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Joystiq Streams: Free to be Super Mario Galaxy 2 for me and Wii U
After more than two years of wondering when Nintendo would finally do the obvious thing, embrace modernity, and allow games for the Wii be downloaded directly from the Internet into the Wii U, it delivered. Super Mario Galaxy 2, Punch-Out!!, and Metroid Prime Trilogy are the very first Wii games downloadable from the eShop. The latter two won't be available until later this month, but since Joystiq never turns down an opportunity to explore mini-planetoids and options for force-feeding dinosaurs hot peppers, we're going to check out Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Joystiq Streams. Our understanding is that these releases haven't been changed in any significant way, but Nintendo's digital releases always include odd quirks. For example, who expected the Virtual Console version of Metroid Fusion to include a full color reproduction of the instruction manual? We'll see what secrets may be hidden in Galaxy 2. Tune into Joystiq.com/Twitch at 4:00PM EST to check out how the downloadable Wii games feel on the machine. Joystiq.com/Twitch broadcasts every Tuesday and Thursday at 4:00PM, but when we get the itch to stream, we do it! So follow us on Twitch to know when we go live. [Images: Nintendo]
10 Years, 10 Great Games: Thomas' picks
Throughout the week, Joystiq celebrates its tenth anniversary by revealing each writer's favorite – not "best" – games of the last decade. Aside from selecting a number one, each list is unordered. For his top game of the last decade, Weekend Editor Thomas Schulenberg talks about one of the latest games starring the video game industry's most beloved mascot.
Nintendo drops retail price of Mario Galaxy 2, New Mario Bros. Wii
This is true Nintendo brand power. Years after launching on the company's previous console, Nintendo announced today it is dropping the suggested retail price of Super Mario Galaxy 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Wii Sports Resort to $29.99. "The new price represents one of the many steps Nintendo is taking to provide shoppers with the best value and variety across all its systems through the end of 2013," said Nintendo in a press release. "The games can also be played on the Wii U home console, which can play the entire library of Wii games." Nintendo neglected to add: So, please, please, please buy the Wii U. We beg, we plead. This is us on our knees. Hoping.
Technology: Play Wii on an Android tablet with an Xbox 360 controller
Sure, it seems easy enough: Play your Wii games on an Android tablet with an Xbox 360 controller. Technology! But underneath that simple premise is a complicated reality. First, you need to run the Wii games on a PC using the open-source Dolphin emulator. From there, you're going to stream the video to the Android tablet using the Splashtop Remote Desktop HD app on Android. YouTuber Obiwan222222 tossed an Xbox 360 controller in, but it's unclear if he's controlling the tablet's VNC client with it, or the PC directly (we're guessing the latter). If this sounds similar to GameStop's planned tablet, featuring Spawn Labs-powered retail game streaming, or OnLive's upcoming tablet "Player" software, we agree. Mostly, it seems like the future ... a laggy, buggy future but the future nevertheless. Technology!
4th Annual Mario Marathon triple-jumps into action today
For the fourth year in a row, a group of insane people will board themselves up in a small, Mushroom Kingdom-decorated room to beat every level, collect every star and stomp every Goomba the Super Mario franchise has ever produced. Why would someone purposefully, harmfully oversaturate themselves with such a wonderful, timeless franchise? Because they're the Mario Marathon. It's in their blood. The crew is kicking off this suicide mission today at 11 a.m. ET, starting with a playthrough of Super Mario Galaxy 2. Even though it hasn't started yet, the event has already raised $13,000 for Child's Play. We encourage you to go watch these poor souls hurt themselves with Mario, and then, if you feel so inclined, reward their efforts with a donation to a good cause.
Layton's Unwound Future and Kirby's Epic Yarn join Nintendo's million-seller club
In a supplemental document to Nintendo's latest quarterly earnings report, the company noted its million-sellers during the past three fiscal quarters (April–Dec. 2010), with Professor Layton and pink power-puff Kirby standing out from the games featuring keywords: Mario, Pokémon and Wii. Through the end of 2010, DS puzzler Professor Layton and the Unwound Future had reached global sales of 1.9 million units since its September 12 debut, while Dragon Quest IX just squeezed into the million-seller club with 1.02 million copies sold (since July 11). The Wii-llion seller list for the nine-month period featured several Mario and Wii [Fill in Blank] games, but Donkey Kong Country Returns was also a popular pick, moving a bananas 4.21 million units since its late-November release. Additionally, Kirby's Epic Yarn managed to stitch up sales of 1.4 million units in two and a half months at retail. Sitting on top of DS and Wii million-sellers for the period were Pokemon Black/White with 5.3 million copies sold (and it's not even out in North America and Europe yet!) and Super Mario Galaxy 2 with a hearty 6.2 million units in mushroom-fueled sales, respectively.
Super Mario Galaxy 2.5 hack to add new fan-made challenge levels
Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a pretty fantastic game. So it comes as no surprise that some enthuastic fans have taken it upon themselves to create even more levels for the game. The project is dubbed Super Mario Galaxy 2.5 and, should it reach completion, will offer some of the most challenging 3D Mario levels created thus far. Right now, there's only one completed level, a hack of the original "Step to the Beat." Like its predecessor, the level features disappearing beat blocks. But, you'll need to utilize many Mario tricks to make it through alive, including the notorious Yoshi-jump. Check out videos after the jump.
Best of the Rest: Randy's picks of 2010
Super Mario Galaxy 2 This is my personal favorite game of 2010 for many reasons, all of which you can read in the review I wrote back in May. In a nutshell: It's the best Mario game ever -- in my opinion, but I've been told I'm not alone -- and can pretty much claim the title of best-ever platformer while it's at it. The experience is magical, the design is masterful and if there were one game I could be stranded on a desert island with ... well, this is it.
Best of the Rest: Andrew's picks of 2010
DJ Max Portable 3 I blame myself for not pimping out PM Studio's excellent DJ Max Portable 3 more this year. The Korean music game is quite possibly the only music game you'll ever need on a handheld, thanks to its seemingly endless soundtrack, varied modes, rewarding progression, beautiful graphics, and note charts that will make your fingers cry. Oh, and for the first time in the franchise's history, you actually feel like a DJ. Ludwig makes fun of me for the epileptic fit I get into when playing it, but he just doesn't understand.
Best of the Rest: Griffin's picks of 2010
Cave Story I am mad at everyone I've ever known for not telling me to play Cave Story before I grabbed it late last year. Within two months, I had beaten it four times across two different platforms. It's arguably the most charming game I've ever played, with deep layers of Metroidvania-esque exploration and a level of difficulty which expertly straddles the line between challenging and frustrating. It's one of the most polished games I played during the year, and if you find yourself with an overabundance of virtual Nintendo currency, you absolutely need to own it. Twice, if you have the means.
Report: Call of Duty: Black Ops most pirated game in 2010
TorrentFreak's annual report on the most pirated games of the year has Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops taking the dubious top honor for 2010. Even with Activision's attempts to play "good cop" with pirates, Black Ops is estimated to have been downloaded 4.27 million times on PC, with another 930,000 copies on Xbox 360. This would be the second year in a row that the Call of Duty franchise took the "prize," with Modern Warfare 2 allegedly being pirated over 4.1 million times in 2009. Super Mario Galaxy 2 for Wii had over 1.47 million downloads, while Dante's Inferno took the top spot on Xbox 360 with 1.28 million downloads -- and we'll be damned if we can figure out why it was that game. Perhaps it was the game's marketing that instilled such sinful behavior.
Walmart loses its mind, offers third-party Wii Remote and game for $35
Walmart's apparently spread its retail dominance over so much of the country that it no longer has a need for your usual economic motivators like ... um, profit. The store is offering shoppers a $35 bundle which includes either a Nyko-brand Wii Remote or a Power A Wii Pro Pack (which we demoed earlier this year), and their choice of one out of a list of pre-selected games. At that price, you'd expect the bundled games to be shovelware, but the inclusion of Epic Mickey, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Mario Galaxy 2 might convince you otherwise. We don't know how long this deal will be available, but considering you can purchase a Wii Remote, Nunchuk and a game for less than the standard retail price of a Wii game by its lonesome, we're going to wager that it won't be available for very long at all.
Nintendo painted red in first-half fiscal year results
We'll be the first to admit it's nigh impossible to grasp the nuances of just what in the world is going on with the global economy, but things are clearly up you-know-whose creek without a paddle when Nintendo reports a ... loss?! Sure, earnings were seriously down for Nintendo during the same six-month period last year (April–September), but even then, as other companies suffered tremendous hits, Nintendo enjoyed ¥69.5 billion in profit (which was roughly $766 million by the rate of exchange a year ago). The problem is that the yen has appreciated wildly against the dollar since that time -- what was $766 million a year ago, would be more like $850 million today. In and of itself, that kind of appreciation might look spectacular, except 81.4 percent of Nintendo's sales have been overseas during the current fiscal year. When the yen is this strong, earnings on Japanese exports (sold with importers' currencies) are dashed on their way back to Japan (where they are converted back to yen). According to Nintendo's first-half report (April–Sept. 2010), "foreign currencies generated exchange losses totaling 62.1 billion yen," and, in turn, the company suffered net losses of ¥2 billion (about $24.6 million) for the period. Keep in mind, this loss comes after selling 4.07 million copies of Pokémon Black and White since September 18 (in Japan alone); 5.1 million units of Super Mario Galaxy 2; and a million-plus Wii Party games. Worldwide, DS software sales totaled 54.84 million units, while Wii games accounted for 65.21 million units sold in the first-half of the fiscal year. As for hardware, the various DS models combined to move 6.69 million units (including 2.26 million DSi and 3.21 million DSi XLs), as Wii racked up another 4.97 million units sold during the period. And did you hear? The new red Wii and DSi XL are going to be released next month to celebrate ... uh, the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros., of course!
August NPD: It's another mad, mad, Madden year
The sun will rise, the moon will set and it would be a sign of the end days if Madden didn't rule August software sales in the United States. The August NPDs are out and Madden NFL 11 sold over 1.8 million units in the month, a six percent increase over last year, with significant increases on PS3. Mafia 2, which Take-Two expects to be profitable, entered with a badda-boom and appears to have sold around 200K units during the month -- the title has been a chart topper in the UK since launch. The Xbox 360 remains the top-selling console for a second month, but its sales did drop nearly 20 percent from July. The only hardware to see sales gains during the month was the PlayStation 3, which according to the NPD has now seen 13 consecutive months of year-over-year sales increases. Overall, hardware and software sales were down both year-over-year and year-to-date. Sales for hardware, software and accessories combined was down 10 percent to $818.9M from last year and down 8 percent year-to-date to $8.31 billion. Consoles tried to make up for the sagging handheld market, as NPD analyst Anita Frazier notes, "The 360 and PS3 platforms both grew in dollar sales versus last year. In fact, the 360 platform contributed more than 1/3 of total new physical retail sales across hardware, software and accessories while the PS3 platform contributed over 1/4 of total dollar sales." Oh yeah, one more thing: the top ten list of titles after the break only charts console and portable SKUs, so it's worth mentioning StarCraft 2 sold another 300K units in August, which would make it the second best-selling game for the month... if it were factored in. Frazer also stated, "PC games retail dollar sales saw a 35% increase over last August." 360: 357K, down 83K (-19.7%) DS: 343K, down 55.3K (-13.9%) Wii: 244K, down 9.7K (-3.8%) PS3: 226K, up 11K (5.1%) PSP: 79K, down 4.6K (-5.5%)
Video game characters need business cards too
Getting in touch with heroes can be difficult. Typically, they only bother to roll out of bed and show up when something goes really wrong.
Massive Mario collection will make your inner 5-year-old jealous
Remember when you were 5, and you went to McDonald's one day with your parents and they got you the Happy Meal with the windup Luigi toy in it? Remember how ecstatic you were that you had a real version of Mario's bro in a plastic bag along with your cheeseburger and fries, and remember how you went home and played with it all day until it stopped winding and you completely forgot about it until you had to clean out your desk drawer for college? Well, 11-year-old Oscar Bown has that times a thousand. The kid's collected over 1,000 bits and pieces of Mario-related paraphernalia, and you can see most of them in a video after the break. He's got everything, from Mario Monopoly to Mario band-aids to pretty much every single vehicle toy from Mario Kart. Just saying: Whenever he eventually leaves for college, that desk drawer is going to be pretty full.
Nintendo quarterly earnings down; 3DS launch date to be announced Sept. 29
Nintendo has announced it financial earnings for the second quarter in its Fiscal 2011, running from April 1, 2010 through June 30, 2010. Net sales, operating income and net income all saw declines compared to the same time last year. Net sales were down to 188 billion yen ($2.16 billion) from 253 billion yen ($2.9 billion), while operating income and net income saw less dramatic shifts, down to 23 billion yen ($264 million) and 25 billion yen ($287 million) from 40 billion yen ($460 million) and 42 billion yen ($483 million) last year, respectively. Nintendo attributes these losses to the appreciation of the yen and a lower DS price point. 3.15 million DS units and 22.42 million units of DS software were sold worldwide during this quarter. On the Wii side, Super Mario Galaxy 2 managed to be the big performer, selling 4.09 million units worldwide since its launch in late May. 3.04 million Wii consoles were sold, backed by 28.17 million units of Wii software worldwide. As far as forecasted earnings go, Nintendo anticipates net sales of 550 billion yen ($6.3 billion) by the end of September 2010 and 1.4 trillion yen ($16 billion) by the end of its Fiscal 2011, March 2011. It'll be interesting to see how those earnings are affected by Nintendo's upcoming 3DS hardware launch. The company has revealed (via Bloomberg) that it'll finally announce the launch date and price for its latest piece of tech in Japan on September 29.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 passes 1 million sold in US
Super Mario Galaxy 2 was the best-selling non-cowboy game in the United States last month. The 548,000 copies sold during June put the spacefaring platformer above the one-million mark in US sales, as proclaimed by Nintendo in a triumphant announcement. In kind of a bummer of a month in terms of general software sales, Super Mario Galaxy 2 was one of the few success stories for June. While one million copies in two months (41 days of NPD reporting time) is impressive, it doesn't approach the level of success enjoyed by the first Super Mario Galaxy, which broke a million in its first month on the market, only 12 days of which counted for NPD. (The fact that its first month was November may have had something to do with that strong start.) Nintendo also announced that DS hardware sales have reached "nearly 42 million," with Wii sales "closing in on a cumulative milestone of 30 million units sold in the United States alone." Both systems enjoyed sales spikes last month.
Monster Hunter Tri has occupied over 50 hours per player on average
Monster Hunter Tri has already sucked away over a million hours of gameplay time from users, according to stats from the Nintendo Channel. In just 63 days from release, the monster hunting epic stole a full million hours from users who reported logging in to the game over 330,000 times. The high number isn't necessarily a record breaker (Super Smash Bros. has garnered 100 times that, and players have spent 17 billion hours on Xbox Live), but where Monster Hunter Tri stands out is the per player duration: players of the game have spent an average of 52 hours in the game so far. By comparison, Super Mario Galaxy 2 has eaten up 1.8 million hours of free time over 710k times, but the average time played there is about 20 hours -- more players, less time each. There are only four games ahead of Monster Hunter Tri in terms of played-per-person time, and all of them have been out for much longer. In other words, monsters aren't the only thing being hunted in this game -- free time had better watch its back as well.
Lego Harry Potter casts 'petrificus totalus' on UK chart toppers
The boy who lived placed a binding curse on the Chart Track's UK all-formats chart last week, sticking Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4, Red Dead Redemption and Super Mario Galaxy 2 in their present descending order, with Mr. Potter grabbing the golden snitch (and top spot) for the second week in a row. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, available on all the major consoles, premiered at number four last week. Also, the Wii's one singular sensation, Ubisoft's Dance on Broadway, let in the sunshine and basked with a sixth place premiere. Of course, perennial favorite Just Dance was ballroom dancing with its Broadway partner in the seventh spot. Find the complete UK top ten after the break.
