Every few weeks, Nintendo digs out enough downloadable content from its virtual warehouse to put something new on all four of its online-enabled systems. Of course, that usually means something cool for the 3DS and Wii U and something weird/dumb/boring for the Wii and DSi, but not this week! Yes, for the first time (and let’s be honest, probably last time), one of the more high-profile releases is for WiiWare, but you can still find the usual cool stuff on the Wii U and 3DS and a game with a weird title on the DSi. So not everything is different.

First up is the Wii U, which gets full and demo versions of Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien, the sequel to autoscrolling platformer Bit.Trip Runner. Like the rest of the Bit.Trip series from developer Gaijin Games, Runner 2 boasts a hip techno soundtrack timed with your actions that makes it feel more like a rhythm game than a straight platformer.

History has shown us that, prior to 2010′s Lords of Shadow at least, the 2D side-scrolling Castlevania games are usually the only ones worth paying attention to. Will Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate carry on that legacy? You can find out for yourself today in its new demo, or next Tuesday (March 5) when the full title is available on stores and on the eShop.

If whipping vampires to death isn’t your thing, you can get a pair of new eShop games: Coaster Creator 3D, which lets you design and enjoy your own thrill rides, and Mahjong Mysteries: Ancient Athena, a mahjong game. Also, two-screen action title Fractured Soul is on sale for $7.99 (down from $11.99), and this week is your last chance to download the Champions of Yore 1 DLC for Fire Emblem: Awakening. So, get on that.

Thankfully, the much-hyped (by me) new Wii release is not a Virtual Console port of a game you forgot about 10 years ago, but it is a WiiWare port of a game you might have played a few months ago: Retro City Rampage. The faux 8-bit Grand Theft Auto-style shooter is essentially “References To Things You Like: The Game,” and the WiiWare version includes the new ROM City Rampage mode, which envisions how it would work if played on a Nintendo Entertainment System. For now, ROM City Rampage is exclusive to the Wii and PC versions, so you can hold that over anyone who bought it on Xbox 360, PS3, or Vita.

Finally, on the DSi, Easter Eggztravaganza takes hidden-object and spot-the-difference games to their logical conclusion with an actual Easter egg hunt. It’s not the same as the real thing, but at $4.99, it is certainly cheaper.

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It’s Valentine’s Day, and you foolishly spent all of your money on a fancy new video game console instead of a romantic getaway for your significant other. Now what? Well, Nintendo has your back with this week’s Wii U eShop update. But if you’d rather spend the day alone and hunched over a handheld, it has you covered for that as well.

First up is the Wii U, which is getting its own version of Google Street View today with the Wii Street U app. While it may seem like a straight port of the global satellite imaging service, the twist in this is that you’re able to use the GamePad to view full 360-degree panoramic views of whatever exciting destination you couldn’t afford to visit in real life.

Meanwhile, the 3DS eShop won’t let you go on imaginary vacations, but you can download a demo of animé side-scroller Naruto: Powerful Shippuden and the full versions of Rabbids Travel in Time 3D (which ditches the former Rayman-vehicle’s minigame roots in favor of an action-focused platformer) and Petz Fantasy 3D (in which you dress up fantastical creatures and learn to love them as if they were real pets). Wrapping things up for the 3Ds is a port of the arcade classic Dig Dug, a title that upholds the classic gaming tradition of killing cute enemies in the most brutal way possible (this time by inflating them until they explode).

The only update for the DSi this week is Moke Moke, which, according to this YouTube video posted by the developers at G-Style, appears mildly Balloon Fight-esque in the way that it has wacky characters flapping their arms in order to fly around and grab things.

Finally, the lone update for the original Wii’s Virtual Console is World Heroes 2 Jet, the sequel to World Heroes 2 (which Nintendo added to the service early last month).

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People have been talking about video game violence a lot lately, and Nintendo’s eShop update manages to hit both sides of the debate.

First up is the Wii U, which (at least for this week) is the place to go if you want video games about kicking people so hard that they explode. That’s because the only new item coming to the Wii U today is the full version of Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage 2, based on the long-running manga and animé series. While it’s on a disc in Japan, Ken’s Rage 2 is exclusive to the eShop in the United States and Europe.

Things get a little more highbrow for the 3DS this week. Well, it’s technically next week, because you’ll have to wait until then before you can download the full versions of Brain Age: Concentration Training (Sunday) and Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 3D (Tuesday).

Of course, if you’re Veruca Salt and want your new eShop games now, Nintendo also has a few things for you. Starting today, you can download the full versions of Splinter Cell 3D and Rayman 3D, as well as a demo of the upcoming Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan and the Nintendo Entertainment System classic Mega Man II.

Wrapping things up is the DSi, which only gets one new game this week: A vertical-scrolling platformer (think Doodle Jump) called Ah! Heaven. According to Nintendo’s page for the game, you play as a soul trying to get up to heaven, and while God is willing to open the gates for you, he is forcing you to reach them on your own. I’m not sure, but this sounds like a rather literal metaphor for something.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Nintendo may not be planning on cutting the Wii U’s price anytime soon, but if it wants to get more crazy tablet controllers into people’s homes it’ll have to do it by continuing to support the system with extremely exciting eShop updates. Of course, the more exciting updates are almost always on the 3DS, but at least the Wii U is getting some new content this week.

The main addition to the Wii U’s eShop this week is liquid-based puzzle game Puddle (previously available on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Vita, and PC), which comes with some new enhancements specific to the console’s touchscreen capabilities. You can also get a demo version of Double Fine and Ron Gilbert’s newest adventure title, The Cave, the full version of which came out last week.

As stated above, the end of January (and beginning of February) are a bit more exciting on Nintendo’s latest handheld. Starting today, the 3DS eShop gets a port of Ikachan (a formerly PC-exclusive underwater action game from the creator of Cave Story), Ice Climbers (the NES classic that you only remember because its characters are in Smash Bros.), and two more full retail games: Witch’s Cat and Bloody Vampire, the latter of which is a platformer with role-playing game elements about someone who is half-human and half-vampire, so it’s basically Symphony of the Night. Basically.

“But enough talk. Have at you!”

Also, Sparkle Snapshots 3D gets a pair of DLC packs that might interest you more than you think, so don’t just ignore this paragraph because you’re “too cool” for Sparkle Snapshots 3D. Both sets, “Mario Core” and “Mario Kart 7,” allow you to pretty up your 3DS photos with Mario decorations, which is cool. So there.

The final 3DS update is surely the one that most people are excited about, even if they’ll have to wait a few extra days for it: Fire Emblem: Awakening, which GamesBeat’s own Mike Minotti referred to as “one of the best games Nintendo’s released for the 3DS yet” in his review. Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait until Monday before you can download it from the eShop.

On the DSi, the only new thing for its stalwarts to download this week is 99 Moves, a game in which you must escape areas using only, you guessed it, 99 moves. It boasts “incredible enemy patterns” on Nintendo’s official site, so that’s something.

Wrapping things up is the original Wii, which gets one measly Virtual Console title: Metal Slug 4.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Nintendo leaves its last-generation systems behind this week — with no new content coming to the original Wii or the DSi — but at least you will soon be able to play your Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo Virtual Console purchases on the Wii U’s fancy tablet controller. At this point, Wii and DSi owners should probably just take what they can get (which, odds are, will be an old SNK game or something that is barely a game at all).

Moving on to more relevant platforms: Nintendo announced yesterday that it plans to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of the NES by offering a big discount on a Wii U-optimized download of a different classic title every month until July. The party officially starts this week with the latex-themed air-combat sim Balloon Fight, which you can get now for only 30 cents. Wii U owners can also download the Double Fine adventure game (no, not that one) The Cave and the full retail version of wacky strategy/puzzler Funky Barn.

On the 3DS’s eShop, you can now download the retail version of strategy-focused shooter Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars, a demo of Brain Age: Concentration Training, and a variation on the classic Breakout arcade game called Cocoto Alien Brick Breaker. Also, just in case you need more ways to play NES titles, you can get Contra sequel Super C, which is already available on the Wii’s Virtual Console. So once you transfer it to the Wii U, you can play it on three systems at once. Technology!

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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This is one of those weeks when Nintendo is going to have to sit down with all of its consoles and remind them that, despite all evidence to the contrary, it doesn’t have a “favorite.” Just because the Wii U and DSi aren’t getting any new content this week on their respective digital download services doesn’t mean they’re not special in their own way. It’s just that they’re not as special as the 3DS (or even the original Wii, to a lesser extent).

The headliner for this week’s 3DS-centric eShop update is the demo of Fire Emblem Awakening, the latest entry in Nintendo’s long-running turn-based strategy series. You can also get the full retail versions of kid-friendly minigame collection Finding Nemo: Escape to the Big Blue and Deer Drive Legends (which is unfortunately not an animal-driving sim but a hunting game).

Wrapping things up for the 3DS is a port of the Game Boy puzzler Kirby’s Star Stacker and Tokyo Crash Mobs, a game that proves that the DSi isn’t the only place to find totally weird things that are hard to explain. Basically, it’s a Zuma-style puzzle game where you throw people at other people in order to knock them out of line that uses a mix of live-action video and “wacky digital graphics” (according to the official site).

Finally, the original Wii finally gets an Amazon Instant Video app, so you can stream content from the online retail giant’s Netflix competitor. Hey, it’s something at least.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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You may be sleeping off a tryptophan-induced coma later, but Nintendo isn’t taking a break from updating its various digital download services. This week, it’s even getting into the Thanksgiving spirit by offering something new for everyone. Well, everyone who owns a 3DS, DSi, Wii, or Wii U at least.

First off is the Wii U, since literally everything on its eShop is new this week. Most of the system’s launch games are available digitally, like ZombiU, New Super Mario Bros. U, and Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, but you could also download the Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, or ESPN Sports Connection apps if you need to entertain any family members that haven’t left yet. Here’s the full list of Wii U eShop items:

• Amazon Instant Video
• Chasing Aurora
• Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
• ESPN Sports Connection
• Hulu Plus
• Little Inferno
• Mighty Switch Force! Hyper Drive Edition
• NBA 2K13
• New Super Mario Bros. U
• Nintendo Land
• Scribblenauts Unlimited
• Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
• Trine 2: Director’s Cut
• Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013
• Assassin’s Creed III
• Darksiders II
• FIFA Soccer 2013
• Game Party Champions
• Just Dance 4
• Madden NFL 2013
• Nano Assault NEO
• Netflix
• Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge
• Rabbids Land
• Sing Party
• Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition
• Warriors Orochi 3
• ZombiU

The 3DS is hosting a few new titles as well. The big names this week are Crashmo and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. The former is the sequel to Pushmo, which our own Jeff Grubb referred to as “the secret best 3DS eShop game,” while the latter is best remembered as one of the few times Nintendo did anything radically different with the Zelda franchise. Both are available now, Crashmo for $8.99 and Zelda II for $4.99. Also new today is 3D Mahjongg, which is pretty self-descriptive, and a new episode of the Meat or Die video series.

The DSi brings a pair of new titles this week as well, though they’re technically just different versions of the same one: Spirit Hunters Inc., which comes in Light and Shadow variants, is a Pokémon-style augmented-reality game in which you capture and battle hidden spirits. Both types have a few exclusive monsters that you can’t find in the other, so you could buy both if you’re a completionist, but keep in mind that they are $7.99 each.

Finally, the Wii refuses to die, as yet another old SNK game comes to the Virtual Console. This week, it’s a Neo Geo fighter called Ninja Master’s, which includes an oddly placed apostrophe and a special move called the “Super Death Blow,” which sounds awesome.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Nintendo’s announcement of the Nintendo 3DS XL is exciting news for the company, if sales of its DSi XL are any indication. Made specifically for older players who are more interested in a bigger screen than they are in a console that fits in their pocket, the DSi XL sold over 12 million systems since it launched on November 21, 2009, in Japan, roughly 8 percent of all Nintendo DS sales. And if DSi XL trends hold true, this success will continue for the 3DS XL.

The Nintendo DS debuted in November 2004 and has had three major iterations since its launch: the DS Lite, the DSi, and the DSi XL. Of the over 150 million systems sold since 2004, 93.8 million were the DS Lite, 26.8 million units were the DSi, and the remaining 18.8M million were the original DS. More important, the DSi XL outsold the DSi by 1.3 million consoles in 2011 fiscal year. Both the DSi and DSi XL have maintained strong sales even after Nintendo released its 3DS, while other DS models have seen sharp declines.

What could this mean for the 3DS XL? With 8 percent of all DS sales made in just three fiscal years, the DSi XL accounted for 19.4 percent of all DS models sold in the three years of its production. With only one current 3DS model and a worldwide market for larger portable, past sales indicate that the 3DS XL can provide for 20-30 percent of all 3DS sales worldwide, and sell millions of units.

The Nintendo 3DS XL goes on sale in Japan on July 28 and in the U.S. on August 19. It costs $199 and features a 4.88-inch top display and 4.18-inch bottom display, which are 90 percent larger than the 3DS. The 3DS originally sold for $250, and the price quickly dropped to the current retail value of $169.

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Nintendo’s handheld console is no stranger to classrooms in Japan, with it already being used in educational settings for a variety of purposes. There are a broad range of educational titles available for the DS in the region, which focus on topics such as science, math, learning languages or even writing Kanji. This latest use of the console is unique though, in its attempt to improve accessibility in the classroom, for children with hearing or other learning difficulties.

In this trial project, which has just started in the Okinawa and Tottori Prefectures, teachers’ words are converted in to text, which is then saved to a cloud-based server. The text can then be sent to devices within the classroom, including DSi consoles, with children able to read along, while also keeping a record of the lesson to access later.

In March 2010, Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto spoke of his desire to roll the DS system out to Japanese elementary and junior high schools. The relatively low cost of the console, together with the flexibility offered by its touchscreen, microphone and wireless capabilities, make it an ideal learning aid. Outside of the school system, the device has also been used by McDonalds in Japan, to train part time workers in its restaraunts, using tailor made software.

You can see a video of the voice recognition program in action below. Unless your Japanese is up to scratch though, you made need to go a few rounds with My Japanese Coach in order to fully understand it.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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A month ago, a leaked memo indicated Nintendo would soon be ending production of DS Lite units. Not only does Nintendo offer the new 3D-enabled 3DS, but the company also has the DSi and DSi XL for those not wanting to play in 3D. Nintendo said the DS hardware family is the best-selling video game console of all time, with more than 48 million units sold in the U.S. alone.

“From the moment it launched, Nintendo DS Lite hit a sweet spot for consumers in terms of value, experience and fun,” Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said in a statement. “This new price point will introduce Nintendo DS Lite to even more consumers.”

The announcement is slightly frustrating for me because less than a month ago I purchased a new DS Lite. The DS Lite is the only version of the DS still available that plays both DS and Game Boy Advance cartridges, and there are quite a few classic GBA titles I’d like to play that aren’t offered for the DS.

Does the price drop interest you in a DS Lite or are you perhaps considering picking up a 3DS?

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Emphasizing the silly side of the 3DS might actually be the right way to properly market the new handheld, which arrives on March 27. If Nintendo can show people how they will look silly playing this device, that might actually motivate a lot of people to give it a try while hamming it up with their friends.

There’s a lot of anticipation building for the March 27 launch of the Nintendo 3DS. The device lets you play stereoscopic 3D portable games and represents Nintendo’s big effort to keep sales of gaming devices going strong in the face of competition from smartphones and tablets. If it succeeds, then the hardcore video game industry will have something to cheer about, even as tons of free games take mindshare away from hardcore games.

We’ve played around with the device for a few days. I’ve already noted how eye strain is a big problem with this device. The stereoscopic 3D makes your eyes tired, and you really have to rest after a relatively short period of time. Nintendo recommends a 10-minute break every half hour and says kids under six shouldn’t play it at all.

Those are pretty big limitations. The battery life is also fairly weak and most likely shorter than the five hours that Nintendo says it can last. We can all overlook these limitations if the games are fun. In this video demo, we show a few of the possibilities. In the first part, I show you how to create a Mii, or cartoon character that serves as your avatar. In the second part, I do a demo of the Pilotwings Resort game that lets you fly around on Wuhu Island, which is familiar to players of the Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit games.

As you can see from the third part of the video, Nintendo’s Face Raiders is where the embarrassment comes in. The Wii made us all make fun of ourselves in our living rooms with our friends. In a brilliant stroke of marketing, Nintendo’s ads showed how much fun people had with Wii games not by showing pictures of the game screen, but pictures of the people playing, as you can see in this photo.

Similarly, Face Raiders on the 3DS also lets you make a fool out of yourself by making you spin around and shoot balls at flying heads with your own face on them. Can you imagine doing this while riding on the bus or walking down the street?

Like the Wii, the 3DS can be social, particularly through multiplayer over a wireless connection.

Clearly I’ve made a fool out of myself in this video, but it gives you a good idea of the silly possibilities for fun with the 3DS.

Check out the video below.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Nintendo

The announcement by Nintendo’s American arm shows the company’s determination not to be counted out against heavy competition from Sony and Microsoft in the battle for consumers’ living rooms and pockets , a competitive landscape that’s growing ever more cluttered as smartphones and smart TVs add game and entertainment features which were once the sole province of set-top video-game consoles and portable game players.

Nintendo said it sold more than 600,000 Wii consoles and 900,000 DS units between Nov. 21 and Nov. 27 in the U.S., according to its internal sales estimates. Nintendo offered multiple new colors for the Wii and bundled games and hardware to lure shoppers. The Wii costs $199 bundled with a Wii Remote Plus and two Nintendo games. The DSi XL comes with three games and sells for $179. The DSi is bundled with one game and sells for $149.

Those one-week numbers are a lot more than Nintendo sold in the whole month of October, according to sales data from market researcher NPD. But Nintendo did not say whether those numbers beat last year’s Black Friday week. In general, sales of the Wii and the DS have been much weaker than a year ago, as both systems have begun to show their age (The Wii launched in 2006 and the DS launched in 2004). Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console, by contrast, has had a stellar year, with sales up considerably from a year ago.

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and signals the beginning of the holiday sales season. But bargains were available throughout the week at most retailers (Black Friday refers to the day when retailers traditionally swing into the black, or a profit, for the year).

Reggie Fils-Aime, president of the Nintendo of America, said that Nintendo sold about 9,000 hardware systems for every hour during every day of Black Friday week. The Wii has had a relatively weak title line-up this fall, particularly since Nintendo delayed a new Zelda game for the Wii. But other big titles include Wii Party, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, FlingSmash, GoldenEye 007, and Disney Epic Mickey.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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