I suspect a few of you have seem this already (I noted it in the end of my feature last night), but in case you hadn’t heard how crazy things got towards the end, here’s the deal: The cardboard cutout of the Wii U Gamepad (above) had bids upwards of $90,000 over the last couple of days before being removed by eBay administrators for some ridiculous reason like “This is stupid” or “This is a piece of cardboard. You can’t charge this much for it.”.
While the lister won’t be getting rich quickly off of this hilarious mockup, he’s probably pretty happy that things went as far as they did. I wonder if anyone has gotten an interview with him yet…
Amid talk that the Wii U may not be a next-generation console due to specs that are in many ways comparable to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told CNET that it is Sony and Microsoft’s responsibility “to react to what we’re doing in the marketplace and figure out what their innovation will be.”
“In the end, our competitors need to react to what we’re doing in the marketplace and need to figure out what their innovation will be. It’s likely that faster processors and pretty pictures won’t be enough to motivate consumers. They need to react to what we’ve done and we need to continue innovating with the Wii U and we will.”
In the past – and especially as of late – some have said that the Wii U could become irrelevant or at the very least find itself in a position comparable to Wii if the machine’s capabilities aren’t up to par with the PS3 and Xbox 360 successors.
But for Reggie, he doesn’t believe releasing the Wii U is a way to catch up with current-gen consoles:
“We don’t believe so. For us, launching new systems is about bringing new consumer experiences to the marketplace and we’re doing that with Nintendo land and third-party publishers are doing it with games like ZombiU. For us, now is the right time to launch new hardware.”
Reggie wrapped up by saying that “consumer response [to the Wii U] has been very positive,” and the console’s performance thus far is “quite comparable” to the Wii. He also made sure to mention that he sees Wii U as “a living, breathing” product that will improve over the years.
Walmart is selling a bunch o Nintendo Selects Wii games for $15. Each is normally priced at $20.
For a full listing of discounted games, check out the list below.
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Mario Power Tennis
Wii Sports
Pikmin 2
Mario Super Sluggers
Super Mario Galaxy (currently sold out online)
Super Paper Mario (currently sold out online)
A new downloadable reward is available on Club Nintendo.
Art Style: Rotozoa has been swapped out for ThruSpace. The game is available for 150 coins.
You can order ThruSpace here. It’s available as a WiiWare download until December 9.
New Super Mario Bros. U features a few playable characters. You can control Mario, Luigi, Toad, and your very own Mii. Peach, however, is not playable.
Explaining the move, game director Masataka Takemoto said Peach wasn’t made available to players since she would likely have a different set of moves and animation. But in the New Super Mario Bros. series, the team wants all players to be on equal footing.
“In Super Mario Bros 2, Princess Peach had her own unique moves and animation. In this series, we want all the players to have the same moves and animations as Mario, and Princess Peach isn’t suited for that.”
The gold nunchuck is back in stock at Club Nintendo, folks! Grab it while you can – I can’t see this being on the site for too long.
You can view the order page here.
Nintendo sold more than 1.2 million hardware units during the past week, according to NOA president Reggie Fils-Aime.
Breaking things down more specifically, over 700,000 consoles were sold. Wii U came in 400,000 units sold while the Wii moved another 300,000 systems.
Regarding Wii U’s performance, Reggie said that the console’s limited stock impacted sales. He noted that the company “is essentially sold out of retail” and when stock is replenished at stores, “they’re selling out immediately.”
The original 3DS will allegedly be getting another price drop soon. Nintendo will adjust the MSRP to $139.99 in about two weeks, new rumors suggest. The system currently retails for $169.99.
Next week, you’ll be able to grab the 3DS for $10 cheaper than the upcoming price drop. Target will apparently sell the handheld for $129.99.
Meanwhile, a 3DS XL bundle featuring Mario Kart 7 will also be available next week – at least at Target – for $199.99.
