Man, did you see that the Nintendo Channel updated? Unfortunately I can’t get my Wii on the net to check it out since I’m not home. But that doesn’t stop me from providing this week’s digital downloads.

For WiiWare we’ve got three games. Texas Hold’Em Poker, Spaceball: Revolution, and Mart Racer. Of those three I like Spaceball: Revolution the best.

For DSiWare there’s two new titles. Art Academy: First Semester, which is a pretty cool idea, and Oscar in Toyland, which melts my brain with molten sugar graphics.

And finalyl on the VC we’ve got… Crash ‘N The Boys Street Challenge? What system was this on? NES? Strange… I’ve never heard of it.

Full details inside.
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- Wii System Update 4.0 launches today and with it comes the storage solution we’ve been wanting for so long. You’ll be able to launch programs from the main menu. An SD card icon appears to access it. The Wii now support HC SD cards (up to 32 GB or 240 tiles, whichever comes first) as well. This update is available right now!

- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Dark Lord for WiiWare coming this year (nice title)

-Final Fantasy IV: The After Years also on the way

- A very odd title for Wii called Rock N’ Roll Climber which uses the balance board, remote, and nunchuk to climb cliffs. Then when you get to the top? Grab the guitar and ROCK OUT… What?

- New WarioWare for DSi! WarioWare Snapped! It’s a DSiWare download title.

- New category for the VC emulation library. The Wii will be adding arcade games under the platform “Virtual Console Arcade”. Mappy, Space Harrier, Ishtar, Space Invaders, and more on the way. Some titles are actually available right now. Gaplus, Mappy, Starforce, The Tower of Druaga available now for 500 points each. I’ll do an VC update on that for Monday.

and… *drum roll*

- A sequel to Phantom Hourglass. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks it’s being called. Pictures and a trailer will be available soon no doubt. That’s due to launch this year for the DS.

Not bad! Also, there’s a new Punch-Out!! trailer available on the Nintendo Channel. Looks good!

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If your idea of a superhero is someone with an invincible ego who can type e-mails while wearing boxing gloves, then the Wii Shop Channel has great news for you. The legendary Strong Bad (from the popular Homestar Runner Web series) makes his eagerly anticipated WiiWare debut this week.

You what is totally awesome? This is a point and click adventure game… and those are awesome. Full release inside.
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Right at the stroke of mid-night Nintendo released a new Wii firmware, version 3.3.

Listed in the message that informs you of the new software update it lists a single change which is “With this update, you can now move a Mii from the Mii Plaza to the Mii Parade in the Mii Channel” (and then instructions on how to do so). I believe this basically lets you store more than 200 personal Mii, but you will lose the birthday information and other such details. There’s probably other stuff hidden there someplace as always. If you find a change please post it in the comments and we’ll add it to a list.

Also, this update warns “Because unauthorized modifications to save files may impair game play or the Wii console, updating to the Wii Menu cersion 3.3 will also check for and automatically remove such save files”

Vague, but a warning. Console modders be warned

Also the Nintendo Channel has had its rating database put into full effect and it works extremely well. And yes, I have M rated games that appear on the list now, which some people were complaining were absent from the list before.

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When the Nintendo Channel showed up and mentioned the upcoming WiiWare service you knew it had to be showing up soon. Now not quite a week later it’s here knocking on our firewalls.

So what’s the service offering immediately? A total of 6 titles.
FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: My Life as a King (1,500 Points)
LostWinds (1,000 Points)
Defend your Castle (500 Points)
Pop (700 Points)
V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack (700 Points)
TV Show King (1,000 Points)

I’m excited for this service. A lot of these titles seem to surpass a lot of 3rd party retail store tiles in every way possible. Which says a lot about the crap that gets shoveled. Also the Virtual Console is not updating this week.

So what do you think of this new service and the games it’s offering? Full details inside
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Early early this morning the “Nintendo Channel” hit. I’ve just installed the channel and I’m taking a look at what the Channel offers. When you start it up you have the option to allow commercial messages to be sent to the Wii. This seems to also involve being able send your gave data to Nintendo automatically where apparently they can look at your game play trends and abilities which are used in the channel.

Download a tour video
Youtube | Download (30MB)

Here are the features I can find.
View game trailers for Wii, DS, Wii Channels, Virtual Console, and special videos like interviews.
Download DS game demos to the DS.
Search for new games by New Releases, Category, or Name.
Recommend titles to a friend (games you have played for over an hour.)
You can even order games from the channel. (loads the ordering page in the Internet Channel for you)

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The Everyone Votes Channel. A mild and breif distraction from things with more substance. Sure it’s just a polling program, but at least it’s got some flare. It’s too bad the questions are a little dull sometimes.

But recently the Channel finally started asking questions worth answering! Hard questions. Real questions.

Specifically “Which is better? Cake or Pie” and “Which are cooler? Pirates or Ninjas”

NOA localization is doing it’s job as good as ever!

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Well, it seems WiiWare is right around the corner. Today Nintendo sent out a firmware update to all the patiently waiting Wiis to allow for some WiiWare specific features in the Shop Channel and maybe on the main menu.

Outside of maybe a firmware version number change there’s no other visible differences. But you might as well grab the update now so you won’t have to do it later.

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Most of you probably caught the little story over at Kotaku yesterday about Wii TV launching in Japan. Looks as though there’s a lot of features included here, the baseline of course being a TV Guide channel where you can mark shows you want to watch and even be alerted by e-mail or cell phone text message when they’re about to come on. One of the more interesting things though is that while the channel is running, you can use the Wii Remote as a TV Remote. Cool? I think so. Doesn’t seem there’s an announced release date for the US, but you can bet it’ll be here eventually.

(image thanks to Alleba)

Update: Kotaku’s posted a video of the TV Channel in Action, so take a look at it here.

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There’s been an update for the Check Mii Out Channel issued. It’s nothing super fancy, but it does solve some slight inconveniences the channel had like not being able to modify a search number without retyping the whole thing or not finding Miis you’ve posted.

Full list of changes are inside.
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