presumably, your Nintendo eShop and Wii Shop Channel data will move with, otherwise there'd be no point in them at all.

And yes, he should have contacted Nintendo immediately, not returned it and had it replaced. That much is blatantly obvious, because then they would just have transferred everything to a new console. So, yes, that was a very stupid thing to do.

@darkgamer001 And it wouldn't be fair on those who aren't English if they were forced to wait for possible translation of titles just because they spoke a different tongue. To all intents and purposes, that's discrimination.

@the_shpydar It's translated by Nintendo (or at the very least it's published on the official Nintendo website), so it's accurate.

Nintendo's tried the "third pillar" approach before, with Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS, and neither the Game Boy Advance nor the Nintendo DS respectively lasted very long after the new system came out.

What I would like to see happen in the future is more hardware options for new system launches. Sort of like if the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo 3DS XL both launched at the same time - and similar to two (three in Europe) different Wii U bundles launching at once. This sort of variety is what I hope to see from these comments - it would make a lot of people happy too.

We already knew this. Iwata confirmed the Wii U Virtual Console in the last Nintendo Direct before the Wii U launched. He also made clear it was to be the "Wii U Virtual Console" - which sounds like a new library of titles, not existing Wii Virtual Console titles. He specifically said "Wii Virtual Console" titles cannot be played on the GamePad but that Nintendo was planning for the "Wii U Virtual Console" which would include Wii U functionality.

Keep in mind there was a Wii U update last week, even if it was only one retail download, and it wasn't included in the Nintendo Download update. It's entirely possible the same could happen this week.

@LuigiMan200 I recently beat the Wii version and I enjoyed it just as much as the first. Yeah, it's got flaws, but I never found the co-op to be a negative thing and overall I thought it was still a pretty great game.

I enjoyed it a lot more than this, I'd give it a 6 or a generous 7. Yeah, it's got flaws you can't ignore, but it's still a charmer.

This is one of my favourite 3DS games, and the thought of some people only playing it on a phone makes me very sad. It deserves far better.

@madgear Nintendo set up shop in Europe long before any other major video game developer, and long before any German laws were written to explicitly involve video game censorship. But yeah, damn them to hell for not being able to see 22 years into the future.

@belmont PSN isn't affected because Sony Computer Entertainment Europe is based in the UK. Same for XBLA and Microsoft Studios Europe. They are UK companies - ignore the name, it's the location of the registered office that matters - and thankfully we don't have any daft laws over here (well, where games are concerned, anyway).

The fact of the matter is this: Nintendo's servers are in Germany. It's alright saying "move them elsewhere," but the head office is in Germany, and it'd be a logistical nightmare for Nintendo if the servers were anywhere else. As things stand now, it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for Nintendo to obtain permission to allow this content at all times of day in other countries because the fact still remains that it's on German servers. As a result, it's under German jurisdiction, and if the law dictates that it doesn't just apply to the people of Germany - it might, I've no idea - then Nintendo has to abide by that or suffer possible legal consequences.

@evildevil97 Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and Microsoft Studios Europe are both based in the UK, so don't need to apply German laws to their online stores as Nintendo apparently does (if that is indeed the explanation).

Next step for Nintendo is to work with PEGI and possibly even consult with German courts to try and lift this restriction elsewhere.

If I can quote this post from GN, as taken from a Nintendo email:

"Legal age restriction requirements vary across a number of European countries. Since Nintendo of Europe is based in Germany, Nintendo eShop is complying with German youth protection regulation which therefore applies to all our European markets. Under German law, content rated 18+ must be made available only at night."

Nintendo would have to either move their offices or their servers - or both - out of Germany in order to avoid this. It might be possible to lift the sanction in all EU countries excluding Germany, or it might not. We don't know, but to place all blame on Nintendo is unfair - though unsurprising, given how many people take so much pleasure in attacking it.

THAT PICTURE, THOUGH. You trying to finish me off or something?

I actually sort of want one. It looks really cool. If it's sub-£100 when/if it comes to the UK, I may have to consider getting one, if only for the collection!

@squashie Yup, they're the folks - lovely lot. I was a little concerned at first that Nintendo might be dropping them in favour of internal PR, which was a bit of a worry, since... well, it's a small part of a big company with a very big pile of stuff to do.

I'm hoping the new changes and faces are going to be a positive step for Nintendo UK. I was very disappointed when they dropped Good Relations - a wonderful group of people who I always felt were a pleasure to work with - though the folks at the new company are just as kind and helpful.

I wonder if the fact that Kemp is apparently new to this industry will be a good thing or a bad thing. You can only hope it'll be the former.

@ThomasBW84 I noticed on NOA's updated Wii U website it says demos were "coming soon" - not sure what to make of it, it's interesting though. http://www.nintendo.com/wiiu/built-in-software/#/eshop

Buying DKC2 and DKC3 at some point, then. Not missing out on these.

@antonvaltaz The official Wii U website for Japan says the Wii Shop Channel will still be available on Wii U via the Wii U Mode, so that much is fact. Iwata confirms in the video that Wii U Virtual Console games will soon come to Nintendo eShop and will be playable on the GamePad, so that's also fact. I grant you that, while I am assuming there'll be two separate pools of VC games, that's a pretty safe assumption to make. It's very, very unlikely that any games from the Wii Shop Channel will be reissued on Nintendo eShop. It really wouldn't make sense for Nintendo to do that as it could well cause confusion among buyers.

Unfortunately, you won't be able to use the GamePad to control Wii VC games - these games have to be played in Wii Mode, in which the GamePad is automatically turned off. You'll still be able to use all Wii accessories though, including the Wii Remote and Classic Controller.

@Peppy_Hare No, you can't repurchase VC games. Please don't forget that the Wii Shop Channel will still be accessible on Wii U via the Wii Mode - thus, Wii Virtual Console games purchased in the Wii Shop Channel cannot be purchased from Nintendo eShop because they won't be there at all. If you want to buy the likes of NES, SNES, N64 games and so on, you still have to get them from the Wii Shop Channel, and they will remain unplayable on the GamePad. The same applies to any new games released for these systems after Wii U launches. Wii U VC will only consist of systems not on the Wii Shop Channel, so presumably the likes of GameCube.

@Peppy_Hare I literally JUST replied to that on the GamePad thread. You're misunderstanding, I've explained why in the other thread.

@Peppy_Hare No, I think you're misunderstanding. Games from the Wii Virtual Console won't be playable on the GamePad. Games from the Wii U Virtual Console will be. Two completely different sets of games - Wii VC is everything currently on the Wii Shop Channel, Wii U VC will be stuff you can only buy on Nintendo eShop.

@Magnet_Man018 It's not quite as complicated as it's made to sound. The vast majority of HDDs should and will work, but from what Iwata's saying, it sounds like any external HDD that has its own power cable will definitely work, and if you use a Y Cable (with 2 USBs on the end), that's also a pretty good bet. Might be an idea to wait for NOE/NOA to offer some guidance here, though.

@snax007 You CAN play games directly from external HDD. One of the main points of the Nintendo Direct broadcast was to clarify that - watch the video, you'll see Iwata clearly point out on the Wii U Menu an icon for New Super Mario Bros. U, stored on the Wii U console, and an icon for Nintendo Land, stored on an external HDD. That would NOT be displayed if you couldn't boot games right from the external HDD. Forget everything you learnt from ONM's shoddy journalism earlier in the week, because frankly, most of it was bull.

Much better. Now we can stop the witch-hunt.

@Bluezealand Yup - Nintendo has plans for Wii U Virtual Console and those games will be playable on the GamePad.

@Discostew Can't possibly be the case - Wii games (i.e. WiiWare and Virtual Console) are stored on the SD card. It seems that's the only reason the SD card slot is there - to maintain backwards compatibility with Wii and the Wii Menu.

Why are some people assuming you'll have to manually transfer games from the external hard drive onto the console itself? That's very unlikely to be the case. Remember how the SD Card Menu on Wii functioned - you'd pick a game and it'd automatically move the necessary files to and from the Wii console. I don't believe for a second you'll have to manually transfer games with Wii U. This might be from the official Japanese website, but this is by no means an official translation, so I expect there's some very unfortunate mistranslations here.

Work today is cancelled. I gotta think of a good entry...

Love how people are accusing Nintendo of lying about the Ninja Gaiden release for NES. Yes, they said it was coming out today, but that was well over a month ago. There's a big difference between "lying" and "things changing prior to release" - maybe there was a problem pushing the game to Nintendo eShop, or maybe Nintendo just decided to release it next week instead so it was closer to the release of Razor's Edge. Accusations of lying and false advertising are uncalled for, unhelpful and just plain bull.

Happy 7th birthday!

@zeldazero It's a Dragon Quest X open beta for Wii U, but it's not available outside Japan.

Pokédex 3D Pro for me. I don't care if the same information is available for free on the internet - I would much rather use a specially-designed app.

Would be really nice if it came to the UK, especially with YouView starting to enter more homes. BBC iPlayer (and other catchup services), Netflix, LOVEFiLM, Sky, TiVo, YouTube, YouView, maybe even the likes of BT Vision... it's not like we don't have any services for TVii to support.

This was my first ever Sonic game, and I absolutely loved it, so if it comes to Europe it's an immediate purchase for me.

So in order to play EA games online on PS3/X360, you have to have an Origin account? Well, like you said then, this is expected. If EA has their own online infrastructure in place on other systems, there's no reason why they shouldn't use it on Wii U too.

Definitely downloading Professor Layton, it'll be far less hassle when it comes to the daily puzzles.

@Assassin87 As I recall, Nintendo has already said they're developing voice chat and video call applications for Wii U, the latter of which we've already seen in several promotional videos, and they will use the GamePad microphone.

Not really surprising - it was already confirmed Q2 in Japan and just 2013 in Europe, so it's more than likely going to see worldwide release. It might only be delayed a month or two; I think we could see it in April.

@Ducutzu Since when have they given up on it? It still updates every week or two as it always has done - the only difference these days is that Nintendo doesn't mention which new offerings are coming in the download update itself. They tend to do it on Twitter now.

Life: made.

Great review. Not sure where you get "Mask of Miracle" from though (re first paragraph), as it's only known as that in Japan - it's known as "Miracle Mask" everywhere else, including North America. Just check the NA pack shot.