Game & Wario pre-orders have opened at major retailers. Amazon is taking reservations here while GameStop is allowing for pre-orders here.

GameStop originally listed a $40 price tag for Game & Wario. This appears to be the final price based on Amazon’s product page, though Best Buy is asking for $59.99. Best Buy’s own listing could very well be temporary.

You can now purchase a refurbished 3DS or DSi system directly from Nintendo.

Nintendo says on its page that “Authentic Nintendo Refurbished Products are the only refurbished products in the market that have been cleaned, tested, and inspected to meet Nintendo’s high standards.” All purchases come with a one-year warranty, and can only be bought directly from the Big N.

These systems “are guaranteed to be fully functional”, according to Nintendo, though may carry “minor cosmetic blemishes.”

You can find more information on the official page here.

Thanks to Mo for the tip.

As promised, the Wii U Virtual Console and Panorama View are now available in Europe. A selection of NES and SNES titles are up for purchase on the eShop. You can find the launch lineup here.

During the Q&A session of Nintendo’s latest financial results briefing, one investor asked about third-parties when it comes to Wii U and the thought that the console contains “low power”.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata addressed this in three different “steps”:

Smaller devs and Nintendo Web Framework

– Nintendo wants to “expand the range of software developers”
– After their Nintendo Web Framework presentation at E3, Nintendo received inquiries from several hundred new developers
– Iwata feels that captivating titles will be born from this initiative and help to achieve their goal
– Teams working on this sort of software (such as Wii Street U and video-on-demand software that uses Nintendo Web Framework) are quite small, which allows for quick updates in a short time-span

Unity

– This has just recently started to be offered by Nintendo
– Iwata says that hundreds of thousands of developers for Unity exist, including developers in emerging nations
– Iwata believes that Nintendo has made it really easy to get them on board to release software on Wii U

Third-parties and Wii U power

– Iwata acknowledged that many people believe that Wii U is underpowered
– Iwata knows that Nintendo must work on remedying these misunderstandings
– He also knows that there are some third parties that are actively supporting Wii U, while others aren’t even giving it a second glance
– He wants to fix this by creating a situation in which third parties not currently actively supporting Wii U will regret that decision once third parties that did support it start to produce hits on the system
– This won’t happen right away, and it’s hard for them at the moment to persuade third parties to get on board given Wii U’s current state
– Nintendo is working on producing such results following Wii U’s “re-vitalization” on and after this summer

Source

A new Pokemon-themed 3DS XL system will be announced for Japan in a few weeks. When the news first hit, rumors circulated that the design would be based on Eevee.

It looks like this will indeed be the case. A poster located at the Pokemon Center close to Minato-ku today states that the 3DS XL Eevee model will be revealed next month.

We’ll know for sure on May 15, when the new 3DS XL system will be officially announced.

Source