G4 is no more. The channel will be rebranded as the Esquire channel in the first half of 2013.

The Hollywood Reporter reports that when the new channel launches, it will broadcast programming such as cooking, travel and fashion. Gaming content will be shown as well.

With the move, Esquire parent Hearst Corporation is looking “to capture a growing, upscale demographic that isn’t being reached through other male networks, including adrenaline-heavy Spike and History.”

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A new downloadable reward is available on Club Nintendo.

ThruSpace has been swapped out for 1080 Snowboarding. The game is available for 150 coins.

You can order 1080 Snowboarding here. It’s available as a Wii VC download until December 23.

Update: Precise data from Famitsu is in. Wii U sold 308,570 over the weekend. Other sales:

New Super Mario Bros. U – 170,563 units
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate – 110,159 units
Nintendo Land – 78,461 units

Gamekult is reporting, via Famitsu/Enterbrain, that the Wii U sold 307,471 units in Japan over the weekend.

Nintendo launched the new console on Saturday. If Gamekult is correct, Wii U managed to hit the 300,000 units sold mark in two days of availability.

The site also shared the following software sales data:

New Super Mario Bros. U – 160,140 (57.6% sell-through)
Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate – 106,454 (72.6%)
Nintendo Land – 66,583 (30%)
ZombiU – 10,680 copies (28.8%)
Warriors Ororchi 3 Hyper – 7,252 copies (16.2%)
Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Wii U Edition – 4,951 copies (16.9%)

Nintendo Land’s sales are rather disappointing so far. Remember: the game isn’t bundled in either the Deluxe or Basic sets.

Wii U’s initial hardware sales stack up somewhat similarly to the Wii. When the old system hit store shelves in 2006, Media Create data revealed that it sold 350,358 units during its launch weekend. Top titles were Wii Sports (176,000 units sold), Wii Play (174,000 units sold) and Twilight Princess (139,000 units sold).

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Today, Namco Bandai opened the official website for Project Versus J.

There’s not much to see at the moment other than a few silhouettes. Toriko, One Piece’s Luffy, and Dragon Ball Z’s Goku are featured on the page.

You can find the teaser site here. An update will hit the site on December 17.

This week’s European Nintendo Downloads are as follows:

Wii U demo

Rayman Legends

3DS Download

Hydroadventure: Spin Cycle – €9.99 / £8.99
Crimson Shroud – €7.99 / £7.19

DSiWare

Wizard Defenders – €1.99 / £1.79 / 200 points

3DS VC “Video Game Hero Sale”

Metroid – €3.49 / £3.19
Metroid II – The Return of Samus – €2.99 / £2.69

Source: Nintendo PR

Square Enix opened a new Theatrhythm Final Fantasy teaser site earlier today. It doesn’t contain much, other than music cues moving across the screen and the words “Coming Soon.”

There’s speculation that this could be related to an iOS/Android port or something of that nature. That wouldn’t be a huge surprise given that Square Enix has already brought over titles such as The World Ends with You.

Guess we’ll just have to wait and see…

Amazon posted the boxart for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate. Take a look at the image above.

Nintendo has confirmed that European Wii U owners are unable to purchase 18+ rated content from the eShop.

Why, you ask? Nintendo of Europe is based in Germany. That means the company must comply with German youth protection regulation. And thus, European gamers can’t purchase games like ZombiU or Assassin’s Creed III in the day time.

Nintendo of Europe explained:

“At Nintendo we always aim to provide a safe gaming experience for fans of all ages and ensure that we comply with applicable legal age restriction requirements across Europe. 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. Therefore the accessibility of 18+ content in Nintendo eShop is limited to [USK: 22:00 UTC until 4:00 UTC] [PEGI: 23:00 UTC until 3:00 UTC].”

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