• One coder got an ancient version of macOS running on a Nintendo Wii
• The project involved a mass of custom code and complex workarounds
• Despite the difficulties, the author said it was ‘worth pursuing’

Forget asking whether your PC can run Crysis, the ultimate test of computing capabilities these days is whether you can hack a working copy of Doom onto a random piece of electrical equipment. But perhaps we should add a new test of hacking prowess: can you run Mac OS X Cheetah on a Nintendo Wii?

That’s exactly what programmer Bryan Keller managed, with the enterprising coder detailing the at-times convoluted process on their blog. And as you’d imagine, getting an operating system that was discontinued almost 25 years ago to run on a games console that’s not much younger presented more than its fair share of hurdles.

Keller was inspired by seeing a similar project that managed to get Windows NT running on a Nintendo Wii. And considering the Wii uses a PowerPC 750CL processor — which is an updated version of the PowerPC 750CXe found in Apple’s old iMac G3 and iBook G3 computers — Keller had an inkling that his attempted hack would work. It proved to be a hunch that was right on the money.

That doesn’t mean it was a walk in the park, though. Keller had to build a custom bootloader, patch the OS X kernel source code, put together a modified kernel binary, and even write his own drivers that enabled the kernel to read from the Wii’s SD card slot in order to boot up properly. In other words, the process was about as hands-on as it gets.

‘Worth pursuing’

Even after all that effort, Keller still encountered some unusual problems. One, for example, resulted in the device displaying Mac OS X in the wrong colors. As Keller succinctly put it, “everything is magenta.”

Fixing this was complicated, Keller said, because “it relates to a fundamental incompatibility between the Wii’s video hardware and the graphics code that Mac OS X uses.” The solution was to use two framebuffers — one for Mac OS X Cheetah and one for the Wii — and have the output from one converted into something the other could understand.

It was just one of many problems that Keller (unsurprisingly) encountered in this unusual hack. But despite the hitches, the endeavor was a success, with Mac OS X Cheetah (released in 2001) fully operational on the Nintendo Wii (first launched in 2006). Keller has posted the source code on GitHub for anyone brave enough to take on the challenge themselves.

Reflecting on the project, Keller said that “There’s something deeply satisfying about accomplishing something that, at the start, you weren’t even sure was possible… In the end, I learned (and accomplished) far more than I ever expected — and perhaps more importantly, I was reminded that the projects that seem just out of reach are exactly the ones worth pursuing.”

The Nintendo Switch may have been an industry revelation in 2017 but, as time has gone on, its performance issues have become increasingly apparent. While the company’s first-party offerings are highly polished, developed with its console in mind, most modern third-party Switch releases tend to hover around a shaky 30fps as they battle against Nintendo’s aging hardware. But, it’s not just Nintendo Switch games that are affected by that wobbly performance.

For the past half-decade, as performance-hampered games take center stage, a sinister force has been left to bubble away like an infernal cauldron. The Nintendo Switch’s grossly undercooked eShop waits in the wings, ready to bombard players with a litany of baffling issues the moment they open up the app.

The Nintendo eShop was and is a complete disaster, with issues ranging from horrendous input lag and slow load times, to copious shovelware and frankly glacial download speeds. It’s essentially a microcosm of the Switch’s biggest problems: shockingly unoptimized and in dire need of a refresh.

eSchlock

The Nintendo eShop has few redeeming qualities to speak of. Its ‘current offers’ section buries genuinely great deals under mountains of poor-quality games, while scrolling through its menus, even just a little, slows the app to a somewhat concerning crawl.

A press of the d-pad can take seconds to register in the eShop, creating just about the worst input lag I think I’ve ever seen on any console. The fact it’s an issue where it wasn’t on prior hardware is frustrating and, frankly, embarrassing. That’s not to say store performance is pristine on PS5 or Xbox Series X|S – both consoles’ stores could stand to be optimized better – but it’s far less noticeable an issue thanks to better layouts, easier navigation, and more powerful hardware.

The reason why performance in the eShop is so dire is pretty easy to pinpoint, though, and it largely lies in the app’s curation. Or lack thereof. That ‘current offers’ section typically features hundreds – occasionally thousands – of discounts. All crammed into a single menu. The Switch’s ancient processor has a rough time keeping all that product information in its memory, turning the app into a treacle swamp.

There’s no rhyme or reason here, either. Some games appear to be perpetually on sale, with many advertised as 90% off, giving the illusion of a great deal when really you’re buying something that looks like it was copied and pasted from the Unity asset store. Good luck trying to find a deal on one of the best indie games when sifting through a smelly landfill of schlocky visual novels and asset-flipped survival horrors. It’s Steam Greenlight all over again.

Wii can fix it

Nintendo needs only to look at its history to recognize what a great eShop could look like. At the risk of sounding like a boomer, remember the Wii Shop Channel? The Nintendo Wii’s online shopping solution was marvelously well curated, segmenting Virtual Console titles by console, while giving WiiWare (Nintendo’s fancy term for smaller budget games on the console) its own section.

The Wii Shop Channel wasn’t perfect, having to buy a tailor-made currency before shopping was grossly outdated even for its time (that goes for you, too, Microsoft Points), while download speeds were painfully slow even for Virtual Console games.

Yet the Wii Shop Channel was consistently a joy to browse. Updated once a week, new games were added to the platform regularly. They didn’t call them Wii Shop Wednesdays for nothing. Oh, and it’d be a crime not to mention the iconic Wii Shop Channel theme, fondly remembered today through remixes and memes. What does the eShop offer in comparison? Silence. Joyless, unforgivable silence. Sort it out, Nintendo.

The good stuff

Despite its glaring issues, the Nintendo eShop isn’t entirely irredeemable and has some strong aspects worth highlighting. For one, the search function is robust, allowing players to sort by genre and price range. You can also choose to search for DLC only, or for games with a demo available.

The Discover tab has improved over time, too. This section shows off curated offers, new titles, and highlights, all with tailor-made thumbnails to better draw your attention. Discover is definitely the eShop’s most polished section, and it shows that the app can be improved further. Of course, Discover doing much of the heavy lifting makes the eShop’s problems all the more glaring. Everything else within the store feels like an afterthought.

Am I confident in the eShop’s future, then? Not particularly, no. Its glaring performance issues mean that it’ll take a substantial overhaul to improve. And that’s not something I see happening on the Nintendo Switch.

Instead, it’s likely we won’t see a considerable eShop revamp until a Nintendo Switch Pro model (or future Nintendo Switch 2 console) materializes. After all, Nintendo did improve upon the DSi shop with the 3DS eShop, so there’s precedent at the very least. But, with the next iteration of the Switch still unconfirmed, we could be waiting some time for a much-needed eShop refresh – if it happens at all.

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Update: Nintendo has issued the following statement to TechRadar Gaming confirming that the Wii and DSi shop channels are offline for maintenance:

"The Wii Shop Channel and Nintendo DSi Shop are currently undergoing maintenance. We will provide an update at a later date."

Original story: Nintendo's Wii and DSi shop channels are offline, meaning those who want to redownload old DSi or Wii games are currently unable to do so. 

As spotted by Eurogamer, both shop channels appear to have been down since March 16, with Nintendo giving no prior warning that either shop would be taken offline. Those trying to access the DSi shop are getting the error code 290502, while those trying to access the Wii shop channel are getting error code 209601 – both of which indicate an (in this case non-existent) network error.

Nintendo stopped allowing you to purchase games from the DSi and Wii stores years ago, but the shop channels still allow you to redownload previously purchased games. With the shop channels down, those still playing DSi and Wii games are unable to do so.

According to Trash_Bandatcoot on gbatemp, Nintendo's CDN – the download server that houses the shop data – is still active and allows for downloads from tools like NUSDownloader. That revelation suggests only the frontend of the stores is offline.

Analysis: more Nintendo shops closing?

It's entirely possible that Nintendo has taken the shop channels offline for unscheduled maintenance, or maybe an error has occurred. But the lack of communication from the company has left some questioning whether the DSi and Wii shops will ever come online again.

Earlier this year, the House of Mario announced it will officially close the Wii U and 3DS stores in March 2023. The move means that those Wii U and 3DS owners will no longer be possible to buy new titles, download demos, redeem download codes, or add funds. But they can still access and redownload the digital goods they previously bought.

The DSi and Wii shops underwent a similar closure back in 2017 and 2019 respectively. But, if these channels went offline completely, any previously purchased digital goods would no longer be available to download. And they'd only be accessible if they were previously downloaded on those devices. 

It would be another major hit to gaming preservation – something which Nintendo has previously faced criticism for as its move to close the Wii U and 3DS stores means that classic NES titles are now locked behind a subscription service.

With no official word from Nintendo, though, we imagine that the current issue with the DSi and Wii shop channels is likely down to an error. After all, last year Nintendo reportedly accidentally delisted over 250 DSiWare games from the North American 3DS shop. 

TechRadar Gaming has contacted Nintendo for comment.

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If you're still longing for the days of the Nintendo Wii's Shop Channel, or you have the iconic tune stored in your music app as you walk through a shopping mall, you can experience the same track and others in your web browser thanks to a web extension.

Found on GitHub and compatible with the Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox web browsers, the extension plays one of the iconic tracks whenever you're on a shopping site such as Amazon.

The extension, which adds a little shopping bag icon in the address bar, doesn't stop with Wii shop music - themes from Wii Home, Wii U eShop, DSi Shop, and 3DS eShop can all be selected instead.

However, Nintendo will most likely be looking to take this down soon, as the music is the property of the company. If you want these music tracks to play as you browse Amazon, be quick.

How to get the best out of the extension

Even though the developer states that the extension will start playing music when you're on a shopping website, you can still enable a track to play on virtually any website.

Go to the extension's shopping bag icon, and after a few seconds, the selected track will play as you're browsing Facebook or solving the latest Wordle puzzle.

We should mention that the extension works in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, as they run from certain web engines that help to display websites and play media content.

For Chrome it's Blink, while Firefox runs in a Gecko web engine.

But other browsers such as Microsoft Edge and Opera run on the same engine as Google Chrome, which means the Wii Shop extension will be able to work on these web browsers, even if its' not officially supported by the developer.

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Nintendo's all-time top-selling home console was a massive success, to say the least, but also enormously divisive. By focusing on accessibility and affordability, the Wii reached millions of players who might not have otherwise bought a pricier, more powerful console. That's great!

However, the focus on motion controls and weaker graphics put off some longtime Nintendo fans who felt like they were being ignored or edged out. That's not so great. Needless to say, the Wii couldn't be everything to everyone at all times—but when all was said and done, the console still delivered incredible games for all types of players, including many that are still worth looping back on today.

Looking to fill holes in your classic collection? Here's a look at our favorite Nintendo Wii games of all time, including an array of familiar Nintendo icons—and a couple of surprises along the way.

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Super Mario Galaxy

One of the Super Mario series' greatest strengths over the years has been its consistent ability to reinvent itself, and Super Mario Galaxy is undoubtedly one of its best permutations. This planet-hopping 3D quest is bursting at the seams with creative concepts and inventive twists, delivering a pitch-perfect platformer that can stand the test of time. And sequel Super Mario Galaxy 2 goes above and beyond being just a simple follow-up, thanks to its own plethora of brilliant ideas.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Just as the Switch did with Breath of the Wild a decade later, the Wii came out swinging with a brilliant Legend of Zelda game on day one. Twilight Princess was notably darker than previous games, delivering an epic quest that embraced the Wii's motion controls while making other strides for the series. It also launched on GameCube soon after the Wii debut, but it's primarily known for being a seriously captivating quest on a console known for its casual favorites. 

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Although not as beloved by the Smash community as the GameCube's Melee before it, Super Smash Bros. Brawl brought massive enhancements to Nintendo's cross-franchise battler. Most important, of course, was the addition of online play, but Brawl is also known for being the first in the series to implement third-party characters such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Solid Snake, setting the stage for many, many more guest brawlers in future entries. 

Wii Sports

There were a lot of Wii games like Wii Sports, but none of them felt as effortlessly enjoyable as Nintendo's original pack-in. While simplistic, the motion-controlled versions of sports like tennis and bowling showed the brilliance of the Wii's focus on accessibility, and it's a game that you can keep coming back to—with any mix of friends and family in tow. Special shout-out to sequel Wii Sports Resort, which had a few super-fun Wii MotionPlus-enhanced games within but wasn't nearly as impactful overall.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Metroid Prime was originally built for a dual-analog gamepad, but Metroid Prime 3: Corruption showed how surprisingly adept the Wii Remote and Nunchuk combo could be for a first-person shooter. Metroid Prime 3 marks a high point for the sci-fi adventure sub-series, delivering larger and more immersive environments and some of the best visuals you'll find on the Wii. And the later Metroid Prime Trilogy is even better, packing in updated versions of the GameCube originals with the same kind of added motion controls.

Kirby's Epic Yarn

Looking for a serious challenge? You won't find it in Kirby's Epic Yarn, but don't dismiss this gorgeous platformer because of that. What Epic Yarn lacks in difficulty it more than makes up for with immense charm, as the pink puff is reimagined in an absorbing world made of yarn and fabric. It's a whimsical affair that's sure to put a smile on your face, which is likely to stay put thanks to the creative levels and incredible heart packed within.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

The Wii houses not just one, but two brilliant Zelda adventures. The second is The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, a game that is built around Wii MotionPlus gesture controls and features a much brighter aesthetic than Twilight Princess before it. With a look inspired by impressionist painters, this dreamy-looking quest sticks to Zelda conventions in some ways while completely sidestepping them in others. The end result is thoroughly captivating.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

New Super Mario Bros. Wii enters unexplored and unexpected terrain for the long-running series with the addition of four-player multiplayer support. The end result is raucous and hilarious, as the side-scrolling levels serve up both cooperation and competition as your heroes leap and bop en route to the finish. It's not as mind-blowingly inventive as Super Mario Galaxy, but this retro-redefined romp is still a blast whether playing solo or with pals.

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars

Decidedly lesser-known than Marvel vs. Capcom and that lineage of cross-franchise fighters, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars is an overlooked gem of a Wii exclusive. Pairing an odd mixture of Capcom characters—from Chun-Li and Mega Man Volnutt to Frank West and Viewtiful Joe—with various anime heroes from Tatsunoko Production series like Gatchaman and Yatterman, this explosive fighter is by far the best available on the Wii.

World of Goo

World of Goo is the only WiiWare game to make the cut and also the only indie game on this mostly Nintendo-dominated list—but it's just that good. This wonderfully offbeat puzzler makes perfect use of the Wii Remote's pointer, letting you drop in gooey, sticky ball-like creatures that can connect to devise makeshift structures. You'll have to build a bunch of them to get your way out of each level, and while the increasingly brainy challenges are a treat unto themselves, the charming look and music add so much to the overall experience.

Donkey Kong Country Returns

It's right there in the title: this is the proper, rightfully-celebrated comeback of Rare's Donkey Kong Country series from the SNES, only now in the careful hands of Metroid Prime maker Retro Studios. The end result tickles the nostalgia bone, no doubt, but doesn't feel like an old game lazily returned for the sake of it. Retro's take keeps what worked about the classics while adding new elements and giving it a seriously challenging edge. Long live Kong.

Mario Kart Wii

Mario Kart Wii isn't the most inventive entry in the beloved racing series, but with accessible motion controls opening up the fun to an even wider array of players, it's yet another winner. The Wii Wheel shell for the Wii Remote was a fun touch, especially for kids, while online play was a blast and the addition of motorbikes added a neat twist to the familiar formula. If you have a Wii and plan to play with pals, then you have to have Mario Kart Wii alongside.

Xenoblade Chronicles

Wii owners lucked out with a pair of Zelda originals, but those aren't the only role-playing epics worth remembering on the console. Nintendo's own Xenoblade Chronicles continued on the spiritual legacy of games like Xenogears and Xenosaga, this time delivering a vast open world to explore along with compelling characters and satisfying combat. It kicked off a series that has since continued on Wii U and Switch.

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The world may be waiting with bated breath for the Xbox Project Scarlett console, but at least Ubisoft hasn't given up on some old, faithful gaming platforms. 

At its E3 2019 keynote, Ubisoft announced Just Dance 2020, the next game in the series timed with the line’s 10th anniversary. The game is coming out on the usual suspects - Xbox One, PS4, Switch, and even Stadia - along with a surprise platform: the Nintendo Wii, per Ubisoft's press release.

No, not even the Wii U - it's coming the original Wii system that launched in 2006 bringing inexpensive motion controls to the world. Ubisoft may be the last big publisher to release a game on the venerable platform, but it’s fitting that it’s a Just Dance title. 

The first Just Dance came out exclusively on the Wii in late 2009, using the Wiimote to crudely track dance performance a la Rayman Raving Rabbids. Every game that followed in the main series has appeared on the Wii, up to and including the just-announced Just Dance 2020. 

That's a smart move, Ubisoft

It’s a sweetheart consideration that doesn’t apply to any other console. True, the Just Dance series is known to support old consoles well past their prime - Just Dance 2018 had editions for the Xbox 360 and PS3, and Just Dance 2019 still came out on the Wii U - but now, the only non-current-gen system that will get to play Just Dance 2020 is the old Nintendo Wii. (As a bonus note, this will have to be a physical disc release since Nintendo shut down the Wii Store back in January.)

And sure, this is a business decision: the Wii sold over 100 million units, which is a massive userbase that, apparently, still buys Just Dance games. The franchise is a relative colossus big enough to sell its film rights back in January 2019, per Deadline. But it’s nice to know that Ubisoft is still supporting the console so players who supported the first games can still get their groove on with the latest songs. 

 E3 2019 is the biggest gaming event of the year. TechRadar is reporting live from LA, telling you all about the biggest announcements of the week, from epic game trailers to shocking release date reveals. Follow our expert analysis of the keynotes and what we see on the E3 show floor. 

It may not have come as as a surprise, but it still hurts. After 12 years, Nintendo has shut down the Wii Shop Channel.

Nintendo announced in 2017 that it was beginning the discontinuation of the Wii Shop Channel. The shut down began on March 26, 2018, with Nintendo blocking the ability to add points to the Wii Shop Channel using either a credit card or Nintendo Points Card. 

However the final reckoning day, when users could no longer purchase content from the Wii Shop Channel, was announced as January 30, 2019. And that fateful day is finally here. 

Wii're all in this together

So, what if you still had unused Wii points? Unfortunately, it looks like any unspent points are non-refundable and you will have lost them – though you were given nearly three years notice after all.

For those who have already bought WiiWare or Virtual Console titles, don't panic. You will still be able to re-download this content and use the Wii System Transfer to move items from the Wii to the Wii U. However, at some point in the future these services will also be closed (but Nintendo hasn’t settled on a date yet). 

Don't stop the music

The Wii Shop Channel may be gone but that doesn't mean the internet isn't filled with the store's true legacy – the Wii Shop Channel main theme. So, one last time, let's listen to its joyful tones together (before barrelling down a rabbit hole of remixes). 

RIP Wii Shop Channel (December 10, 2006 - January 30, 2019).

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The Nintendo Wii looks set to lose access to a host of third-party streaming services in the new year.

Streaming provider Netflix reportedly sent an email out to Wii users, explaining that it would be pulling the Netflix app from the Wii on January 31.

According to this post on Reddit, Nintendo will be suspending "all video streaming services on Wii", meaning that the Youtube, Hulu, Crunchyroll, and Amazon Prime Video will also be disappearing from the 2006 console. That's just the Wii, mind you - your newer Wii U console won't be affected by the changes.

In what could be a hint to Netflix coming to the Nintendo Switch - or possibly some shade at Nintendo's infamously low-spec gaming hardware - the email also read: "We hope you’ll soon enjoy an even better Netflix experience with additional features on a supported device."

It will coincide with the closure of the Wii Shop channel, which is also planned for the coming January.

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The king is dead, long live the king

 As legacy Wii owners mourn the loss of their Netflix and streaming service apps, however, we find that Youtube has finally landed on the Nintendo Switch - bringing the console's meagre number of streaming service apps up to... two.

Hulu has had its own third-party app on the Switch since 2017, though other streaming services have been waiting for inclusion. 

Nintendo's strategy for the Switch seems to be gaming-led, though with Youtube and Hulu both on the console, we fully expect to see the likes of Netflix at some point - and possibly even Disney's incoming streaming service, which was recently announced as Disney+.

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Via Nintendo Life

Nintendo has announced that it plans to close up the Wii Shop Channel on January 31 2019. After this date it’ll no longer be possible to buy titles or applications from the channel for either the Wii or Wii U consoles.

The process of closing up shop will actually begin before then, though, as from March 27 2018 users will no longer be able to add Wii points to their account. 

When the shop does eventually close in 2019, Nintendo has said it’ll refund unused Wii Points and Wii Point Prepaid Cards though the process for how these refunds will be issued has yet to be decided. 

Nintendone

Those who have already bought WiiWare or Virtual Console titles will still be able to re-download this content and use the Wii System Transfer to move items from the Wii to the Wii U. However, at some point in the future these services will also be closed (but Nintendo hasn’t settled on a date yet). 

When these features do stop being available, Wii and Wii U owners will still own the content and be able to access the content they’ve purchased from the channel, they just won’t be able to erase it from the console if they want to continue to do so. 

Given that Nintendo is now entirely committed to the Switch and handheld DS line, this shop closure is entirely unsurprising and certainly underlines that the Wii and Wii U are shifting into the company’s history rather than being part of its present. Committed Wii and Wii U owners will, however, always have the Nintendo eShop to access content from. Unless Nintendo one day drops support there too. 

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After it was released in 2006 the Nintendo Wii console quickly turned into a worldwide phenomenon. The console saw stock shortages around the world, meaning that for around six months it was almost impossible to find one of the consoles without some serious detective work. 

However, those days have long since passed in the ten years since the console’s original release, and Nintendo’s focus has since shifted to the Wii’s successors, the Wii U and Nintendo Switch. 

Given the console’s success, there are an enormous amount of them left out in the wild. That’s a lot of consoles left gathering dust when they could be turned back into cash. 

So rather than convincing yourself that you’re going to one day go back to complete Super Mario Galaxy, why not sell your Wii? Doing so will free up some space in your home and, if you play your cards right, you could end up with a decent bit of cash for your trouble. 

General do's and don'ts

Before we get into examining the specific ways you can go about selling your Wii, it’s worth exploring a few general rules for how to get the most money. 

Firstly it should go without saying that a working console will get you more than one that’s not working. However, there are also services that will take your console even if it’s not in a working state. 

You might not get as much money, but it’s much better to do this than to simply throw your machine away, as this way it’ll be recycled properly and you’ll be able to feel much better about your impact on the environment. 

So before you package your Wii up ready to be sold, make sure you plug it in one last time to ensure it’s working. Try putting in a game disc to see if it’s able to load up a game, and press every button on the controller to make sure that they’re all working. 

Secondly, it’s worth having a hunt around to see if you can find your Wii’s original packaging and accessories. This won’t be the case for every service listed below, but some of them will give you more money if you’ve still got everything the console came with. 

Finally, if you decide to try and sell your console directly on eBay or Craigslist then there are a couple of simple rules to follow to make sure your listing appears as tempting as possible. 

Make sure you include as many keywords as possible in the headline to maximise its chances of appearing in search, and use the best quality camera you have to take your photos to ensure that the console appears as clear and as sharp as possible. 

Finally, when you’re writing your description, the more exact you can be the better. Writing more gives any potential buyer piece of mind that you know what you’re doing, and gives them all the information they need to make their purchase. 

Know what you're selling

Before you get into the selling process, it’s important to work out which kind of Wii console you have on your hands. 

Several different versions of the hardware were released throughout its lifetime and you need to be sure to clearly outline which one you’re selling to avoid any disappointed customers. 

There were three main Wii consoles released. There was the original which was released in both white and black colors, a family edition that lacked the ability to be stood vertically and didn’t have any GameCube or memory card ports on the front of the machine, and finally the Wii Mini which was released in red and has a top-loading disc drive. 

If you’ve still got the original box your console came in then it should be fairly simple to work out which console you have, otherwise you can check out the Wii’s Wikipedia page for a rundown of the different models available. 

Option 1: Sell direct on eBay

When selling your Wii you’ll have to be prepared to make a trade-off between the amount of money you get and the amount of effort you put in. 

Selling your Wii directly on eBay will almost certainly get you the most amount of money, but it will also require the most amount of effort. 

But the plus side is that every extra bit of effort you put in, from taking better photos to writing a more detailed description, will help towards getting you the best price possible. 

When it comes to deciding on whether to include accessories such as additional controllers or games with your console it really pays to do some research. 

Find out what prices these accessories tend to sell for on their own. If they sell well then consider selling them separately, but if they only get a couple of cents or pennies then bundle them in with your console to make it a more tempting offer. 

If selling on eBay you can either sell your Wii in an auction, or else set a ‘Buy it Now’ price that allows buyers to make a more traditional purchase at a set price. 

To decide what price to sell your Wii for, check out what prices other sellers have achieved. Use eBay’s advanced search settings to search for sold listings, and take an average of the prices achieved by those sellers. 

Option 2: Sell direct on Gumtree or Craigslist

eBay has a big audience, but you’ll also be competing with the large number of professional sellers that have started using the site to sell their wares. 

Meanwhile, Craigslist and Gumtree continue to be much more amateur in nature, meaning you’re competing with other private sellers rather than businesses. 

When deciding how much to charge for your Wii, we’d still recommend checking eBay first to get an idea of average pricing. With so many more sellers on the platform it’s easier to see what prices are possible and make sure you don’t undercharge. 

However, when setting your price it’s worth bearing in mind that buyers on these services will frequently try to offer a much lower price than what you’ve advertised. As such it might be worth setting your price a little higher in the listing, with a ‘real’ price in mind when the offers start coming through. 

Option 3: Use a trade in service

If you don’t want the hassle of having to write listings or take photographs, then you might want to use a trade in service to sell your Wii. 

Doing so won’t get you quite as much money as selling it directly, but so long as you meet the requirements for what the company is offering then you’ll know exactly what you’re going to get ahead of time. 

It’s worth mentioning that certain services (such as Amazon or CeX) will offer you more money if you’re willing to take store credit as payment. If you already spend a lot with these retailers then this can be a good way to get some extra money, but don’t lie to yourself if you don’t. Getting voucher for a shop you never frequent is the same as getting no money at all. 

In the US the biggest trade-in locations for Wii consoles are GameStop, Amazon and Cash For Gamers. Since pricing at these services changes regularly, it’s best to get quotes from as many as possible before making a decision. 

Meanwhile in the UK the biggest services are Amazon, CeX and Music Magpie. Again, get quotes from as many as possible before committing. 

Option 4: If it's not working, remember to recycle

If you’ve had your Wii sitting gathering dust for a number of years, then there’s a chance the console no longer works. 

If this is the case then don’t panic, it doesn’t mean it's entirely without value. There are a large number of companies out there who will happily take (or even pay you for) your broken electronics, since they’ll then be able to either fix them to sell at a profit, or else break them down into the raw materials and sell them on. 

Much like the trade in services above it’s worth shopping around to find the best price. 

In the US, BestBuy offers a recycling service, while in the UK Music Magpie accepts broken as well as working consoles. However you should shop around as in our experience there are a number of local businesses that offer similar services. 

Follow these simple steps and you should make sure that no matter what state your old Wii is in, then you should be able to get the most amount of money possible for it, and do a favor for the environment in the process. 

It's no secret that despite both the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive now being freely available, there's still a relative scarcity of decent, lengthy games to play in virtual reality.

Make no mistake, there are an increasing number of good VR games (in fact we've got a list of the best VR games available now), but for the most part these are short bite-size games.

What virtual reality needs is its Wii Sports breakthrough hit. It needs a number of small games that perfectly show off what virtual reality is all about, while being infinitely replayable in the process.

In Battlezone (currently a timed launch exclusive for the PS VR, with an Oculus version in the works), virtual reality might have finally found its Wii Sports. The tank-battling game is at its core a series of arcade missions, but they're wrapped in a mission structure and upgrade path that should mean that it has more replayability than your average arcade shooter.

We sat down with the Battlezone team to play through the game's campaign mode, where we also got to experience the game's cooperative mode for the first time.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it

At its core, Battlezone's campaign mode is based around a series of short missions.

Each mission revolves around a central objective, from defending or attacking a base, to eliminating every enemy on the map.

Your method of achieving these assorted goals is through firepower. Your tank is equipped with a number of guns, which have dual-joystick controls very similar to what you'd find in a first-person shooter.

This design element is what made me realise how Battlezone manages to work as a VR game.

As anyone who's played a first-person shooter in virtual reality will tell you, the genre isn't particularly suited to playing with a couple of screens strapped to your head.

Most shooters are simply too fast to work in VR. They're based around the idea that you can whip your view around with the swipe of a mouse or the push of a joystick, and this is an uncomfortable design decision when you have to make the same movement with your head.

The clever thing about Battlezone, is that because you're playing it from the point of view of someone piloting a tank, everything is slowed down without feeling sluggish.

It's as though Rebellion has found a way to slow down a first-person shooter without it feeling as though it's been artificially done for VR.

The upshot of this is that through several hours of continuous play I only felt nauseous once during my time with the game, and that moment happened only because I was attempting to pull off a pretty sick powerslide while simultaneously looking to my right and firing upwards.

Piloting a tank might slow the pace of Battlezone down, but the amount of enemies it throws at you means it remains a tense experience.

You can't run through the game's maps expecting to escape unscathed. Your stock tank is a slow lumbering beast, and mission success revolves around you using the environment to hide yourself from the more powerful enemies so you can pick them off one by one.

On their own, these missions are a fun, if slightly shallow, shooting gallery. Where Battlezone really comes into its own is with its overarching campaign and the addition of co-operative play.

A faster than light campaign

Battlezone's campaign consists of a series of these missions, which are laid out on a hexagonal grid.

You begin on one side, and each mission you successfully complete allows you to move to an adjacent hexagon. Victory then depends on you making it to a specific hexagon to face off against the game's final boss.

Naturally you can choose to head straight towards this point. Doing so has its advantages, since with every space you move the game gets closer to dropping another 'Nemesis' onto the map, which is a significantly powerful enemy that will either chase you around the map or else wait on the final hexagon to mess you up upon your arrival.

But you'll get so much more out of Battlezone's campaign if you take the scenic route.

Going out of your way to visit more hexagons on the map has a number of benefits. Facing off against more enemies nets you more resources, which you can then spend on tank upgrades once you make it to shop tiles on the map.

You can also come across special event tiles, which can net you resource rewards, or punish you by taking away health.

It's very similar to indie-darling FTL, which the team said was a key influence on how the campaign is structured.

These upgrade options turn Battlezone from a fun arcadey experience, into something that feels much more substantial.

Upgrades come in many forms, from more powerful and varied weaponry, to HP, shield, and speed upgrades.

These not only allow you to make mincemeat of your opposition much more efficiently, but also let you tailor your tank to your playstyle, whether you want a vehicle that's light and nimble, or a powered up beast that's not afraid to wade knee deep into enemy territory.

Even better, these upgrades can allow you to almost construct character classes when playing the game cooperatively.

Tanks for the co-op

At any point during your campaign, you can be joined by up to three other players, who will follow you throughout its full course.

When combined with the myriad of different ways you can upgrade your ship, the addition of four-player co-op can make Battlezone a very strategic experience.

One player could for example plough all of their resources into front shields and long range weaponry to play a sniper-esque class, while another could put all their focus on area-of-attack weapons and focus on getting up close and personal with swarms of enemies.

You could even have a player act as a support tank by having them put all their resources into their ability to heal their comrades.

When playing with a team of developers at Rebellion we didn't explicitly assign ourselves roles, but after a few shop visits each of the team members found a play-style that suited them, and we were soon playing off of the strengths and weaknesses of each other's tanks.

VR's Wii Sports moment?

Most of the VR games out there at the moment are games you can pretty much experience in their entirety over the course of a couple of hours, rather than the dozens we expect out of an average-length game.

In some ways it's understandable. Longer games are more expensive to develop, and it stands to reason that while the number of headsets in the wild remains limited, the kinds of games developed for them are going to be shorter experiences with a more limited budget.

It's a chicken and egg problem. While the amount of available hours of VR experiences remain small, people are less likely to invest in an expensive headset, but while the amount of headsets in the wild remain limited, developers aren't going to be able to justify crafting lengthy experiences for them.

Battlezone is the first VR game we could see ourselves playing for days rather than just a couple of hours, and could just be for virtual reality what Wii Sports was for motion-controls; an arcade experience that succinctly justifies its medium while being infinitely replayable.

It's individual missions might be simple arcade fun, but when placed in the broader context of the game's campaign mode, they gain a layer of strategy and progress that makes them that much more enjoyable.

And then co-operative play adds another level entirely.

We thoroughly enjoyed the time we spend playing the game co-operatively, and felt that we could have continued to play the game for several hours more. The only question is whether that same level of interest would have been maintained had we been playing solo.

This might be a problem for Battlezone, and multiplayer PlayStation VR games in general. It requires every player to have their own console and headset combo, and it might take some time for a significant number of the players in your friendslist to reach this point. To stretch the Wii Sports analogy to its breaking point, Nintendo's success came from allowing a blistering communal play experience very easily, which VR may struggle to capture.

What we can say at this point is that with four players at least, Battlezone was an immensely fun game to play. All that remains to be seen is whether the same can be said of its single-player gameplay.

If it can get that right, then VR might have just found its breakthrough hit.

• Here are the best PC games you can play right now

I once ran for the position of Video Games Editor at my university newspaper. I was young, with little experience of editing, but with plenty of experience in video games and writing already under my belt. When it came to the election speech though, I choked. They asked us to tell them our favourite games, and because I was last, and I hadn't ever really considered it. "Oh no, everyone else said Zelda, uh uh uh all games are great????" I said, which is demonstrably not true. I mean, I don't think any of you could defend Stalin vs. Martians. Unsurprisingly, I didn't get the position, because I royally embarrassed myself on stage and no one wants an embarrassment running a newspaper.

So I sat down and thought long and hard about it, and then I realised: the game that has brought me most joy and pleasure through playing it was, and always will be, Paper Mario & The Thousand Year Door. I also have a secret and near-inexplainable love for Dante's Inferno, but that one isn't quite as on-brand and I don't want people thinking I'm a strange lady who enjoys tearing people in half. Until they meet me, at least.

Thousand Year Door was a gem in the already gem-studded crown of the GameCube. It combined humour, creativity and excellent game design to make the most Nintendo game that ever Nintendo'ed - and it was brilliant.

Twisting existing gaming tropes into new and exciting surprises - one level had you solve a mystery while ascending the ranks as a wrestler called The Great Gonzales - made TTYD the kind of game that you couldn't easily forget. Nintendo has always loved its gimmicks, but TTYD never felt overburdened or irritating in the way you might feel after a couple of hours of Skyward Sword's motion swordplay or Super Mario Sunshine's goop-cleaning.

Gimmicks are fine, but not at the expense of the game's heart

But, as I've said, Nintendo loves gimmicks, and the next Paper Mario game on the Wii suffered for it. Despite a great story, stellar writing and a continued excellent design, Super Paper Mario focused heavily on a 2D/3D platforming mechanic, making it more of a traditional Mario game than its quirky A4 cousin. This was, in my opinion, the last great Paper Mario game.

After Sticker Star, the biggest misstep in the series, us Paper fans are wary. We gather round the fires, telling stories of great gameplay from the past, wistful and disappointed. Gimmicks are fine, but not at the expense of the game's heart. I almost wonder if that's Nintendo's thing these days, in the same way a bad clown relies on his wacky clothing to entertain rather than his tricks.

So when Paper Mario: Color Splash popped up in the latest Nintendo Direct, I didn't react with the excitement I might have had two or three years ago. The gimmick this time is that Mario's hammer can bestow colour on objects. Okay, so far, so good. But will the game be as wholly underwhelming, confusing and gimmick-heavy as Sticker Star? Will it tread the line, like Super Paper Mario? Or will it fall squarely in the "Goddamn Excellent" pile along with Thousand Year Door?

I almost want to pause this moment, so we can forever live in the quantum state of having it every way - Color Splash, my Schrödinger's cat - because that way I can still be naive and hopeful. But taking a closer look at that trailer, it's difficult to be optimistic.

It's important to establish the good and the bad elements of Paper Mario. Sticker Star had an irritating mechanic where battles were almost always held hostage by the sticker book - each combat move you wished to make had to be "played" as a sticker. If you ran out of that type of sticker, you had no more of that move (at least, until you picked more up in the level, as they were hidden all over the place).

Even worse, boss battles were infuriatingly difficult, until it became apparent that each had a weakness - a gigantic Goomba would have to be taken out by a Scissors sticker or a Big Fan, which gave you a nice animation, but also made you wonder what the point in being good at the game was if you could just use a Big Thing to make the problems go away.

The older Paper Mario games - and TTYD in particular - relied on a turn-based, skill-based combat system, which needed strategies both simple and complex. You could win with brute force, or you could combine special Star Moves, secret Badge Powers, clever swapping of support characters and manipulation of the combat "audience" to swing the battles over to your side. They were tense, thrilling and rarely, if ever, went down that RPG route of "ugh, another battle", because each one was different.

That's what I want from Color Splash - a little touch of the older, game-design-perfection Paper Marios that didn't try too hard to have a "gimmick" but always delighted players with chirpy dialogue and layers upon layers of secrets to discover. Right now, I'm seeing worrying similarities to Sticker Star, like the first signs of a chronic illness - except instead of having to take medication to dull the pain, I just have to accept that my beloved series has moved on into something different.

The combat of Color Splash relies on collectible cards, similar to the sticker mechanic. And the gimmick - restoring colour to objects - seems as shoehorned in as the gimmicks in Super Paper Mario, which felt like a good game, unnecessarily complicated by a quirky idea.

I'm going to try to reserve judgement until we see more of the game, but so far I'm not won over. The combination of the overly-bright colours, the similarities to Paper Mario missteps of the past, and the fact that the gameplay seems focused on collectibles and completing levels rather than story, leaves me feeling underwhelmed and disappointed.

The best outcome is that I'm proved wrong. I'd love to be proved wrong! But when we've all watched as the Paper Mario series slowly drains of all colour and life in favour of simpler, collectible-focused gameplay, it's hard to remain hopeful.

Like any other fanbase, certain sects of the gaming community can get a little … intense. Today that troup's target is Paper Mario: Color Splash, the newly announced sequel to 2012's Paper Mario: Sticker Star and the continuation of Nintendo's longstanding experiment with Super Mario RPGs.

Paper Mario: Color Splash was announced during a Nintendo Direct held earlier today and, within 30 minutes of its trailer debuting, already had a petition on Change.org calling for the game to be canceled.

You might be thinking, "Well, the game probably has some offensive material in it like a hateful, sexist message or an attack on a group of people."

That might be the case normally, but from the brief one minute and ten seconds we've actually seen of the game, it didn't look like it.

So why are some people up in arms? Fans of the franchise claim that the game looks too similar to Paper Mario: Sticker Star, the last entry in the series that was released in 2012 to positive or slightly less than positive reviews from critics and media.

Check out the trailer from today's Nintendo Direct for yourself below. (The portion with Paper Mario: Color Splash starts at 12:30 and ends at around 13:30.)

On some level, I totally get it. If they remade my favorite game of all-time, a Japanese role-playing game called The Legend of Dragoon, as a driving simulator, I might get pretty upset at the creators.

But to create a petition to cancel the game after a one-minute trailer? That might be going overboard.

It's worth pointing out that not everyone is on-board with the whole pitchfork and torches movement. One of the people who signed the petition said, "You may think this petition is childish...because it is. I'm only signing so I don't have to deal with all of these babies bitching about 'Sticker Star 2' for years to come since I've already had enough of them not playing yet still complaining about Sticker Star."

While a vocal minority throwing stones is nothing new, the speed at which people put down a game that no one knew existed before today is a frightening example of how quickly, and harshly, we judge games we know next to nothing about.

• Star Fox: Zero release date is coming in hot

Nintendo unveiled a new The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD trailer in advance of the game's March 4 release date. The minute-and-a-half footage shows Link in beautiful 1080p action, a resolution that the Hero of Time doesn't see all that often, fighting baddies and taking an axe straight in his fairy face.

Twilight Princess HD, which takes the original Wii/GameCube version of the game and adds some nice high-res textures, additional modes and amiibo support, was announced during a Nintendo Direct back in November for the Wii U.

Today, Nintendo announced a new item called The Ghost Lamp, which should make one quest in the game less irritating, and hero mode, a setting that ramps up the difficulty by limiting the amount of places you can restore health. These features should make for two solid twists on an already great title.

Releasing the game on the Wii U means it will have a second screen for inventory management, and there's even an upcoming Wolf Link amiibo that will save your progress and open up an area of the map called the Cave of Shadows.

The Wolf Link amiibo will work with the new Legend of Zelda game when that comes out, too, at least according to Nintendo.

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD's fresh coat of paint looks amazing, yes, but it's not the game many are waiting for. Series producer Eiji Aonuma asked fans to be patient when Twilight Princess was announced in November, saying at the time a true Zelda sequel is in development, but that he didn't know when it would be ready or what system it would be on (hint, hint, probably the Nintendo NX). His advice? All we need to do is be patient.

It should be a simple ask, really, but that's easier said than done when talking about a new Legend of Zelda game.

• These are the best games on the Nintendo 3DS

Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto has confirmed that Star Fox Zero is going the same way as Zelda and won't launch this year after all.

The game was set to arrive in time for Christmas but Miyamoto has revealed that the game has been pushed back until Q1 2016 - a "big decision" that will allow for more spit and polish.

"Although we felt that the development had been progressing well, we now believe that we will need a little more time to work on areas such as the unprecedented discovery that we want players to experience in the game by using two screens, and further polishing the level designs and perfecting the tone of the cut scenes," reads Miyamoto's statement.

He also said that with the current development trajectory Star Fox Zero could meet its end-of-year deadline, but the team would prefer to improve the game "so that players will be able to more smoothly grasp the new style of play".

He added: "To the people looking forward to the launch of the game this holiday season, I am very sorry.

"Star Fox Zero is going to bring new game play and experiences that take it far beyond the framework established by Star Fox 64. All the members of the development team are doing our best so that the final product will not betray your expectations. And the game will not be delayed for a very long time – we're aiming to launch the game in Q1 2016. Please stay tuned for further announcements."

Sony announced it's remastering The Last of Us for the PS4 during E3 2014, and soon it will be joined by many other PS3 titles.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Sony Computer Entertainment boss Andrew House shared Sony's plans to remaster older PlayStation titles for new audience on the PS4.

Naughty Dog's game was released in June 2013, the early twilight days of the PS3 when many gamers avoided buying new games knowing that next-gen consoles were just around the corner. House said that because of this, Sony believes there's a contingent of PS4 players who've never played Last of Us or other games released late in the PS3's life.

"I hesitate to say this because I know committed gamers may roll their eyes about it," House said. "But there's an opportunity with some of the remastering or re-imagining from PS3 franchises that will potentially find an audience that hasn't played them in the previous generation because they skipped that generation."

Another remastered title to join Naughty Dog's second party hit is Grand Theft Auto V.

Skipping a generation

Beyond these two titles, House believes there an even larger swath of PS4 users who skipped last gen all together. Now House hopes to remaster more gaming experiences for anyone who opted to buy a Nintendo Wii rather than a PS3 or Xbox 360.

Last generation, the Wii sold roughly 20 million more units worldwide over Microsoft and Sony's consoles of yesteryear. Now with the booming success of the PlayStation 4, shipping nearly seven million units around the globe, House explained he wants to turn the PS4 into a broader entertainment device.

"We're only just getting into our stride with people who now have been playing for 10, 20 years, who have a nostalgia factor, who want to see those franchises come back and be reinvented," House said.

Rumors have suggested Sony will bring back old-school franchises, including Syphon Filter. In a separate interview with the Telegraph, House also suggested Sony has been contemplating the return of Crash Bandicoot.

Sony might just be testing the waters to see what reactions it can get draw with quotes like these, but just imagine what if there were finally a new PaRappa game.

• Check out our PS4 review!

The PS3 didn't win the console war, and the Xbox 360 definitely didn't either. No, it was the Nintendo Wii that defined this gaming generation.

Did it have the graphical might to stand shoulder to shoulder with the PS3 and Xbox 360? Hell no. Did it have the hardcore library of the GameCube? Nope. Did it have a stupid name? Yeah, we sniggered.

And guys, it couldn't even play DVDs.

But the Wii won this generation by doing something much, much bigger: it got the whole world playing videogames.

It brought families together in the living room to share a round of virtual bowling, it got grandparents and grandkids going head to head for some Wii Tennis. It was Nintendo's plan from the start and it worked marvelously.

Like so many great ideas before it, the Wii had a tough time getting people to take it seriously at first. "What a funny name" and "Is that a NES controller?" But then it actually happened, and Nintendo set the living room ablaze, shaking up an industry that really needed it.

The PS3 and Xbox 360 were souped-up versions of their predecessors - Nintendo dared to be different. Perhaps the Wii should have clutched onto its development codename of "The Revolution." In an industry that was becoming more averse to risk taking, it truly was.

Motion revolution

But perhaps the best evidence of the Wii's superiority was demonstrated in Microsoft and Sony's own clumsy responses with Kinect and Move respectively. Neither got it quite right at the time – they felt rushed and nowhere near as confident as Nintendo's own attempt to make motion-based gaming a thing.

What they did show was that the industry needed to react.

As for numbers, the others fall short on that too. The Wii has sold 100 million units to date. Sure, price has played a big part in that, but then that was all part of the big plan: maximum accessibility. And accessibility leads to numbers, which leads to developer support, and the Wii ended up enjoying a good balance of first party and third party titles.

Yes, it missed its fair share of big blockbusters along the way, but the sacrifice was worth it.

The best game ever made?

Which brings me to another of the many jewels in the Wii crown: Super Mario Galaxy. Not only was it my favourite game of this generation, it's hands down my number one game of all time. I don't say that lightly.

After hammering through a number of heavy "must play" titles on my Xbox 360 and PS3, Mario Galaxy was a league above.

It was refreshing, sheer unadulterated fun for the sake of it, something that so many games have forgotten to be. It was the whole reason I fell in love with videogames as a kid. The controls felt fluid, the music was enchanting. Those gravity-shifting mechanics were pretty brilliant too.

It was also one big middle finger to anyone who thought Nintendo had lost its magic when it came to first party titles. But Galaxy is just one example of where the Wii shone in its exclusives. Skyward Sword, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Xenoblade Chronicles, and yes, Mario Galaxy 2. They were all system sellers.

But for all their "casualness", Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort were the juggernauts that helped Nintendo unravel its true master plan: to win the hearts of the non-gamers.

It's what snuck the Wii into every living room, not so much as an alternative to the PS3 or Xbox 360, but an as well as. That's a huge success in my book.

Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus Rift, recently told me he thought controllers were unintuitive "broken abstractions of how we actually interact with the world". The Wii wanted to solve that problem. It was much more than "waggle to win" as the naysayers joke – when executed well, that Wiimote could feel natural, intuitive and a whole world better.

A perfect example of this was when I first played an FPS using the Wii controller. Aiming with that remote felt so much more precise and fluid than anything I had used before; I couldn't believe how archaic the standard gamepad approach seemed when I returned to it.

Verdict

So congratulations to the PS3 and Xbox 360. You acted out your parts in this generation, but you'll be remembered as little more than having slightly better engines than your predecessors. You played it too safe.

The unified console is unsustainable but the legacy of the motion control will persevere. That's testament enough to the Wii's success.

It's a shame the Wii U now sits in the shadow of its predecessor, but it never had a chance of hitting the highs of the Wii, did it? Then again, neither will the Xbox One or PS4. And even if the U does completely sink, Nintendo still has plenty of gold to sit on. It can thank its "Revolution" for that.

TechRadar staffer Hugh is a lucid dream enthusiast who sees mushrooms and go karts whenever he closes his eyes

The PS3 didn't win the console war, the Xbox 360 did.

And in looking for proof of the Xbox 360's position as the defining console of the age, you can refer to no less an authority than President Barack Obama.

It was he who criticised Republican behaviour over the recent US government shutdown by saying "You don't get a chance to call your bank and say, 'I'm not going to pay my mortgage this month unless you throw in a new car and an Xbox.'"

This bit of partisan point-scoring represents the zenith of Microsoft's incredible success in the seventh console generation - the point at which even the President admitted that "Xbox" had became interchangeable with "games console"in the way that "Playstation" had at the turn of the century.

It was, and is, the device on which most self-described gamers play games.

America led the way

This status is due in part to the console's incredible success in North America: it was the best-selling US console for more than two and a half years, with 32 uninterrupted months between the Wii's downfall in January 2011 to the PS3's GTA-powered boost last month. (It's a position it'll probably reclaim post-Xbox One, when the inevitable price cuts kick in.)

It enjoyed similar success in the UK, and while diehard Sony loyalists in Europe and Japan helped PlayStation 3 close the lead in terms of worldwide sales, Sony still can't claim to be the most influential.

Neither, of course, can Nintendo - the Wii did very well in its time in the sun, and still claims the sales trophy, but the sales collapse of first third-party software and, in the Wii U, Nintendo's own hardware, marks the Wiimote as more fad than fundamental change in the market.

The games

No, it was the Xbox 360 that defined this generation in a way that no other console managed. It was on Xbox 360 that Gears of War made cover shooters the signature genre of the era (and, in Horde Mode, added a new standard to multiplayer gaming, alongside hoary stalwarts like Team Deathmatch).

In doing so, it established Unreal Engine as the de facto next-gen development platform, shaping the look and feel of everything from Mirror's Edge to Arkham Asylum.

It was on the Xbox 360 that we played those first intoxicating rounds of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's multiplayer beta - the other great defining gaming experience of the generation, and the first console game to build a gigantic, mass-market player base off online, rather than offline play.

It did so off the back of Xbox Live, which built on one of the few outright successes of the original Xbox to become what's still the most reliable, best-equipped console gaming service.

YOUR network sucks

At the launch of Xbox 360, console multiplayer was a new and uncertain frontier for people playing Project Gotham and Rainbow Six. Xbox Live and Call of Duty took it mainstream, to the point where it's become entirely normal to join your friends for a round of CoD, match of FIFA, or killing spree on GTA Online.

Sony's online service got there in the end, but it's signature achievement remains one of the world's biggest ever data breaches and the inability to support cross-game chat fives years after it became a standard feature.

On Xbox 360, meanwhile, a far more successful Achievement flourished. The digital rewards that debuted with Microsoft's second console have become an industry standard.

Valve lifted them in their entirety for Steam, Sony rebranded them as Trophies, but neither challenged Microsoft's design. Similarly sincere flattery was extended to the Xbox 360's controller, with Nintendo mimicking it entirely for its "pro"gamepad.

Admittedly, Microsoft returned the favour with Kinect, but even that's a mark in the Xbox 360's favour: its motion sensor became the fastest-selling consumer electronic device in history, and Microsoft releasing it as a peripheral meant it did so without compromising the console's strengths in traditional "hardcore" gaming.

And what strengths they were. It was the Xbox 360 on which we first experienced the spectacular environmental storytelling of Bioshock, the vast universe of Mass Effect, and the huge open worlds of Dead Rising and Crackdown.

It was Xbox 360 that lead the way in digital distribution, starting with Zuma and stepping up to classics like Geometry Wars 2, Braid and Shadow Complex. Amid Sony's recent touting of its indie credentials, it's worth pointing out that Microsoft blazed a trail in digital distribution of smaller titles, and went so far as to open a completely homebrew route to market in the form of its Xbox Live Indie Games channel.

While the latter never took off as many hoped it might, it was the first time anybody could get their game on a console without a publisher's involvement, and foreshadowed the indie game-dev revolution of the present day.

Verdict

Ultimately, Xbox 360 ends what became the longest generation as the most influential console on the market - an incredible achievement when you consider Microsoft's first stab at console gaming: the original Xbox barely made a dent in the Playstation's armour, and ended its short life as the Halo-and-emulation box.

Xbox 360 passes the baton as the king of the hill - a position that puts all the more pressure on its successor, Xbox One.

Jon Hicks is the editor of Official Xbox Magazine. He thinks Kill Zone is part of a basketball court and has an irrational fear of PlayStation Move controllers.

The Xbox 360 didn't win the console war, the PS3 did!

It's a true underdog story. PlayStation 3 launched in Europe some 14 months after Xbox 360 in March 2007, delayed by a shortage of diodes used in its Blu-Ray drive, of all things.

When it finally did arrive, it came with a considerably bigger price tag than Microsoft's offering, and was plagued by second-rate versions of cross-platform releases. The writing, it appeared, was on the wall: Xbox 360 was going to win this generation's console war.

But incredibly, Sony turned that less-than-desirable start to its advantage, and as we stand on the precipice between seventh and eighth generation consoles and take stock of the last six years, any fool can see PlayStation 3 ends the era victorious.

Numbers don't lie

Don't believe me? Here, have some numbers. Mattrick & co's box of tricks has sold 78.84 million units worldwide so far. Kutaragi's mean machine has sold 80.29 and counting.

In fact, PlayStation 3's still selling so well in its twilight that there's a genuine chance it can surpass the Wii's 100 million mark and enter the books as this generation's biggest seller hands down (let's be clear: no-one is buying Wiis anymore).

Those numbers are impressive enough at face value, but factor in Xbox 360's 14-month headstart and they illustrate a miraculous reversal of fortune for Ken's console. How it managed to keep shifting units while its competition was offering irresistibly beguiling titles like Kinectimals is some wonder.

The games

Yes, let's touch base with each console's respective games library, because it's here, particularly in first-party titles, that Sony really turned the tide over the past six years.

Microsoft started strongly with Halo 3, Gears of War and Dead Rising in its platform-exclusive ranks, and while Sony did have Resistance: Fall Of Man and Uncharted up its sleeve, you wouldn't say it had the edge in the early days.

Fast forward to present day, in which three stunning Uncharted games grace PS3's pastures, along with Gran Turismo 5, Metal Gear Solid 4, Heavy Rain and countless other first-party treasures. Xbox appeared to have a considerable ace up its sleeve with Kinect, and Peter Molyneux's Milo demo looked set to revolutionise gaming. The end result of all that tech: Kinectimals et al.

Sony's first-party releases this year alone include Naughty Dog's award-winning, critically beloved The Last Of Us, David Cage's ambitious and technically impressive Beyond: Two Souls, and Sony Santa Monica's gorgeous God of War: Ascension. They're just the big-hitters in a 13-strong lineup that also includes the likes of Puppeteer and a new Sly Cooper.

What exclusives have 360 owners had to console themselves with (apologies for the excellent pun) this year? Literally three games: Gears Of War: Judgement, State Of Decay and a re-release of Fable. If those aren't grounds to emphatically drop the metaphorical mic and leave this article, hands held aloft, I don't know what are.

Except I'm not done, because I haven't even begun to rile Xbox fanboys about having to pay a subscription fee for online gaming yet. Parting ways with £30 each year for the privilege of watching a Finnish tween teabag your Master Chief's corpse is a concept we'll never stop laughing at in the realm of PS3.

Your network sucks

The PlayStation network's had its problems and outages, but that's okay, because it's a service that costs you /nothing/, gives you multiplayer gaming, and an enormous online store filled with the latest releases, PS1 classics and indies.

There was that one extremely high-profile intrusion perpetrated by lovers of Lulz that we won't talk about or they'll DDoS my Quantum Leap fan fiction blog… But even in the midst of a Global PR nightmare, Sony came up trumps and gave you two free games from a list of four that included Infamous and LittleBigPlanet to say sorry. That, and 30 days of free membership to PlayStation Plus.

Yep, Sony has its own subscription service, and rather than holding a basic gaming right to ransom like Xbox 360's Gold membership, it showers you with free games and cloud saves. And let me stop you before you embarrass yourself by mentioning the free games you get with Gold membership, because I'm talking about games you'd actually want to play.

This month on PS Plus, Metal Gear Rising and Remember Me are the highlights of the instant game collection, replacing the likes of Far Cry 3 and Spec Ops: The Line in October. Over on Games With Gold this November? Iron Brigade and World Of Keflings. Both of which are usually priced at £6.75. You can go ahead and insert your Ferrero Rocher meme here, because truly you're being spoiled.

Microsoft had an open goal in the early days of this generation, and PlayStation 3 cunningly built a wall of fantastic first-party titles in front of that goal in the six years that followed.

Verdict

It's been a miraculous turnaround for PlayStation 3, and Sony's carrying a tremendous amount of that momentum into generation eight, where it appears to have the same kind of advantage Xbox did back in December 2005. Hold it together, Kaz…

Phil Iwaniuk is Games Editor of Official PlayStation Magazine UK. Stares blankly when the words 'Forza' or 'Master Chief' are uttered in his vicinity.

After ceasing production of the Nintendo Wii in Japan this week, the console maker has now confirmed that no more units will be making their way to Europe.

The original motion-sensing console is now officially discontinued in the region, so once existing supplies have been extinguished, replacements won't be forthcoming.

"Wii imports to Europe have been discontinued, a Nintendo spokesperson said.

Despite the Wii reaching the end of its natural life, following 7 glorious years, the smaller Wii Mini, which lacks internet connectivity and an SD card-reader, will stay on sale in the region, the company confirmed.

Time for U to upgrade?

Nintendo, on the other hand is more intent on users upgrading to the backwards compatible Wii U console, which has struggled to gain traction since its launch in 2012.

"There are still a variety of options for consumers to enjoy Wii games and the Wii gameplay experience," the spokesperson said.

"Wii U, which is Nintendo's latest home console, is backwards compatible with nearly all existing Wii games and accessories ... when you switch to Wii Mode on Wii U."

• As of June this year, the original Wii was still outselling the Wii U. That wasn't the way Nintendo planned it, huh?

Via CVG

It's the beginning of the end for the Wii. Production for the original motion-controlled Nintendo console has ceased in Japan, Nintendo has confirmed.

It looks like Nintendo is closing the door on the past and focusing all its attention on the future, seven years and 100 million unit sales later.

But if you've been really slow at saving the pennies then the good news is that production in the US, UK and Australia is set to continue - at least for the Christmas season.

A Nintendo spokesperson told TechRadar that "no specific time frame has been stated yet" for Europe regarding Wii production. However we expect the end is nigh.

Wii will miss U when you go

Despite the hardcore gamers dismissing its casual appeal, it's difficult to argue that the Wii wasn't a revolution for the gaming market, with Sony and Microsoft soon following up with their own answers to motion-based gaming.

Unfortunately the Wii U isn't having the same impact right now, but here's hoping that it can pick up some pick up some pace as we move into 2014.

Until then, those of you who still haven't picked up a Wii (taking your sweet time there) would be advised to hurry up.

Despite the Wii still selling better than the Wii U, it looks like Nintendo will be ending production of the 2006-released console soon.

"Manufacturing is scheduled to end soon," says a note on the Wii page on Nintendo's Japanese website, Nintendo.co.jp. For those interested, in Japanese that's "kinjitsu seisan shuuryou yotei".

Although Nintendo hasn't made an official global announcement, with the notice up on the Japanese giant's Wii page, it is clear that we'll be saying a fond farewell to the console sooner rather than later.

Overall, the Wii has sold over 100 million since its release in 2006, and perhaps pushed Microsoft and Sony to implement the Kinect and Move for their respective consoles.

A Wii for U

Though we don't know exactly when production of the Wii will end, Nintendo is clearly looking to focus attention on the Wii U, which came out November last year.

Unfortunately, sales reports from a few months back shows that the Wii was still out performing the Wii U in popularity.

Between April and June, there were 160,000 Wii Us sold globally. During the same time, 210,000 Wii units were sold.

It will be interesting to see how the Wii U will fare when the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launch next month.

But with the news that the Wii will be coming to an end, it might be the time to stock up on old, likely to be discounted Wii games, which are fortunately backwards compatible with the Wii U.

Via: Kotaku

• Are you still confused about the Wii U?

The Wii Vitality Sensor didn't actually work very well, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata revealed in a recent Q&A with investors.

Nintendo unveiled the puzzling peripheral, which could guess players' moods by reading their pulses, at E3 2009, but now it turns out it's more or less dead.

"After a large-scale test of a prototype inside the company, we found out that for some people the sensor did not work as expected," Iwata explained. "We wondered if we should commercialize a product which works as expected for 90 people out of 100, but not so for the other 10 people."

He added that the device "was of narrower application than we had originally thought," or in other words, it seems no one could figure out what to do with the damn thing.

Will Nintendo ever revisit the idea in the future? If they can get it to work right, Iwata said. Fingers crossed!

More blips!

If you had your finger stuck in a TechRadar Vitality Sensor, it would tell us that you want to read more blips.

Nintendo will shut the door on many of the Wii's online services on June 28, the company announced today.

A group of online features, including the message boards, will be shut down, while the main Nintendo channel, News, Forecast and Everybody Votes channels will also be saying goodbye. The Wii Shop will remain open for the time being.

"We at Nintendo sincerely thank you for your continued patronage of our company's products," says a statement on the Nintendo UK website, before breaking the bad news.

"We would like to inform you that a portion of the online services offered through the Wii console will be discontinued from 28th June 2013"

Wii will miss you

With the Wii U here, Nintendo is clearly looking to the future. But considering signs that the company was still dedicated to its motion-based console with the release of the Wii Mini, we're a little surprised it's cutting the cord to these services so early.

The Wii Mini does lack online capabilities so perhaps we should have seen this coming. With Nintendo to post its full-year results in a week or two, is it desperately trying to find ways of moving old Wii owners over to its new console?

Nintendo confirmed to TechRadar that this would be a Europe-wide move. However the message was also posted on the Japanese site, suggesting this is a global blackout.

Via MCV

Netflix and Sony have announced that the PlayStation 3 console is now the number one device worldwide for Instant Streaming to the TV.

The landmark, which Sony proudly proclaimed on its PlayStation US blog, puts the PS3 above the Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and all other connected devices like the Apple TV and Roku solutions.

In fact, viewing on the PS3 was so popular that streaming figures even outshone the PC to become the number one device overall, during certain periods in 2012.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said the PS3 is a great fit for his company as it allows for the seamless roll out of its newest and most advanced features.

More firsts

He said in a statement: "PS3 is our largest TV-connected platform in terms of Netflix viewing, and this year, at times, even surpassed the PC in hours of Netflix enjoyment to become our number one platform overall.

"PS3 is a natural fit for Netflix in terms of developing and first deploying our most advanced features. We can transparently update our application with new features on a daily basis, and through the free PlayStation Network, people around the world can sign up for Netflix directly from their PS3."

The PS3 Netflix app was the first console to get Netflix' full 1080p video streaming with Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Surround Sound, on device sign-up and second screen controls.

"PS3 is currently the only platform to experience a new voice user interface called "Max" that's currently being tested," the blog post added.

No additional subscription required

Sony, of course, has a built-in advantage over its main rival the Xbox 360 through the free PlayStation Network.

Xbox 360 owners, although much greater in number, have to pay for an Xbox LIVE gold subscription before they can access apps like Netflix.

The graphics of Xbox 360 games and those on PS3 may have peaked, as those consoles are several years old by now.

But, the video game graphics seen on mobile phones continue to improve.

Nvidia, a tech company best known for its powerful graphics processors, says mobile video game graphics are about to surpass those seen on dedicated video game consoles.

Nvidia released a chart demonstrating their expected advancements in computer and video game graphics through 2014.

The image explains that game console graphics plateau as new generations of consoles - i.e. the Xbox 360 - are released.

On the other hand, the graphical capabilities of mobile phones and PCs continue to improve, with mobile graphics potentially matching game consoles next year, and surpassing them in 2014.

Mobile tech such as Epic's Unreal Engine 3 and Crytek's CryENGINE 3 allowed the graphics on smartphones to look increasingly impressive, as games like Infinity Blade and even the cartoonish Fibble Flick demonstrate.

Sony's latest handheld gaming system, the PS Vita, already possesses graphics rivaling home consoles, and demonstrates what's possible even in smaller-form hardware.

But as the gap between the graphics on mobile phones and home platforms continues to lessen, console makers like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft likely feel increased pressure to compete with smartphones.

The next generation of graphics

But even if mobile phone game graphics do transcend those seen on traditional gaming consoles, smartphones will likely fall behind once again when the next generation of consoles is released.

Rumors peg the Xbox 360's successor with a release date in 2014 or 2015, and the Xbox 720 could even feature an innovative new implementation of dual AMD CPUs.

In other words, it could be "like two PCs taped together." Whatever that means, it sounds powerful.

Even with impressive upcoming games like Infinity Blade: Dungeons, it may take a while for smartphone graphics to catch up yet again.

Via AnandTech

So yesterday's solar storms didn't end the world – we totally knew that everything would be fine and incidentally can we interest anyone in several gallons of filtered water and baked beans? – and thus we all live to see One More Thing.

Celebrating the first day of the rest of its life, Google has had a look deep into its soul and decided that yes, Google+ will succeed. Nicolas Cage has just about managed to provide a sentence full of different words in an order that verges on answering a question about gaming, and Nintendo has invented a new pasta dish. Or something like that, anyway.

Rumours of Google+'s death etc etc - Google's insisting that Google+ isn't dead in the water. Vic Gundotra told the NYT that "Google Plus is not a ghost town" before bravely heading into the car analogy arena: "We have started the social engines at Google and we're about to step on the gas." Sure, right, yeah. Incidentally, we're on there. [NYT]

Jailbird - iOS 5.1 was out for approximately eighteen minutes before iPhone Dev Team updated Redsn0w to allow you to jailbreak an iOS 5.1 device. Spitting in the eye of Apple's Post-PC PR push, you'll have to plug it into the computer to do it. As usual, you jailbreak at your own risk so don't blame us if it all goes wrong. [Redmond Pie]

Where do we send the Pulitzer? – At GDC this week, a beer-soaked journalist sat down for a mid-party interview with Suda51, creator of No More Heroes. "He managed about 10 minutes seated with Suda, mostly stroking his chin and nodding his head," said a fellow reporter. "Eventually it became quite clear he wasn't a journalist – he was in fact a homeless guy that managed to blag himself all the way to the interview." We're trying to recruit him as we speak. [CVG]

Unicorn phone - If you're fanatically dedicated to the Sony Ericsson brand or a really big fan of Windows Phone 7, you'll want to hop on over to eBay where what is supposedly a prototype Sony Ericsson Windows Phone 7 handset is up for grabs. The current bid is $305 for the 3G-ready, 8.1MP-camera'd handset codenamed 'Jolie'. [TNW]

Game on - Nic Cage is back, and this time he's barely managing to control himself as ONM asks which of his films would make a good video game. He reckons Michael-Bay-made Alcatraz drama The Rock would be good to play because "it has lots of levels" and a good outcome to aim for: "to get to the other side". They didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road, Cage. Check out his infectious enthusiasm in the video below (starts at 3.31). [ONM]

Ctrl-Alt-Delete - Here's a thing of beauty: a cut out and keep chart of all the keyboard shortcuts for Windows 8. Now, go away and learn it off by heart. There'll be a test on Wednesday. [Windows Blog]

Accio money! – JK Rowling's Pottermore website cometh, with the online portal of all things Hogwarts and Harry Potter ebook store opening its virtual doors in early April. The technical glitches causing the hold up were apparently caused by over-zealous house elves and not rogue Death Eaters as some had feared. [Guardian]

Wheeler dealer – Turntable.fm has apparently snagged a licensing deal with EMI, with Sony Music and Universal set to follow in the very near future. That means all your collaborative listening will soon be above board although it won't help eager hipster beavers in the UK and beyond as there has been no mention of expansion beyond the US' shores. [CMU]

One up - Nintendo-loving scientists at Seoul National University College of Medicine have developed a way to diagnose ocular torticollis using Wiimotes instead of grown-up medical equipment. Ocular torticollis is not a kind of pasta, but an eye condition that causes sufferers to tilt their necks to compensate for dodgy sight in one eye. Feel free to try diagnosing it yourself using the helpful diagram below. [Medgadget]

Image credit: Medgadget

Butterfingers - If, like three-fifths of the TechRadar news team, you've managed to smash a phone screen in the last year, you'll want to have a read of this piece from the Atlantic about the true cost of a broken smartphone. The good news for iPhone owners is that even with a smashed screen, your phone retains 72% of its resale value. So ditch that horrible case, yeah? [The Atlantic]

Bonus tech video of the day – Hey, new iPad, we heard the Asus Transformer Prime was talking smack about your mum.

Nintendo Wii owners can now access the premium Hulu Plus app on their console.

The $7.99 a month application comes to the Wii at last following launches on the Xbox 360 last April and the Sony PlayStation 3 way back in November 2010.

The app promises unlimited streaming of a massive range of television shows including the likes of The Office, Modern Family, New Girl, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report.

However, as the Wii doesn't offer HD gaming or video playback, all of the programming will be in standard definition.

Hub of the living room

Seemingly unaware that most folks already have access to a Hulu Plus app through their television set in one way, shape or form, Nintendo was bullish about the launch.

"The Wii console is the hub of the living room, and with the addition of Hulu Plus, millions of households now have even more options for streaming premium TV shows and movies," said Tony Elison, Nintendo of America's senior director and general manager of Network Business.

The app can be downloaded for free from the Wii Shop channel and non-members will be entitled to a free two-week trial of the service.

The official press release also revealed that the pair are plotting the launch of Hulu Plus for the Nintendo 3DS console later this year. Although don't expect 3D programming just yet.

Via: Joystiq

Time flies when you're having fun. Five years ago Nintendo launched its innovative console in the EU, and we were still sniggering about its name.

Or at least I was: I haven't been so amused by a product name since Mazda brought us the Bongo Friendee. So five years on, what has the Wii brought us beyond supermarket shelves stuffed with shovelware?

I think the Wii is like the Romans in the famous Monty Python scene: other than Kinect, and PlayStation Move, and iPhone accelerometer gaming, and the Wii U, what did the Wii ever do for us?

The console formerly known as Revolution was a revelation, but I think the most interesting thing about the Wii isn't the hardware: it was its customers. The Wii is a games console for people who don't really like games.

I should probably explain before Mario comes round my house and gives me a good spannering.

I'm not being snobbish here - I don't feel that my favoured FPSes are in any way superior to someone else's platformers or strategy games or dancing games or whatever - but when you compare the charts for the different consoles there's a clear difference in what people play on Wii and what they do on other devices.

On Xbox it's all WAR WAR WAR FOOTIE WAR WAR SPACE WAR, with a bit of Kinect Sports to lighten the mood.

Over in PlayStationLand it's WAR WAR WAR WRESTLING WAR GANGSTERS. Even the iPhone gamers fancy a bit of shooting or stabbing between games of Words With Friends. On the Wii, though, the bestsellers involve dancing, dancing fitness, dancing ABBA and dancing plumbers.

Dancing about architecture

Casual gaming is a brilliant thing, not a bad thing - it's made Nintendo enormous amounts of money and delighted millions of people in the process.

I don't think it's controversial to say that where most consoles are primarily for teenage boys, the Wii's much more family-focused - so much so that the odd game with more hardcore appeal dies a death. Dead Space Extraction was a hoot, but it, and similarly adult titles such as Madworld and House of the Dead: Overkill, sold about four copies each.

The Wii couldn't broaden its appeal to include more hardcore gamers - its previous-gen guts didn't help in that respect - but the danger for Nintendo is that both Sony and Microsoft (and to an extent, Apple) now have kit that embraces the Wii demographic.

My Xbox spends more time running Fantastic Pets than it does FPSes, and kids' TV channels are packed with ads for the kind of Kinect and PS Move titles that your mum would pick up in the supermarket.

Nintendo knows this, but rather than compete it's going in a different direction. In an interview with Time, Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime says that the Wii U will target "consumers who have heard about Wii for the past couple years [but] it was economically out of their reach."

And that makes me confused, because many of the launch games I've read about are aimed at gaming's hardcore - the same hardcore who didn't buy the hardcore games on the existing Wii. As much as I love EA boss John Riccitiello's vision - "Imagine a shooter like Battlefield with jaw-dropping graphics and smooth animations from the Frostbite engine, brought to you on a Nintendo system with that brilliant controller" - the vision I have in mind is rather different.

I hope I'm wrong, but the vision I'm thinking of is the vision bit of ASDA's sound and vision department, where the games are kept. The Wii U aisle is full of games, and they're selling in big numbers.

And they all involve dancing, dancing fitness, dancing ABBA and dancing plumbers.

Nintendo's conference at the Tokyo Game Show suggested that 3D video capture would soon arrive for the 3DS handheld, but it was not enough to buoy the company in the eyes of investors.

As well as the potential of a video software update, Nintendo explained that its upcoming release of games will be the biggest ever seen in the industry.

A conference in the early hours of the morning saw Mario Tennis 3DS, Monster Hunter 4 and Fire Emblem announced, the former utilising the gyroscopic sensor.

"From the end of this year to the beginning of next, we are planning the kind of extensive line-up that has probably never been seen before in the history of video games," said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata.

"We will make an all-out effort to see that the 3DS sells enough to become the successor to the DS."

Other major games on the horizon include Super Mario 3D Land, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Mario Kart 7.

Fallen short?

But despite a boost in sales following a major price cut, the announcements appear to have fallen short of what was expected from the Japanese gaming giant.

Reuters quotes analysts as suggesting that the games did not have the wow factor to bring in consumers.

And with the price cut meaning that Nintendo is reportedly taking a loss on each 3DS sold, there is even more onus on owners snapping up games to boost the company's coffers.

Apparently Nintendo's shares have fallen 46 per cent since January, although the company will be hoping that its successor to the Wii – the Wii U – can turn things around in the longer term.

From Nintendo, Engadget, Reuters, CVG

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will arrive in the US on November 20th boasting a special edition gold Wiimote MotionPlus bundle.

The new Zelda title, which is probably the last major title before the Wii U takes centre stage, will boast the underutilised MotionPlus tech, which offers gamers improved accuracy.

You'll need a MotionPlus Wiimote to be able to take part in Link's latest adventure, hence Nintendo is hoping fans will opt for the bundle.

Free CD

The limited edition bundle, which will also feature a 25th anniversary orchestral performance of the game's music on CD, will cost $69.99, while the standalone game will be $49.99.

"As an additional 25th anniversary treat for fans who purchase the game early, every copy in the initial production, whether sold by itself or as a part of the limited-edition bundle, will come with a free CD featuring select orchestral arrangements of iconic music spanning the history of the franchise which will be performed at The Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony Concert performances in October 2011," says Nintendo.

There's no word of a similar deal in the UK, where the game launches two days earlier on November 18th.

Nintendo has alread confirmed that a Zelda title will be among the headline titles for the new Wii U console when it launches in Spring 2012.

Link: CVG

Nintendo has announced a redesigned Wii console will be launched in the UK by Christmas.

The new model will be a slimmer, "streamlined" console, intended to sit horizontally by or beneath your TV. So a bit like the old Wii but a touch thinner.

It'll mean the end of GameCube compatibility, however; the new Wii won't be able to run GameCube games or play nice with GameCube accessories and controllers.

Wii-fresh

The new Wii will come in a bundle with Wii Party and Wii Sports, a Wii Remote Plus and nunchuck, and Nintendo has a variety of other penny-saving game bundles up its sleeve for harangued parents flailing around for something to keep the kids quiet over Christmas.

With a dearth of actual new consoles to keep the coffers ticking over this festive season, all the gaming manufacturers are scrabbling to make the best of what they have.

Sony just announced a PS3 price drop and new, cheaper PSP model, while Microsoft hopes to ride the Kinect wave for a second year.

Meanwhile, Nintendo is hard at work on its upcoming Wii U console, slated for release in April 2012.

No word from Nintendo on pricing for the "streamlined" new Wii console yet, but we expect it to be hitting the shops in time for the peak Christmas gift buying season – September to November.

From ONM

A video purported to show a prototype of the Nintendo's Wii 2 follow up, codenamed Project Café, has surfaced, giving a glimpse at a prototype console.

It seems that an anonymous 'video games editor' recorded an internal presentation of the as-yet unreleased console, which many are expecting to make its debut at E3 2011.

As well as the small, silver box which could be a prototype console, you can also see technical diagrams which offer a look at what may be a touchscreen controller.

Controller

While the controller design seems a bit more Xbox than Wii, it shows a small colour screen nestled between the left and right hand D-pads.

There's no real indication that this will be touch-sensitive, but a the very least it could display status information or alternative camera angles to what's shown on screen.

Nintendo has described the video as "purely rumour and speculation"; but if it is a fake, it's a pretty darn good one.

From VG247

Following earlier news that the Wii 2's controller is set to feature a 6.2-inch touchscreen, further details on the tech behind Nintendo's next console have been revealed.

Nintendo is said to be considering "Stream" as a potential name for the new console, according to trusted sources at IGN.

The Nintendo Stream?

IGN's sources also reveal what they claim to be the tech details on Nintendo's rumoured Project Cafe console, as well as the estimated price, release date, design and lots more.

The new Nintendo console is said to launch in the US at a price point between $350 and $400, with the final pricing still to be decided depending on manufacturing costs.

The machine will actually be produced in Taiwan, by Foxconn, which also allays gamer's concerns about potential delays due to the recent (and ongoing) Japanese earthquake crisis.

The plan is apparently for Wii 2/Project Café/Stream (or whatever Nintendo finally calls the new console) to leave the factory this coming October, potentially in time for a pre-Christmas release in November.

Faster than PS3, 3D-capable

IGN's source also claimed that the new Nintendo console is based on AMD's R700 GPU architecture "and not AMD's Fusion technology as previously believed, which will out-perform the PlayStation 3′s NVIDIA 7800GTX-based processor."

The source also claims that the new Nintendo system's CPU will be a custom-built triple-core IBM PowerPC chipset, much like that inside the Xbox 360, but adds that the clocking speeds will be faster and that "the system will support 1080p output with the potential for stereoscopic 3D as well, though it has not been determined whether that will be a staple feature."

Finally, in terms of form factor, Nintendo's new console is going to be considerably larger than the Wii, with IGN's source claiming that it will be more comparable to the Xbox 360 in terms of size and design.

Wii 2, Project Café, Stream, or whatever else they decide to name it, we expect to hear lots more official details on Nintendo's new console from E3 in Los Angeles this coming June.

Via IGN

UDPATE: Nintendo has confirmed that it will unveil a second-generation 'Wii 2' at this year's E3 in June. Check out Wii 2 news and rumours: what you need to know for the details.

The controller for the expected Nintendo Wii 2 console will boast a giant 6.2-inch touchscreen, along with a camera, according to reports in the gaming press.

The peripheral is also rumoured to be packing eight buttons and twin analogue sticks, making it about as far away from the minimalist design of the original Wii Remote as possible.

Our sister site CVG revealed earlier this week that the controller is set to have a touchscreen, but only today have we heard of the proposed 6.2-inch scale, which would make the pad an absolute beast.

Wii Remote still required

While the new controller will possibly make more headlines than the console itself, it won't spell the end for the Wii Remote, according to the Kotaku report.

While the touchscreen would be useful to control games like Zelda, displaying maps and the like, the Wii Remote would still be essential for motion control-centric games like Wii Sports.

The Wii 2 itself, codenamed Project Cafe, is set to be unveiled at E3 this June with speculation suggesting HD gaming, 3D compatibility and maybe a Blu-ray drive.

Earlier this week the price of the original Nintendo Wii was cut to just £100 in the UK, adding more fuel to the speculation that the new model is only a few weeks away from being officially announced.

Source: Kotaku

UDPATE: Nintendo has confirmed that it will unveil a second-generation 'Wii 2' at this year's E3 in June. Check out Wii 2 news and rumours: what you need to know for the details.

Nintendo has dropped a number of hints about what we should expect (or rather shouldn't) in the new Wii, explaining that the Wii 2 is unlikely to have 3D technology.

Although the Nintendo 3DS came out with some nifty 3D tech, the Wii 2 looks to be going down a slightly different road.

Given that the original Wii didn't even have HD, we can forgive Nintendo for not jumping on the 3D with glasses bandwagon for the new Wii.

The 3D goggles do nothing

In an interview, 3DS hardware producer Hideki Konno told CNN: "I think at Nintendo, we realise that any sort of goggle-type 3D technology was not going to work.

"In order to make 3D technology viable with video games, we thought we needed to have glasses-free 3D."

In the same interview, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime also told CNN: "Glasses-free is a big deal. We've not said publicly what the next thing for us will be in the home console space, but based on what we've learned on 3D, likely, that won't be it."

These comments back up what Nintendo's general manager Shigeru Miyamoto said back in July 2010.

Interestingly, Nintendo has been trying out the Wii on a bigger glasses-free display but this is said to be more proof of concept than anything else.

Which means it's highly unlikely, the Wii2 will come with its very own glasses-free display in the box. Although that would be pretty awesome.

There's been no announcement regarding the Nintendo Wii 2, but all rumours are pointing to this year's E3 in June.

Via Engadget

While Nintendo has recently announced its plans for the 3DS release across Europe, there are still questions to be answered about its – still to be revealed - strategy for 'Wii 2', with some observers questioning whether a 'two console strategy' could work in the future.

One analyst in particular that seems to be gunning for Nintendo is Wedbush Securities analyst Micheal Pachter, who thinks the company should be focussing on Wii 2 right now.

"With as much respect for Nintendo management as I can muster, I think Nintendo's completely blown it with their second generation Wii strategy," said the analyst recently.

"I think they have the mentality that to launch a new console they have to retire the old, and I think that's wrong.

"I think the right strategy would have been to get a second generation Wii out and keep the old Wii at the same time, and have the second generation be the natural progression upgrade model."

Has Nintendo blown it?

Pachter thinks that Nintendo has blown it. But has it?

British games industry analyst, Nick Gibson, from Games Investor Consulting, clearly doesn't think so, telling TechRadar:

"A two-console strategy is perfectly feasible (as Sony have proved for the last decade) but requires a sufficient perceived value and price difference between the two consoles, a broadly separate set of core demographic and geographic targets for each console, and, arguably, sufficient competitive pressure to launch a new console."

Gibson notes that at $200/€200, "Wii is still quite an expensive (and highly profitable) console and continues to match or exceed 360 and PS3 in ongoing sales.

"Nintendo clearly feels it is not under significant competitive pressure and does not need to drop the price at this stage , irrespective of what we analysts say!

"The Wii has a very broad demographic target market and any successor would likely need to target the same market to replicate the Wii's success.

"Since the core of Wii owners are unlikely to care about processing power or graphical fidelity, any successor is likely to need more than just an HD upgrade and it may simply be that Nintendo has yet to develop a sufficiently compelling new feature to build Wii 2 around. A next generation of home consoles is coming, just not for several years yet."

CVG editor Tim Ingham is even more excited about the possibility of Wii 2, telling us:

"Although the consumer excitement for a second Wii console in 2011 would be undeniable, it's perhaps premature to suggest it's in any way dropped the ball by concentrating on 3DS. It is true that the Wii is built on last-gen technology to a degree – which would leave it two generations behind any new home console from Microsoft or Sony.

"But it's equally accurate to say that for a low manufacturing cost, Nintendo has created a technologically and cultural phenomenon, from which it has reaped huge fiscal rewards. Wii's popularity may be on the wane, but Nintendo's ability to wring the most interest from an untested and undemanding gaming audience is beyond question.

"I have no doubt that the 3DS will be another runaway success, and that Nintendo will further perfect a marketing strategy which simply can't be judged against traditional games industry parameters.

"The design and functionality of its next home console – whether Wii 2 or something else entirely – is under pressure from all sides, as rivals begin adopting the cleverest factors that have contributed to Wii and DS' breakthrough triumph."

US Nintendo boss Reggie Fils-Aime has said that Nintendo will not launch a 'Wii 2' in 2011, with the focus clearly on topping 45 million US Wii sales before a successor to the successful console can be announced.

Kotaku put the Wii 2 question directly to the US Nintendo chief, asking if a new home console would be "a must for next Christmas?"

Fils-Aime told them in no uncertain terms:

"No. As we sit here today we're saying the Wii has many, many more units to sell. After we've reached an installed base of 45m here in the US we can have a conversation about the next generation."

Nintendo has sold 30.4 million Wii consoles in America to date. To put this figure in some kind of context, it took Sony's original PlayStation console just under ten years to shift 100 million units worldwide.

PS1, PS2, Wii

Fils-Aime was quick to point out that Wii is still selling faster than Sony's PS2 was at the same stage in its life cycle.

PS2 sales boomed when Sony reduced the cost of the console to the $99/£99 price point.

Which begs the question: will we finally see a sub-£100 Wii in 2011?

Nintendo is set to release a new glasses-free handheld console, the Nintendo 3DS, later next Spring in the UK.

Via MCV

New details have emerged on Nintendo's heart-beat monitoring Vitality Sensor, as a new patent from the Japanese gaming giant leaked online.

Game blog Siliconera ran details on the Vitality Sensor from the alleged patent application, which claims to break down details on how Nintendo plan to use the somewhat left-field heart-beat monitoring game peripheral, (which was derided by many gamers when first announced at E3 2009).

Relax Fluid

Since that initial launch back in July 2009, Nintendo has remained tight-lipped about any further plans to use the Vitality Sensor. Until now, it would appear.

According to the illustrated document, Nintendo plans to measure a gamer's "Relax Fluid" levels, determined by a cardiac cycle of 100 pulses, using the Vitality Sensor placed over the user's index finger.

A heart-beat monitor contained within the Vitality Sensor will relay this data for use in gaming and interactive entertainment software on the Wii.

The patent illustrates a game where players tilt the Wiimote up and down to steer a character through a 2D landscape, where the character's head rises and falls in line with the player's breathing pattern – requiring the gamer to control their breathing in order to control the on-screen avatar.

Red blood cell monitoring

The Vitality Sensor fires a light beam from one end and has a photodetector on the other end, according to Siliconera.

Haemoglobin in red blood cells absorbs some amount of infrared light, with a player's index finger placed in the Vitality Sensor inbetween the light source and the photodetector.

As the pulse rate goes up, blood flow to the tip of the finger increases, which is how the peripheral measures you heart-rate.

Via Edge and Siliconera

Nintendo's Wii Party will come bundled with a white Wiimote, as the Japanese gaming giant looks to keep hold of its family market dominance in the face of offerings from Xbox and PlayStation.

Wii Party is a first party game from Nintendo, and the company's decision to bundle it with a Wii Remote is an interesting one.

Microsoft are set to unleash Kinect for Xbox 360, and Sony the very Wii-like Move, as both attempt to wrest back a share of the family market.

Attachment

Nintendo's Wii has been around since 2006, and the console has always had a low attachment rate – the term used to describe how many games console owners buy.

Nintendo are no doubt hoping that Wii Party can convince more Wii owners to fork out for a new game, and get an extra controller in the process.

"With 13 different game modes to get to grips with, Wii Party will be the life and soul of any gathering as you enjoy games that refine the traditional party videogame experience," said Nintendo.

"For the first time, the action away from the television screen will be as important as what's displayed on it as House Party mode turns your living room into a pivotal part of the game play."

The game launches on 8 October in the UK, if you're Wiimote-ly interestey, nearly a month after Move arrives in Britain.

Nintendo is not happy with its online gaming offerings, with company president Satoru Iwata admitting that he is not satisfied with the console giant's efforts.

Iwata somewhat sensibly admits that he feels resources should not only be poured into online gaming, with a focus on single and local multiplayer at the heart of Nintendo's ethos.

But the Nintendo man is keen to make the Wii and DS platforms friendlier to those who want to play games over an internet connection.

Lacking functionality

"Of course, I have heard commentary that people feel that Nintendo's online functionality is behind the others or is lacking in some ways," said Iwata.

"And I can say that we are not currently satisfied with the online efforts that we have made so far.

"We are working at ways to improve those."

Case-by-case basis

"Going forward, what we will continue to do is to evaluate the individual products and experience that we're creating on a product-by-product basis, and make a decision as to whether or not it's more important to devote resources to making that offline experience more fun and compelling for products where that is going to be the most important element of the game play," added Iwata.

"And then for products where it is going to be more important, to add online functionality and make that online functionality robust and compelling."

With the likes of PlayStation Move and Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect arriving this year, it is clear that Nintendo cannot rest on its laurels.

Via CVG

EA has announced that its forthcoming EA Sports Active 2 title is set to be fully compatible with Microsoft's Kinect motion controller for the Xbox 360.

The latest title in EA's fitness franchise is set to be released on November 16, shortly after Kinect hits the stores in the UK later this year.

Kinect fit

EA Sports Active 2 is in development at the company's Vancouver studio. Versions for iPhone and iPod touch and PlayStation 3 are also being released at the same time.

The game will also feature a heart rate monitor, wireless tracking through Move on PS3 and Kinect on Xbox 360 and a new online hub to track and share workout data with your fitness-obsessed friends.

US pricing is set to be $99, with UK pricing still 'tbc' at time of going to press.

"Delivering EA Sports Active 2 on Kinect for Xbox 360 is a natural fit for fitness and the ability to track full body movement will create a fluid workout experience that delivers real results," said Andrew Wilson, SVP of Worldwide Development at EA Sports.

"It is the perfect complement to our EA Sports Active suite of fitness products and is indicative of our commitment to deliver new experiences for new audiences. We're excited to expand on the top rated fitness franchise on the market."

Sky's director of on-demand Griff Parry has told TechRadar that the company is 'engaged in talks to explore opportunities' with other mainstream consoles, but remains focused on enriching the Sky Player on the Xbox 360.

Sky has never made any secret about being platform agnostic – and recent deals with Freeview set top box manufacturers like FetchTV, Humax and 3View has illustrated this point.

Even at the launch of Sky Player on the Xbox, it was made clear that there was no exclusivity, and Parry told TechRadar that talks were ongoing with the other major players in the console world.

Extend distribution

"We are looking to extend distribution of Sky Player widely via partnerships with key players in key categories," said Parry, when asked about the potential for Sky Player on Wii and PS3.

"Games consoles is obviously one of those key categories, so what you would expect is probably true.

"We are engaged in talks to explore opportunities, but we are very happy in our relationship with Microsoft.

"We are absolutely not finished with Xbox and aim to make the experience richer and richer and continue innovating."

Exciting things ahead

Parry pointed out that he felt that Microsoft was "extremely satisfied" with the way that Sky Player was working on the Xbox, and explained more about enriching the experience.

"Broadly yes," said Parry if this meant extending some of the interactive opportunities.

"But we'll also continue just to improve the basic experience with better quality pictures.

"[The] Xbox Live community is very active and engaged, and this makes it a really interesting environment for rich programmes supporting interactivity.

"We are actively planning exciting things for later this year."

TechRadar is already leading a campaign to get the BBC iPlayer on the Xbox 360 console. You can join in at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bring-BBC-iPlayer-to-Xbox-Live/

Nintendo's honeymoon with the Wii is well and truly over with the company announcing this week that sales of the console are down 21 per cent year on year.

This is not to say that the Wii isn't selling – Nintendo sold 25.95 million Wiis between April 2008 to March 2009 – it's just not the runaway success it once was for the company.

Software slump

Nintendo's overall profits took a bit of a hit as well, with full-year figures showing that they are down 18 per cent year on year.

This is echoed on the software side, with Wii game sales down 6 per cent and DS game sales down 23 per cent.

The software slump is being blamed for the lack of strong titles in the second half of the year.

If 2010's efforts are anything to go by, however, software sales could well increase, given that Edge magazine gave Super Mario Galaxy 2, which is out on the Wii 11 June, a whopping 10 out of 10.

Surprisingly sales of Nintendo's handheld, the DS, were only down 12 per cent. This is pretty impressive considering it has been around for over five years now.

While most companies would be panicking at the sudden drop in income, Nintendo is still staying upbeat, noting that these results are the company's third best ever.

Via Kotaku

A woman from Manchester is blaming an accident on her Wii Fit board for giving her a raging appetite for sex.

In news which is sure to send Nintendo Wii sales through the roof, Amanda Flowers (the woman in question) slipped on her Wii Fit board, only to damage a nerve.

This lead to an increase in her libido which, according to the Daily Star, means Amanda now needs "ten sex sessions" a day to be, er, satisfied.

Flower power

"It began as a twinge down below before surging through my body. Sometimes it built up into a trembling orgasm," says Flowers about, well, you can guess what it's about.

The reason she is so sex-obsessed – the Daily Star have gone as far as to call her 'randy' – is because of something called 'persistent sexual arousal syndrome'.

Flowers is so out of control that she has to remedy her problem with deep breaths, noting: "With no cure I just have to try to control my passion by breathing deeply. Hopefully one day I'll find a superstud who can satisfy me."

Whoever has the gamer tag of 'superstud' is going to be a very happy man.

Via CVG

Ex-DICE boss and hardcore game designer Fredrik Liliegrin has labelled the Nintendo Wii a "virus" and says that it is "not a video games machine".

Liliegrin is CEO of Antic Entertainment, a developer that claims to produce 'casual games for the hardcore'.

The ex-DICE boss told GamingUnion: "Wii, to me, I would describe it as a virus, that doesn't stick. Everyone comes home, it's a toy, people have got to realise the Wii is a toy, not an entertainment-focused product.

Anti-Wii rant

"People come home, someone, they play Wii for a bit, feel it's really cool, blah blah blah, they go out and buy one. Ask people how often they play the Wii, that are not the core game consumer that buys one because they have an Xbox 360 and a Wii or a PlayStation 3 and a Wii.

"The people that only own the Wii, ask that consumer how often they use their machine. They just don't use it, it was cool, but they're not gamers, so they put it away.

"Other than the Wii Fit phenomenon that helped a lot of people get a nice cutie voice telling that they're fat and need to go work out, they need to find other alternatives. Nintendo is smart in that way in that they realize this is not a video game machine, this is not a games game machine."

Via CVG

The Nintendo Wii Balance Board offers a very viable – and cheap – alternative to the lab-grade force platform usually used by doctors to assess the standing balance of patients, according to a new scientific paper.

Published in ScienceDirect, the paper was co-authored by the Centre for Health, Exercise and Sports Medicine, at the University of Melbourne in Australia, and the Department of Physiotherapy in Singapore General Hospital.

Doctors pitted the Wii Balance Board, which retails for around £70, against a laboratory-grade force platform, which they called the "gold standard," as a way to discover whether patients have impaired standing balance.

The purpose was to see if the Balance Board could qualify as a validated system to precisely quantify centre of pressure (COP).

The board was hooked up to a laptop via USB, and 30 test subjects were asked to perform a mix of single and double leg standing balance tests on the board.

Cheaper and just as good

Although the minimum detectable change for the Wii Balance Board exceeded those of the force platform in three of the four tests, the test concluded that the Balance Board was a good tool for assessing standing balance.

Noted the paper about the test: "Given that the WBB is portable, widely available and a fraction of the cost of a FP, it could provide the average clinician with a standing balance assessment tool suitable for the clinical setting."

Reports that the Wii Balance Board is to be rebranded 'Dr Mario's laboratory-grade force platform' are still unconfirmed.

Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, has claimed around 80 per cent of all third-party games publishers are working on Project Natal related games.

The Xbox boss told CBC News at CES: "Part of the reason we showed Natal at E3 — which is actually a little bit risky to be honest because it's a new technology, very cutting edge and relatively early in its development — is that we wanted third-party publishers to know that it was real and we wanted them to have developer kits and to get them working on it.

"We have something like 70% or 80% of the publishers in the world already doing Natal-based games. Our first party studios are [also] very focused on this. We want to have a few titles from Microsoft that show the way and then we want the breadth and power of the ecosystem from our partners to bring lots of new ideas, new innovations, new concepts to the marketplace.

"Xbox games don't go away; you have to think of all this as additive. I think it adds to the beauty of what's going on."

Publishers WILL make money

Bach also doesn't see a situation arising such as that with the Nintendo Wii – where publishers are shying away from the format as it isn't making them enough money.

"I think it has a little to do with the trend towards natural user interface and much to do with differences in the business models between Nintendo and Microsoft and Nintendo and Sony," Bach said.

"Our model is certainly about third-party publishers making money. We design our system for third-party publishers. We use our first-party business — Halo, Alan Wake and those sorts of things — to show people the way and to drive innovation. Nintendo, and this is no disrespect, just has a different model.

"They make most of their money through first-party games that Nintendo produces. That's absolutely their business model. And it's a great business model, it's just different, but it makes it hard for third-party publishers."

Via Edge

Nintendo has sold over 6 million Wii consoles in under three years in the UK, which makes it the fastest-selling console in UK history.

Not bad going! And a reminder to Sony and Microsoft that they need to be far more aware of the casual markets in 2010.

Though with the planned arrival of Project Natal on Xbox 360 and the PS3 motion-sensing wand on PlayStation 3, we imagine that next year is going to take casual gaming 'to the next level' as our PR friends are so fond of saying (about everything!).

Inclusive, family-friendly, fun

Nintendo reached the six million figure last week - week ending November 28 – which was a sliver under three years since the console launched on December 8, 2006.

Nintendo UK's Managing Direct, David Yarnton, said: "With its inclusive, family-friendly and fun nature, we're very pleased Wii seems to have captured the imagination of over six million families across the UK and reached such a landmark sales figure in such a short space of time.

"We'll work even harder to ensure that the interest in Wii stretches over months and years, appealing to people of all ages and gaming experience."

The Nintendo Wii has always enjoyed its lowest-of-the-consoles pricing and that's resulted in some epic Christmas success. It's the biggest selling and a couple of years ago - unless you were Christmas shopping in March - you had snowman's chance of getting a Wii.

The trick with a great Wii deal is getting the right game bundle because despite stand out titles, there's a lot of dross mixed in.

You can buy the stand alone Wii console with the Sports Resort Pack for just £164 and get 384 clubcard points as well. The Hut adds just £25 to that price to offer PES 2010 on top at a grand total of £189.73.

Pixmania has just released a series of Wii deals that should excite anyone looking to get active this Christmas. They're selling a Wii for £154 with a single remote, nunchuck, Motion Plus, Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort.

There are also deals on the Limited Edition Pack if you're looking to go one better than the Jones', but this ups the cost to £182.

Wii Fit among the deals again

One of the most popular deals for Wii shoppers this Christmas remains Wii Fit, and Game has a fantastic deal on the Limited Edition Wii Black with the Wii Fit balance board for £229, which is an extremely competitive price. The same deal is available over at Play as well.

The standalone Wii Fit board and game is £79.99, which when added to the £164 for a console comes to £244, making Game's price very competitive. The smart choice, however, is to buy Gamestation's £59.99 Wii Fit standalone, and get a bundled game at Amazon, giving you a net saving.

Amazon's amazing choices on PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles and free games isn't replicated as strongly with the Wii, but a good option is to get Mario Kart with a Wii Wheel for £20 when buying the console for £164.99, saving you £6 on the retail price.

There are other games in Amazon's deal for just £15 such as FIFA 10 or Need for Speed Nitro, but these aren't popular Wii titles and Mario Kart is by far the best title available.

Other strong Wii titles which can be picked up relatively cheaply are Tiger Woods 2010, which Dixons is offering for just £179.89 with a console with Wii Sports Resort and MotionPlus included.

They're also bundling a Wii and Grand Slam Tennis for £179.89 and the Limited Edition black console with Shaun White Snowboarding and Lego Indiana Jones 2 for a very reasonable £199.89

If you're looking for a complete package this Christmas, PC World could be your best port of call. They have a huge range of Wii bundles, the most expensive of which is £319.89.

This gets you the console with the sports pack full of plastic peripherals which will overtake your home, secondary remotes with MotionPlus, Wii Fit, and the Sonic Winter Olympics game, which will keep the family entertained all Christmas.