We'll be frank -- there's nothing particularly elegant about the Wii64, but it is unique, so we just have to pay attention. Without any rhyme or reason, this here modder decided it best to gut the internals of his Wii and replace them with the innards of an N64. Of course, he could've just referenced someone else's work for getting an N64 controller to play nice with Nintendo's latest, but we suspect that just wasn't the itch he was trying to scratch. The current bid is just $49.99, so those intrigued enough to actually have it shipped to their house can bid away.[Via Nintendo Wii Fanboy]
It's certainly not for everybody, but if Wii-playing parties are a regular occurance at your place, or if you happen to have a bunch of Wiimotes lying around for some other purposes, you may want to consider Nyko's new Charge Station Quad, which promises to keep four of 'em topped off at all times. You'll also, of course, get four of Nyko's own NiMH rechargeable battery packs with the package, and four rubber battery covers to prevent any unfortunate accidents. Look for this one to hit all the usual locations sometime next month, when it'll set you back $50.
Nyko didn't like seeing fellow third party manufacturer Penguin create a 4x Wiimote charger first, so Nyko fired back with the Charge Station Quad for Wii. Priced at $50, the Nyko Quad includes four NiMH rechargeable battery packs, four rubber Wii Remote battery covers and, of course, a four-port Wiimote battery charger that's loaded to the brim with LEDs. Shipments start in December, but it doesn't look like Nyko is taking orders just yet. [Nyko]
The infamous Sam's Club Wii mega-bundle ad has been rumor smashed into oblivion — we're actually pretty good about self-policing certain things out here in the Wild West — but that doesn't mean it's too late for Walmart's lawyer posse to ride in and help the situation.
TechCrunch got a C&D from the retailer's attorneys, demanding they take down the fake ad and, furthermore, help them find out who shooped it and sent it around. Um, no. Besides, they already linked to their source. TechCrunch is righteously touting the two-page threat and telling Walmart to suck it. I think a great resolution to all this would be for Walmart to go ahead and sell the Wii, the three Wiimotes, three Nunchuks, three games, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree for the super-fake price, so we can all flip them for about 60 percent more on Craigslist. There's your economic stimulus.
Just to be clear, so I don't get a nastygram from some poor bastard associate (that was redundant) chained to his desk on a Saturday, this will cost $425. You read it anywhere else that it's less, that is fake.
I've used Wii Fit exactly 6 months. Since the review, I didn't use it every day, or even every week, but since the very first time the game told me I was fat, it never really left my mind. Every meal, every time I passed on exercise to eat a little more ice cream, every time I exercised but stopped a little early, I heard those words resonating through the bit of side blubber on my sleight frame: "You're Overweight!"
I hate Wii fit so much. Sure, it indirectly helped me lose 10 pounds, but I f'ing hate it.
Bear with me on this long post with minimal mention of the game or hardware — the game is not what will make you fit.
Over a few sessions of playing the game, I started what would eventually be, more or less, the kind of body obsession assumed normal for performance athletes and underwear models, coupled with the kind of inferiority complex that one gets when you can't beat a video game, coupled with the resentment one builds towards machines that don't do your meatbot bidding. I mean, I could have dismissed the measurement tell me I was fat — BMI (Body Mass Index) is a crude stat based on height and weight that can't tell a fat person from a really really muscular medium husky guy. The problem is, Wii fit doesn't give a crap about your excuses or perceptions either. It assumed I really wasn't that muscular short guy, it assumed I was a medium husky with a little belly. And it was right.
I did all the exercises, focusing on the harder ones like the pushup and plank exercises, jackknives, the shadow boxing and running in place for sessions, usually for over 45 minutes. But then I got bored of EVERYTHING IN the game and couldn't stand to do more than one or two at a time. And I was not losing weight. I was exercising, it seemed, just enough to stimulate my appetite and give me justification for eating more, and so I was actually gaining weight. The in game scale told me as much.
When you're stuck on a level in a video game, some people look at strategy guides or cheats. The Wii Fit equivalent of this, knowing I was not getting the weaponry to obliterate my chub in the game, was to cheat by resorting to outside exercises like hitting the weights, and bicycling, running and hitting the rowing machine, my favorite for quick nearly full body exercises. This helped, and Wii fit's seemingly lame exercises were great setup in developing the necessary support muscles from head to toe to support rudimentary training — it was like physical therapy for computer nerds about to enter real sporting tasks.
Summer ended. Snowboarding season was approaching, and I knew I wanted to be lighter on my feet this year. It was great to have a goal outside of the game's mere quest for proper height to weight ratio.
But I was still not losing weight and eventually hit 170 pounds. Anyone who runs on a treadmill with a kcalorie calculator realizes that you can burn only a quarter of a cheeseburger's worth of energy in a 15 minute run, enough to go about 2 miles. Most nerds do not run this much in a day. Wii fit's charts, again, reflected the truth. Even though I was exercising, I was exercising semi regularly, but it was not denting my calorie intake. Without those charts, I would have been satisfied, but instead, Wii fit asked me "why do you think you're gaining weight?" and gave me a set of multiple choices. I choose overeating.
Let me tell you something about eating in my family. It was always my job, as directed by all grandparents, to finish not only everything on my plate, but everything on the entire table. One day, staring at a place of creamy French food, full after the first 3 bites, and thinking about what Wii fit was telling me, and how far my goals were, I realized that I had to change. I felt a bit guilty, but I knew that where my family would disapprove, Wii Fit would make up for it. And sure enough, the charts showed my weight was dropping. First I was below 170, then 165, and then 161. Miraculously, this happened without the pain of extreme exercise and without the pain of extreme dieting. I lost about 2 pounds a week, more or less. I never realized this is all it would take.
Checking the calendar, I had one day left til my 6th month of Wii Fit would end. And my BMI had dropped from 26.5 to a low of 25.01. If I lost another pound, the game would crown me fit.
Then, work got stressful, with this economy. I eat when I'm stressed. So, I ate some greasy Chinese food. And the next day at lunch, I had a cheeseburger. I just couldn't resist and I didn't know if I had blown my chances or not at finding acceptance from this stupid game. I thought that I could keep from overeating, something I'd been practicing for 31 years, forever, but the binge made me realize it would never be easy.
The next day, I got on the balance board and took a test. I have to admit, I took my shorts off for the competitive advantage, but I didn't expect to make it: I scored a 24.91, low enough at 158 pounds for Wii Fit to declare me normal even with my shorts on. I learned a new lesson, a few days of binging cannot overcome weeks of discipline.
And then, satisfied, I put the game away, ate some ice cream and booted up Fable II. As long as I never start Wii Fit again, I'll always and only remember the last kind word the game said to me, "You're Normal."
The game's core value isn't the exercises, which don't burn many calories unless you play them way beyond the point which a normal person will become bored by them. It's the fact that through charts and graphs and the in game coach, the game makes you think about your fitness and weight enough that you eventually realize you have no real excuse for being out of shape. And that you have no real choice but to go outside the game and figure out the answers for yourself in the real world.
Sadly, the Sam's Club Black Friday deal featuring a Wii, three Wiimotes, three Nunchuks, and two games for $224 was just too good to be true. The good news is that the bundle will still be available at Sam's, be it for the higher price of $425. Seeing as this package includes $180 in controllers alone, shoppers will still be getting a pretty decent deal by scoring Mario Super Sluggers and King of Clubs Mini-Golf on top of the hardware. And this way no one will get killed shopping or anything. [Black Friday Ads via Kotaku]
Hey, Nintendo—what's going on here? After a good year or so looking the other way on Wii homebrew (for the most part), now we've got two fairly serious brew-killing updates in the last month? Word from the folks at Wiibrew.org is that the latest update, System Menu 3.4, is apparently a doozy when it comes to ruining the homebrew party.
New features include USB keyboard support in the Mii channel, enhanced parental controls, and that's where the fun stops: the update also apparently deletes the Homebrew Channel and any other unofficial channels and promises to "check for and automatically remove" modified save files from your system—which is the method used to execute the famous Twilight Hack that makes all the homebrew possible. Not sure whether that means it will disable such save files going forward—hopefully not.
So at the moment, if you have homebrew on your Wii or are planning to (using our handy Wii homebrew guide, of course), don't update. The Wiibrew folks will hopefully come up with a patched solution that allows you to upgrade without the ill affects. Man, I hope we didn't jinx Wii 'brew by calling it "relatively stable!" [Wiibrew via Maxconsole]
Full message from Nintendo describing the update here:
Wii Menu version 3.4 is now available for your Wii console. To update your Wii Menu to the latest version, please select the Update button at the bottom of the screen or select the System Update option in Wii System Settings.
With this update, Parental Controls have been enhanced, USB keyboard support is available for the Mii Channel, and system functions have been improved.
The Wii User Agreement, which includes the Wii Privacy Policy, has been updated. Because the updated agreement applies to you and your use of the Wii Network Service, you should view the updated version by clicking on the Wii icon located on the lower-left portion of the Wii Channel menu, selecting Wii Settings, accessing the Internet setting, and selecting User Agreements.
You may also view the updated Wii User Agreement online at http://support.nintendo.com
Because unauthorized modifications to save files may impair game play or the Wii console, updating to Wii Menu version 3.4 will also check for and automatically remove such save files.
**Please note: If you've updated your Wii Menu after 11/17/08, you may not need to update again.
This week's WiiWare titles serve as a great example of the best and worst that the service has to offer.
Strong Bad Episode 4: Dangeresque 3 (Telltale Games, 1 player, 1,000 Wii Points): Don't be confused by the subtitle, you didn't miss Dangeresque 1 and 2. After three Strong Bad episodes, you know what to expect. This time, dying is not on the menu ... again. Dangeresque 3 was originally set to debut June 2004 in 3D but was delayed for unspecified reasons.
Target Toss Pro: Bags (Incredible Technologies, 1-16 players, 700 Wii Points): It's no (Beer) Pong Toss, but paying $7 for a game simulating the tossing of a bean bag (known formerly as Cornhole in parts of the country) is a bit ridiculous, especially when the price of building your own Cornhole game is considerably less. Just because there's some real-life arm swinging involved doesn't mean you can tack on a Wii remote and charge for it.
Craving the gargantuan cement landscape of your local Sam's Club, mixed with the sweet prospect of scoring a Wii (and a barrel of free accessories) below MSRP? Get ready to fight for it. Come "Black Friday," that most manufactured of all shopping days, Sam's Club will be selling a $224 Wii "Family Bundle" that includes the console, three Wiimotes, three nunchuks, Wii Sports, Mario Super Sluggers and King of Clubs Mini Golf. The trouble is, naturally, these will be in "limited quantities," and at this price we're guessing they'll be pretty darn scarce -- more like a bit of bait to get you lined up at 3am and end up buying pretzels, jeans and refrigerators in bulk before going home dejected and self-loathing. This should be so much fun!
Sam's Clubs' Nintendo Wii Family Bundle packs three controller pairs and a Wii for $224 on Black Friday originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
We are absolutely, completely ready for wireless induction charging to make it big. Have you seen our gadget charging station? It's like some Lovecraftian nightmare; our latest intern went over to plug in his BlackBerry two days ago and we haven't seen him since. For years we've been getting teased with limited, proprietary solutions (mostly for sweaty videogamecontrollers) but we seem to be firmly and disappointingly locked in the competing standards phase. While we hate to see yet another contestant enter the fray, Mojo Mobility Inc. might just have a winner with its Near Field Power technique, relying on thin, inexpensive coiled discs to both send and receive up to 4 watts of power with 70 percent efficiency. Unlike the competition no exposed contacts are required, and while it looks like you'll still need to place the device onto a charging pad, with multiple transmission discs that pad could charge all your gadgets at once. Mojo plans to supply the receiving discs to battery and device manufacturers in the near future, and to that we can only say hurry up. Think of the interns!
When Yuke's Company of America releases screenshots, they release a hell of a lot of screenshots. They've unleashed so many screens for their upcoming top-down space adventure game Evasive Space for WiiWare that we've had to split them into two different galleries, one containing shots from Act 1 of the game, and another containing shots from Act 2. Enough screenshots that you could probably just print them out and play through both levels, flipbook style. Either they are extremely proud of High Voltage Software's work on the title, or someone in the screenshot department has an itchy capture finger. Check out Act 1 before the jump, and Act 2 comes tumbling after.
galleryPost('evasive1', 3); galleryPost('evasive2', 3); First-Ever Screenshots for Evasive Space Revealed by YUKE’S
New In-Game Screens Provide Glimpse of Top-Down Space Adventure for WiiWare
CHICAGO - Nov. 19, 2008
YUKE’S Company of America today revealed the first set of in-game screenshots and level details for Evasive Space, a new action space adventure for WiiWare™ under development by High Voltage Software. Set to launch this coming January, Evasive Space will blast you off on a space adventure in which you will be piloting Konki from a top-down view through various mazes and environments; creatively using the Wii Remote™’s infrared pointer for control. The new screens offer a look at Acts 1 and 2, out of a total of four Acts, each one featuring a central theme and five scenes of varying objectives.
Act 1: Crystal World -Scene 1: The Gobo Caverns – Timed run through a cave maze -Scene 2: The Terradyne Asteroid – Open space play; collect “spacemen” while avoiding the asteroids -Scene 3: The Pirate Nagumo’s Space Cruiser – Timed run through a ship maze -Scene 4: The Galdonia Nebula – Open space play with rotating level; collect energy cells while avoiding gas clouds from the sun -Scene 5: The Gobo Caverns 2 – Timed run through new areas of the caverns with additional upgrades to collect
Act 2: Fire World -Scene 1: The Rings of Minot IV – Open space play with rotating level; collect energy cells while avoiding asteroids -Scene 2: The Lava Fields of Ikaku – Timed run through a cave maze -Scene 3: The Mugavi Belt – Open space play; avoid asteroids while collecting “spacers” and returning them to their ships -Scene 4: The Lava Fields of Ikaku Part 2 – Timed run through new areas of the caverns while avoiding shooting steam hazards -Scene 5: Velkor’s Pyroclasitc Ship of Doom – Maze run; collect energy cells and find the exit portal
Stay tuned for screenshots revealing Acts 3 and 4, as well as additional details about the various environments!
Evasive Space has been rated “E” for Everyone with Mild Fantasy Violence by the ESRB and will be downloadable for 1,000 Wii™ Points.
The Wii topped NPD Group sales data once again for the month of October, selling over 800,000 units to consumers in the United States. That's well over twice what its closest console competitor, the Xbox 360, did during the same period. It's also a sizable jump over September's take, when the Wii sold 687,000 units. Nintendo DS sales were down from October, but total Nintendo hardware sales were up to almost 1.3 million units.
According to NPD analyst Anita Frazier, the jump in Wii sales can be attributed to a greater supply of hardware at retail. That made October the Wii's best month since December of 2007. Frazier notes that the September period consisted of five weeks of sales, with October a shorter four week month.
Here's how the hardware contest ultimately went down.
• Wii - 803,000 • Nintendo DS - 491,000 • Xbox 360 - 371,000 • PSP - 193,000 • PlayStation 3 - 190,000 • PlayStation 2 - 136,000
It was a down month for the PlayStation family, with all Sony hardware taking a hit before the holiday season kicks off.
Total hardware spend for October was $494.74 million, up from October of 2007 by about 5%. Total take for the year? $4.72 billion United States bucks. That's 14% better than lame old 2007, thank you very much.
"The price reduction on the Xbox 360 is paying dividends at retail as the platform realized a 7% unit sales increase over September," Frazier said of Microsoft's across the board price drop. As for the competition, "The PS3 realized the greatest year-over-year monthly unit sales increase at 57%."
Before we get started, doesn't a "waggle suit" sound like the funnest thing anybody could possibly own? Yeah, we thought so too.Anyway, Ohio-based Motiva says that the Wiimote violates a patent of that it filed in 2004 for "technology used to create a 'Human Movement Measurement System' comprising a hand-held tracking device in communication with a base station that can be used to create an interactive gaming experience, among other capabilities."It's apparently such an obvious violation of the patent that it's only taken the company two years of the Wii appearing on every television station and magazine cover on the planet to notice it. If we seem vindictive, it could be thanks to Motiva's counselm who said, "Using someone else's technology without permission is theft. Nintendo makes video games where you get to play a thief, but that doesn't give them the right to be one."What is he even talking about? Wario? We have no idea.
Is PC gaming giving way to today's more versatile and powerful consoles? Not according to a market study recently conducted by research group JPR, which claims that more gaming PC's have been sold over the past three years than Xbox 360s, PlayStation 3s, and Wiis combined. The study, which tracks the sales of three different classes of gaming PCs over since Q3 2005, found that 196 million units have been sold between then and Q3 2008, compared to a worldwide total of 74.7 million consoles. As Edge points out, this of course doesn't take into effect handheld gaming systems like the DS and PSP, which sold a combined 125 million units during the same period.
The study goes on to conclude that the $20 billion dollar PC gaming market, predicted to rise to $34 billion by 2011, was bigger, worth more money, was growing faster and had better tech than the console market could provide. Okay then! PC gamers in one corner, console gamers in the other. Ready, fight!
Due to technical or licensing restrictions, the DLC offerings will not be the same for every console platform. For example, certain artists prefer to keep the integrity of the track pack rather than releasing singles and the Wii’s infrastructure only allows us the ability to release single songs as DLC.
Nyko didn't like seeing fellow third party manufacturer 
The infamous Sam's Club Wii mega-bundle ad has been rumor smashed into oblivion — we're actually pretty good about self-policing certain things out here in the Wild West — but that doesn't mean it's too late for Walmart's lawyer posse to ride in and help the situation.
I've used Wii Fit exactly 6 months. Since the 
After: 
Sadly, the Sam's Club Black Friday deal featuring a Wii, three Wiimotes, three Nunchuks, and two games 
Another week has passed in the 
Hey, 
When Yuke's Company of America releases screenshots, they release a hell of a lot of screenshots. They've unleashed so many screens for their upcoming top-down space adventure game Evasive Space for WiiWare that we've had to split them into two different galleries, one containing shots from Act 1 of the game, and another containing shots from Act 2. Enough screenshots that you could probably just print them out and play through both levels, flipbook style. Either they are extremely proud of High Voltage Software's work on the title, or someone in the screenshot department has an itchy capture finger. Check out Act 1 before the jump, and Act 2 comes tumbling after.
The Wii topped NPD Group sales data once again for the month of October, selling over 800,000 units to consumers in the United States. That's well over twice what its closest console competitor, the 
Is PC gaming giving way to today's more versatile and powerful consoles? Not according to a market study recently conducted by research group JPR, which claims that more gaming PC's have been sold over the past three years than 
Having