FredTheCat

@DrCruse

Erm, thats called piracy and its illegal. A legal way would be for you to buy a European Wii & copy of Xenoblade, or wait until NOA decide whether to release this amazing game over there.

Bought Xenoblades today, all I can say is WOW !!!

Why on earth is this game not getting more publicity!

As an added bonus, I just received a gift from Nintendo for registering the game - a downloadable CD of the wonderful music.

Now waiting for Pandora's Tower (and Zelda of course).

I can't believe the hysteria because Nintendo has removed the Gamecube backwards compatibility.

Just about anyone who wanted the backwards compatibility will already have a Wii (or kept their gamecube). So the only people buying a Wii now are people who don't need the backwards compatibility.

Nintendo will undoubtedly keep the Wii going after the WiiU release (at least for some time) as a budget console for 'casual' gamers with the WiiU positioned as a premium product for both 'hardcore' and 'casual' gamers. These people don't either want or need Gamecube functionality.

So will people stop throwing their toys out of the pram? This redesign isn't the end of civilisation and existing Wii/Gamecube owners can continue to play great games like Eternal Darkness.

At last, a 3DS games list with more than a couple of releases on it!!

antdickens' comment hit the nail on the head.

Anyone who wanted backwards compatibility for the Gamecube will already have a Wii which can do that, so it makes business sense to take out parts that new console owners won't be using. Besides Nintendo needs the extra few quid that the redesign saves to counter the lack of profit on the 3DS !

Now all we need is for 3rd Parties to commit to develop more titles for the 3DS.

@Pj1, as you'll have connected to the eShop to purchase Mario Land then you'll automatically become an ambassador.

Is XcWarrior Sarah Palin in disguise?

@XCWarrior, we British suffered more casualties from American friendly fire than we did from the Iraqi's!!

@Daisaku36
I'm assuming the news reports have been quite sensationalised overseas. The reality is that although serious and newsworthy, its a small area affected (usually just a couple of streets) in some parts of 4-5 cities that have had riots. Its also the downmarket (perhaps slum?) areas of these cities rather than the city centres.

I'm assuming Fox "News" has reported it's millions of people rioting in every town and city!

English Chips = American Fries
American Chips = English Crisps.

I would have thought the high sales of RE:Mercenaries would have shown Activision that there is a clear market for shooters on the 3DS.

European 3DS owners don't even seem to get the 50 survey points when buying DSiWare games, never mind 3DSWare or VC games. As usual Europe is forgotten about by Nintendo !

I do find it amusing to read some of these comments about company failure and bankruptcy!! All companies across the world are having a tough time at the moment - most will ride out the bad times.

The 3DS was not helped by
a) Priced too high
b) It was launched too soon so not enough decent games at launch/three months on
c) Dreadful marketing.

As with the recent Wii price cut, there will be a huge increase in sales of the 3DS. At least now the adverts state clearly that the machine is 'Not DS, but 3DS" - you do have to be that plain and simple to get your message across.

Decent games are coming - even the eShop now has one 3DSware game! At least Mario Kart and Super Mario will be here by Christmas - these should have been available at launch then this 'crisis' would never have happened.

I remember getting the DS at launch - for the first year sales were also slow to pick up - it wasn't until 2 years later when the Lite came along (and by then a decent library of games) that the DS really flew off the shelves.

What this story forgets to report is that in addition to the 700,000 sold April to June, 3.6 MILLION were sold in the 'first two months of launch'.

In other words, 4.3 million total sales since launch. Virtual Boy only managed 700,000 in total so its hardly the same sales flop as the VB was!

Its no surprise that sales have dropped dramatically, no big name games were available except Streetfighter in the launch 3-months (even now all we have is Zelda and RE:Mercenaries).

I've never had a problem, but then my hands are always clean !!
Maybe the grease smears would go away for those people if they washed more often??

@ xDemon720x (and others).

You do not have to have a credit card to use the eShop. Anyone with a Debit Card can use this to buy from the eShop, so long as the card has a Mastercard or VISA logo.

I hope this helps, like others I don't have a credit card but discovered that debit cards work (on the Wii and DSi too!). I don't know why Nintendo don't add this to the instructions.

@Scottie.....more to the point where is Axelay for Europe? The US had it 2 years ago!!

@10
I'd traded in my DSi early - at the time Nintendo had simply said there would be a mechanism to play games bought with a DSi on the 3DS. I naively thought they'd do the transfer via Club Nintendo accounts.

Nintendo "customer service" has advised that there is no way to get those games back, even though I can prove I bought them as they are all listed on my Club Nintendo account.

As a result of Nintendo's policy of ripping off its loyal customers, I had about 30 DSiWare games which I have now lost the ability to play.....no doubt Nintendo are banking on people re-buying the same game in order to keep playing it.

It does sound stupid that some people aren't going to get a WiiU because it won't play Gamecube games. It does sound like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

As the WiiU will be using the existing Wii controllers then I don't see why people can't simply keep their Wii. As for "I don't have enough room" comments, the Wii takes up about the same space as 5 Gamecube game boxes....hardly a massive footprint! People's back catalogue of games is much more likely to be cluttering up the space around the TV!

Was surprised this morning to see this has been added to the 3DS VC. I was expecting we'd have to wait weeks for it!!

@Monkeh

Do you have debit cards in the Netherlands? In the UK the shop says it takes credit cards only. However it does accept debit cards with Visa/Mastercard symbols on them (the DS and Wii shops also accept debit cards)

Given Sony's appalling inability to keep its customer data private, they should be looking at ways of moving away from a download only model, not launching an NGP which needs you to give away your personal info to Sony (and any competent hacker).

There are nutters in all walks of life, unfortunately this can include doctors. Thankfully this is only a tiny fraction of 1%. Any sane doctor would of course say that passive smoking is massively more damaging than playing a video game.

We need more titles, including all the Nintendo big-hitters ASAP.

Also, launch some 3D movies (preferably incl. Avatar ) on SD Cards or downloadable for the 3DS and watch sales rocket. Not just clips of movies, full ones!

I've given up waiting for Pikmin 3.....after the play control releases got everyone thinking a new game would be announced soon. Pikmin are destined to remain only a VR Card

Blast Corps is a forgotten gem......shame Rare didn't bother with a sequel on any platform

@ Bulbasaurus - Starfox 3DS is scheduled for July 14th in Japan so hopefully a US/Europe release won't be too far behind.

When is Axelay getting a Europe release - its been out in the US for many months. Konami wouldn't comment when I emailed and asked them. They must know it would sell on VC so why have they ignored its release??

Lucky Australians, we British are charged 7,000 stars for the same controller!! If only Nintendo treated Europeans favourably (I have 3,100 stars!!).

The noon rule probably only applies to the UK as other countries couldn't work it out!

I'm unsure why people are stupidly questioning the official figures or assuming Europeans aren't buying 3DS's??
I got mine at midnight Friday (along with 20 or so others at the local Gamestation).

Friday morning I had 2 streetpass Mii visits while at the local hospital, plus several since just by having my 3DS while out shopping.