MussakkuLaden

@LtAldoRaine I wished I had made it that far.

My favorites aren't on the list, but out of the title that are, it's without doubt LEGO City Undercover

@Starwolf_UK Regarding your question about the warehouses, I assume the distribution process has been somewhat restructured, decentralised for quite a while. At this time it is no longer economical to carry all hard- and software (which is produced almost entirely outside of Europe) to Großostheim, and then to re-distribute it from there again. Also the fact that Nintendo set up a new location in Frankfurt quite some while ago, rather than expanding Großostheim, indicated that the significance of the latter was dwindling for quite a while.

Wow, that marks the end of an era. Großostheim was practically synonymous with Nintendo of Europe for two decades. While the move is somewhat understandable (I don't mean the streamlining process as such, but the decision to centre it elsewhere, i.e. the decision against Großostheim as future HQ in Europe), I personally find it extremely sad to hear this. Nintendo of Europe without Großostheim will never be the same again.

In this case I'd actually prefer the download version, as it's quick and easy to play every now and than, rather than exchanging the disc of the game I'm playing intensely with that of Wii Sports Club. But on the other hand, if the price for the retail version drops considerably below that of the download of the whole package, I may still opt for it.

That is one cheap price for Tekken Tag 2! Much recommended. I have the physical copy for more than a year and it's nice that a lot more newcomers can be expected for fights online.

666? Intriguing.
Hadn't expected MK8 would beat the PS360 versions of Watch Dogs.

As some other commenters, I'm missing the Crash Bandicoot racing games on this list too, especially as they appeared on the GameCube and as the pretty great Crash Tag Team Racing was pretty much the closest thing to Diddy Kong Racing ever released.
Extending the meaning of MK clones a bit: Snowboard Kids!!

With Konami being a reliable supporter of the Virtual Console (and the iOS release showing that the series isnt entirely forgotten), I hope that Konami Krazy Racers will make it on the WiiU GBA VC! Maybe already before MK Super Circuit – again.

@JaxonH Well said.

That is a pretty great improvement, I suppose! I am among those preferring the wiimote pointer usage when playing on the TV screen, thus if I wanted to play on the Gamepad screen only, I had to adjust to completely new controls (unless of course I had played with wiimote pointer on the gamepad screen, which is pretty weird and misses the point). So now I suppose the touchscreen controls will be somewhat similar to playing with the wiimote.

Nice to see that Nintendo keeps improving on it's older titles.

Not to forget, this could make 8 (or 9) player multiplayer games possible.

I don't really find that surprising. While the WiiU sale numbers are certainly no reason to be happy, I very much doubted that PS4 and XOne would be a great success in the first two or so years after release (apart from a strong launch, due to the most hardcore of core gamers). I am pretty sure that if I owned a PS3 and would be a faithful Sony gamer, I had not yet purchased the PS4 either. Not only can the majority of AAA-titles still be played on the old system, they do not even look that much weaker. I don't mean this as a criticism of the PS4 hardware, it simply is the way things go. One should not forget that even the PS3 needed a good while to take off, and with the difference between generation less visible now then back then, it could hardly be expected that it would sell like crazy. In two years maybe. All 3 console have and will have a hard time attracting customers. But naturally, once the prices drop and the last gen disappears from the shelves, they will sell. Some more, some less, that's the question.

Great week!
I'm still not sure if I buy MK8 (I mean if I do, not as a download but retail) soon, as I don't really have time to play it this summer. The promotion and the possibility to thus get Zelda HD for free would be the only reason for me. So in the end it depends on the price at which I can find the retail version.
In case I postpone the purchase, I will surely get Minish Cap soon!! One of the titles I was really waiting for.
Oh, but first I must finish that boring Mario & Luigi...

@Psyclone You do know that native resolution is something that can be measured if you have the right hard- and software, do you? And not just the difference between 1080 and 720, but exactly, with one line precision. So there is no reason to suspect that Digital Foundry, commonly a reliable source on such matters, is making anything up without prove. It's a comparatively simple matter, so they hardly need to explain how they determined to resolution.
Secondly, no, there are not "plenty" of games running in 1080p on the WiiU. Only a very few (which is not surprising, could not be expected otherwise, and certainly no problem). Plus, if MK8 ran on 1080 natively, Nintendo would surely highlight that, as they did with other 1080 native titles in the past.

@SMW Some people just cried louder and louder that it was a hoax, because they didn't seem to understand the complexities of video game development. The game certainly was real (one prove was that other, respectable companies, did actually confirm their involvement or the licensing of their technologies), but the communication was bad, not to say childish. In the times of Kickstarter, even the most inexperienced indy can no longer allow himself thinks like that. Surely, Nibris were the ones having made the mistakes first, but later they were treated rather unfair (but then again, this was not the reason why the development stopped).

I always liked this game, not because I had expected a particularly great game (as the developer seemed to lack experience and budget), but because the ambitions and inspirations behind it were really cool (at least as good as in Eternal Darkness, which, while a great step forward at its time, for today's perspective seems a bit trashy in parts).
By the way, I think the game on the Wii that may come closest to how Sadness could have been is "Cursed Mountain". I great game too, waiting to be rediscovered, not forgotten.

Looks great. In fact, looks a bit like Duck Tales. (I refer to the visuals.)

Damn, I wonder when EXACTLY it'll shutdown? I wished it would still run tomorrow, then I had much more time!
I want to play some Goldeneye tonight until the EUR servers shut down!!

Nice to see some less expectable titles coming to the GBA VC! However, I hope that a few more of the Nintendo-AAA titles will arrive soon too.
...and, note to Konami: Please release your Mario Kart-clone! I forgot the name, but it included Goemon and some others and may be a nice change from the Nintendo characters.

If I'm not mistaken, the previous versions of the X360 and PS3 consumed a lot more energy, comparable (or even above) their successors. While this may not be relevant to someone who buys one of the 6 consoles NOW, it still seems important for a fair comparison. It can be assumed that future "small" versions of PS4 and XOne will consume less energy again.

I think after having watched this video, I may not be able to fully enjoy Child of Light anymore. But then, the game's stale art style seems pretty well in tune with this type of music... yawn

I didn't know that she had an interest in video games, but I always thought that her music sounds "just like video game music", whatever that may be, but maybe you know what I mean. But, well, mediocre videogame music or just shallow music. Absolutely don't enjoy it and don't find her sympathetic either. Only the dancing is quite nice, but then again destroyed by the horrible camera movements in the videos.

@Angelic_Lapras_King That is what I've been asking myself too. And I guess that it may be EA who made a mistake here and may not have realised that the DS & Wii titles (which means in contrast to the titles on non-Nintendo platforms) will already lose their online functions on May 20th. According to Nintendo, ALL WiFi-Games will lose their online functionality, third parties of course included, as the whole service is shut down. At least, all the EA-titles mentioned here appear in Nintendo's own list likewise, which clearly says May 20th: http://www.nintendo.com/consumer/gameslist/en/games-wifi.jsp
I think EA failed to notice this when they released their multi-platform list, and I don't expect that the EA titles on Wii & DS will retain their online functions till the end of June, but lose them with all the others on the 20th of May.
Perhaps NL could investigate this and clarify the situation.

Personally, I owned about 30 Wii titles with online functionality and I played all of them during the last couple of weeks since the shutdown was announced. With a very few exceptions – Onslaught – I found players for every game, which surprised me too.
Hmm, I seem to have no EA title with online functionality. Indeed, almost no EA titles for the Wii at all.

@Chris720 Treyarch? Making a new Call of Duty every second year and porting another one to Wii every other year certainly keeps them busy enough. In fact, I don't think they could still do anything else...

@TheLilK98 Yup, surely the best Spiderman game out there and a great open world game on its own right. I had high hopes for the Wii sequel, due to the motion controls at that time, but unfortunately that was already rather bad (okay, reading Chris720's comment, it seems that opinions differ here).

Nice to see original games like that coming to the WiiU. Don't have time or money for it now, but I will certainly keep an eye on it and get it if it's on sale.

Yes, one of my most anticipated games on the WiiU!

Wow, 3.6 million is really quite low. Okay, it is more than last year and Nintendo has to generate all sales basically without the help of third parties, but with prices continually dropping, SSB, MK8 and others coming, it's nonetheless a surprisingly modest expectation. That makes me wonder if Nintendo either wants to play it safe and avoid any further disappointments like last year, maybe even surprise with a result above expectations – or if they simply have no idea how to turn the tide for the WiiU and are aware of it (or decided to go along with the "GameCube-strategy": low investments, low risks, low profits generated by fairly high-selling 1st-party titles – but profits after all, till the next console is released).

Underwhelmed.

Oh btw, I find pink gold peach great. But again, the name is weird. As she is made of gold, why didn't they call her rose gold peach?

I think apart from his ugly name, Waluigi is a great character who complements Wario/Luigi just as well as Wario complemented Mario. While it seems truly unlikely that he will make it into a main series Mario game (as even Wario almost never turns up), I hope he will make it into future Wario games. Given the fact that Nintendo didn't drop him after his initial appearance in Mario Tennis, but has since included him in most spin offs, it's pretty weird that he never made it into any Wario title, especially as they introduce a range of (certainly non-Mushroom kingdom inhabiting) characters of their own.

Wow, one of the weakest weeks in ages.

And I'm thoroughly disappointed that the GBA VC does not continue with at least one additional release per week.

Any game whose characters are dressed like..., like this!, should automatically pass no quality control.

Great! That'll be SMG2 for me.

The original was amazing on the N64 and – in a totally different manner – on the GameBoy Color. One of my favorite games on both consoles. The GCN version was a bit of a disappointment though, as it felt like a step back from the N64 original in many respects, and didn't add anything good and new to the original recipe, apart from improvements of the technical aspects, both even those were rather disappointing by GCN standards.
It's great to see the series return with glory and if I ever get a 3DS, this is a must have for me!

What I particularly liked about the N64 original was the soundtrack and the change of daylight and music through the "day" of a 18-hole round. This created such an amazing atmosphere! Unfortunately, that daytime change did not make it into the GCN sequel. Can someone tell me if there's something like it in the 3DS version? ^^

For a reasonable price, this will be mine. Never played it before.

Basically a good thing. I'm just afraid that in combination with the 200-letters-restriction it might make it difficult to give someone a detailed reply if, for instance, he wants to know how to continue at a certain passage in a game where he is stuck.
But leaving that aside, a good thing. And one can still write without the 3 minute restriction on DIFFERENT posts. I was first worried about that.

As I played this many years ago (even though I can hardly remember it, and I think I wasn't too impressed anyway) I will rather wait for the release of GP Legend. It may not be so much better or very different, but at least it's entirely new to me.
So for the time being, Metroid Fusion is the only GBA title on my VC buy list. But I look forward to whatever May may bring.

@CaPPa I agree with what you say about the Phantom Menace. It was surely not perfect, but out of the three films of the new trilogy, I like it BEST BY FAR. It still had a lot of the spirit of the original trilogy and the playfulness, and at least traces of the dirtiness, that were once typical for Star Wars.

@audiobrainiac Liking or disliking something is not a matter of being capable of "making it better". Plus, only the overall story is from "the same time years ago" and is usually not what anyone complains about. The actual scripts for the new trilogy were written only shortly before production. In any case, most people's criticism of the new trilogy is not with the story, but with the way it was realised. George Lucas, in the opinion of many, just did not make a good job as a director.
I don't mean to say that you cannot like the new trilogy more, it's stupid to criticize someone's opinion on the ground of "you could not have made it better".

"From a business and commercial perspective, purely in numbers and market logic, this may be the correct decision for Nintendo."
I think even this may depend very much on the territory. In some (especially several European countries) where same-sex relationships are commonly accepted and even a proper, legal marriage is allowed since several years already, I cannot see that anyone would find it necessary to protest against such a possibility in any game – not even conservative users who may oppose the idea of homosexual marriage in general.
In fact, in such territories the possibility the marry someone from the same sex in the game may even increase sales and increase the reputation of the game, as despite accepted in other field of art, homosexuality in video games is still extremely rare. I can even see that the rejection of such a feature could lead to severe protests from parts of the audience.

I more or less agree with Mecha_Boo. Personally, I never much enjoyed Brawl and I cannot even say exactly why. Probably because it never felt much different to me and thus, after having played Melee for hours and hours, the concept had somehow lost its appeal. Therefore, making it even more like Melee to me goes into the very wrong direction and I hope that SSB WiiU will play very different from all the others.
I surely know that it's tiny differences which can make all the difference for professional players seeking a deep competition, and therefore I understand the aim of Project M and I have nothing against that. It just seems wrong and even unfair to me, to call it "fixing" a game which was the way it was for a reason, I suppose (although that doesn't mean it was perfect even on objective ground, of course).
But I would also say that Melee was in fact the more accessible game from my experience with many, many ignorant players. It may have been more difficult to defeat a pro in Melee than it was in Brawl, but at least you seemed to be in control of what happens. Friends of mine got easily into Brawl, but just as quickly got bored of it, because all fights seemed somewhat random.

As an aside, even though I never noticed that personally, as Brawl, unfortunately, seemed even more chaotic to me than Melee was, I think that one of the best changes made to the game was to made it slower. All the hardcore-SSB-fans among my friends found Melee way too fast and chaotic and continued to prefer the strategic N64 original anytime. The more time passes, the more I tend to agree with this view. The only problem that prevents the title from entertaining as many hours as Melee is the small roster.

Finally, I almost totally agree with siavm. I find it sickening that players tend to demand (or make existing games into) the games they wish to have, the type of games that fit their existing tastes instead of appreciating the vision of the producers. They complain more and more, even if a new game merely comes with a different control scheme - Oh no, why can't I change the controls to the scheme of game XYZ! - not to speak of
No wonder that game developers lose confidence in their work and in video games' ability to realise dreams in general, and that their polished, consumer-oriented products bear more and more the mark of sheer anxiety.

Considering that the title is rather stupid by any standards, I guess it may be some smaller eShop title by some small developer, and not a big, new IP.

Uhm, nothing for me this week. Wario Ware is highly recommended and perhaps the best part in the series, but I own it already. Kirby, meh. The Duck Tales discount is nice, but surely won't be the last the game receives. As I'm still busy with Mario & Luigi for a while, I will wait for a future discount of this interesting game.

@element187 Well, HD means nothing more than high definition. So rather this is exactly what a Xenoblade in mere HD would look like.

@adamical @unrandomsam Thanks to you two, too. I didn't know that the DJ Hero DLC has been taken down already, I just checked Samba de Amigo. But then I don't really care about some overpriced songs anyway. I'm just glad that I can expand My Life as a King! ^^

What I like most is how they gave Donut Plains an interesting overall theme.

@ACK Thanks a lot for the information! I'm glad to hear that.

Can anyone tell me if after the shutdown of the Nintendo Wifi-Connection it'll still be possible to purchase add-on content for FF CC My Life as a King (or for that matter, other games)?

Non-free downloadable content is the only "online function" that My Life as a King offers, and indeed the game is not listed on Nintendo's official, long list of games whose online functionality will be discontinued in late May. The same holds true for My Life as a Darklord and My Aquarium 2, for instance, i.e. games that offered Wifi-Connectivity only in the sense of "Pay & Play" (and, in the case of My Aquarium 2, WiiConnect24 functionality, but that was already discontinued last year, as we may remember, and the descriptions of this game (and other games) in the Wii Shop mentions the fact).

I'm therefore supposing that "Pay & Play" functions, just like the Wii Shop, may still remain available after the discontinuation of all "free" online functions. But if anyone knows that for certain, I'd feel more comfortable, as I still intend to download some extra content for a second playthrough of My Life as a King some day in the future.

If it's true that Pay & Play remains available, this should also mean that games which ARE on Nintendo's discontinuation list - like DJ Hero and Samba to Amigo, just to mention two that I own - may "only" loose their free online functions, but the purchase of additional songs may still be possible. Indeed, on Nintendo's list of features affected by the shutdown, only "FREE additional content" is mentioned.

Oh, I hope this won't reduce the impact of items. Where would be the fun in Mario Kart if the positioning could not change completely at any given moment? I hope they don't mess this up and end with anything as lame as Sonic Transformed... (

"Metroid Fusion […] the last 2D portable Metroid that we've enjoyed."
Err, Zero Mission anyone?? That was released 2 years past Fusion.

The permanent price drop for the Two Tribes titles is nice. I got Edge and Toki Tori when they were cheap, and although not quite "amazed" by either of them, the good reviews for Rush (which I only missed during its initial discount due to having been on vacation) may make me buy it one day.