Hasta La Gadget!

There have been a number of video game console emulators available on Android that can play Nintendo 64, PlayStation and even hand-held game devices like the Nintendo DS. But it looks we may finally be getting a Nintendo Wii and GameCube emulator in the very near future.

The Dolphin emulator has been available for years for Windows, Mac and Linux, and it looks like its developers are planning on an Android release. A teaser image as well as a video showing the emulator running on a Cortex-A15 ARMv7 Samsung Chromebook were released recently. The video shows the Dolphin emulator playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl, although it currently runs at a crawl.

Still, seeing how there will soon be even more powerful Android devices available to consumers this year, being able to run Dolphin on an Android device is a worthwhile first step. Optimizing it for newer Android devices will be a logical second step, although we’re not sure when exactly hardware on Android devices will reach speeds fast enough to run Nintendo Wii or GameCube games at a worthwhile speed.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Sega Launches Kingdom Conquest II , PowerA’s MOGA Pro Controller Announced,

If you own a Wii, you were probably a little bummed out to hear that Amazon would be serving up Instant Video to the Wii U and not to your older console.

But fret no longer, as Amazon has just announced that its library of streaming video content is now available to Wii owners.

Amazon’s Instant Video library is home to over 145,000 titles, and if you’re a Prime member you have automatic access to over 33,000 titles right off the bat.

Other features you may have grown accustomed to on Amazon’s media streaming platform are also present, including Whispersync, which lets users pick up right where they left off on another device. Like, say, a Kindle Fire.

Navigation is relatively simple, giving users categories like Recently Watched, Watchlist, Genre Recommendations and Your TV Shows.

Users will also have access to Parental Controls and Kid Zone title lists to make sure kids aren’t wandering into treacherous territory.

The service is available now to all Wii owners and can be found in the Wii Shop Channel.

In 41 days since its launch, the Nintendo Wii U managed to beat the Wii in sales by about $30 million. December saw Wii U sales numbers over 460,000, with a total of almost 890,000 units selling since its launch. This information comes from the NPD Group, with its report covering the time period from November 25 to December 29.

Thus far, Nintendo has raked in about $300 million from U.S. sales of the Wii U, compared to the $270 million or so it made with the Wii when it was at this stage in its life cycle. Overall, December proved to be a good month for the company, with it selling over 2.65 million hardware units total, as well as achieving some other notable milestones, including selling more than 580,000 copies total of New Super Mario Bros. U.

Likewise, the Wii console sold just under 475,000 units, bringing the all-time sales number up to 40.8 million. Following on its heels, Just Dance 3 earned the honor of being the tenth Wii game to sell over 5 million copies. The DS sold almost half a million units for an all-time total of 53 million sold, while the 3DS sold 1.25 million units for a lifetime total of 7.7 million.

Nintendo of America’s Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing Scott Moffitt offered this statement. “While the Wii launch established new benchmarks in the United States, Wii U has surpassed its predecessor in perhaps the most important category: revenue generation. The demand for the Deluxe SKU, which was essentially sold out at retail this holiday, and the strong attach rate of New Super Mario Bros. U, shows that we have the value and the games to drive momentum in 2013.”

Nintendo Wii U sales trump Wii sales, 460,000 units sold in December is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Nintendo has announced that TVii, the Wii U’s multimedia TV guide, will launch alongside the console’s Japan launch on December 8, while US and European users will have to until 2013 in order to get TVii functionality. TVii pulls data from Rovi’s G-Guide and lets gamers scroll through listings using the GamePad.

UPDATE: It’s confirmed that Europe will see the 2013 delay, but a solid release date for the US is actually still unknown. The last we heard, TVii was delayed into December, so it’s possible we may see it on the 8th along with Japan, but no official word from Nintendo on that yet.

Earlier this month, Nintendo announced that TVii was delayed into December, and would not coincide with the American launch of the console. However, the feature has been delayed once again for both US and European gamers to sometime in 2013. Japan gamers, however, will be able to take advantage of TVii right at launch.

However, one feature that Nintendo is charging for is the ability the Wii U’s GamePad as a television remote control in Nintendo TVii. Users who want this feature will have to pay a one-time fee of ¥100 ($1.22). A strange fee, indeed, but then again, gamers are paying double digits every year to watch Netflix on their Xbox 360, so it’s probably something that we don’t need to complain about too much.

The Wii U had a respectable launch week after its release on November 18, with over 400,000 consoles sold in the US during the first week. That’s a respectable number, and Nintendo may be close to edging Microsoft to the number of consoles sold per month, which Microsoft has held the crown for the past 20 months or so.

Nintendo TVii launching December 8 in Japan, US and Europe in 2013 [update] is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Both the Microsoft Xbox 360 and the Sony PS3 underwent diets and came back as smaller and thinner models approximately midway through their lives. However, the Nintendo Wii has remained the same blocky console since it was so insanely popular when it originally launched years ago. It looks like Nintendo is set to put the Wii on a diet.

The Best Buy Canada website homepage has leaked a small screenshot showing a new Nintendo Wii Mini game console, and tips the launch date as December 7, 2012. That is only a few weeks away and if this isn’t some sort of hoax or mistake, Nintendo has done a good job keeping the secret since this is the first time we’ve heard about a smaller Nintendo Wii console. The image makes the Wii Mini look significantly smaller than the original.

If you want to see the picture for yourself live on the Best Buy Canada website homepage, you had better look quickly because I suspect this mistake will be fixed shortly. The Wii Mini doesn’t show up in the actual Best Buy Canada product listing page along with all the other Wii hardware. The Wii Mini looks to be roughly the same size as a external optical drive for computer.

The homepage link showing the box shot and bragging about the December 7 launch date has a link that reads pre-order now, but when you click that link, it simply goes to the general Nintendo Wii category with the Wii Mini nowhere to be seen. We’re betting someone hit the go button on the homepage ad a bit too early.

[via NintendoLife]

Best Buy Canada website leaks Nintendo Wii Mini is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.