Sick and tired of that boring old white Wii? Jealous that both Japan and Europe have already had their mits on an awesome looking black Wii for months? If you possess such ridiculous insecurities you'll be happy to learn that Nintendo will be offering the Black Wii state side May 9, with a few little bonuses over the plain old white color.

First off, the black model will come with two games. The standard Wii Sports title as well as the sequel, Wii Sports Resort. Guess what also comes with it? A Wii motion plus add on to go with the motion enhanced Wii Sports Resort. All this comes at the standard retail of $200, but one could argue that the Wii is technically $150 since Nintendo is throwing in another $50 game.

Sorry Metroid fans. If you were looking forward to getting your hands on Samus's guns this June you'll be disappointed to learn that Nintendo has announced that Metroid: Other M will be pushed all the way back to August 31st, around two months longer than the originally announced release date. As for the whys of the delay? When Kotaku broke the story earlier today Nintendo got in touch with them to comment:

"The launch date for Metroid: Other M has shifted to Aug. 31. As you may know, this game is the product of a unique partnership between longtime Metroid producer Yoshio Sakamoto, Team Ninja and many other individuals and groups, all of whom have set very high standards for this latest installment in the series. Although it's taking slightly longer than expected to complete the project, we're confident that fans will find it to be well worth the wait. Video game development is a lengthy and complex process. We have always put the quality of our products first, and have historically taken the time needed to make our games meet the expectations of our fans."

Oh well, life goes on. It's not uncommon for high profile Nintendo titles to get pushed back at the slightest hint of trouble. At least Wii owners have Mario Galaxy 2 to look forward to next month. Unless, you know, that game gets pushed back as well.

Japan's Sunday morning kiddy show 'Pokémon Sunday' provided us with two things: further proof that Japan is bat-shit insane, and our first look at some Pokémon Black/White gameplay.

Thanks to Joystiq providing a downloadable picture you can now feast your eyes at the above image and jump to conclusions about what the picture means. I may not know japanese but thanks to visual cues it looks like multiplayer in Nintendo's upcoming Super Mario Galaxy 2 will have a 2-player feature that lets the second player control a Luma. What's a Luma? Some kind of star thing...? It's Mario. It doesn't have to make sense.

There isn't any specifics given on just how Mario and Luma will work together, but this already looks to be an improvement over the original Galaxy's multiplayer "feature" which only let the second player collect star bits and shoot them at enemies.

The original Super Mario Kart is heading to the Wii Virtual Console this Friday, featuring 20 tracks rendered in fluid Mode7 graphics. Consistently regarded by many as one of the best video games ever made, Super Mario Kart on SNES was originally released seventeen years ago and has spawned five hit sequels.

For 800 Wii Points you can relish in a wave of nostalgia, going head-to-head with your friends in split-screen, enjoy the multiplayer favorite Battle Mode, or go solo racing against an all-star line-up of Mushroom Kingdom characters.

The release date and price point of Nintendo's DSi XL was revealed earlier this week at the Nintendo Summit. Hitting North America on March 28 and retailing for $190, the XL will feature a larger screen and stylus. Industry analyst Michael Pachter has weighed in on the discussion surrounding the over-sized DS, saying the device "won't be a success."

"I think that the price point of all DS products are too high, and think that a price increase for the DSi XL is not going to sit well with consumers," Pachter explained to IndustryGamers. The difference in price between the DS Lite and the XL is $60, and I'm not sure that bigger screens provide the value that Nintendo thinks.  The difference between the DSi and the XL makes sense, but all three models are due for a cut, the DS to around $99, the DSi to $129, and the XL would then make more sense at $149. I don't think it will be a success at launch, since it costs only $10 less than a Wii."

Aside from the larger screen and stylus, the DSi XL does not feature any real improvements. It still has the same screen resolution and processor. Taking that into account, I think Michael is right on this one. The XL doesn't provide enough value for the increase in price.

A typical console's life cycle usually winds down at the five year mark and rumors of the next console usually start to crop up at around the four year mark. Since the Wii was released in 2006 this would be the time that rumors surrounding the next system would really start to surface correct? Nintendo of America Executive Camie Dunaway says, "I don't think it'll be any time soon"

When interviewed by Gamespot after Nintendo's media summit Camie Dunaway went ahead and shut down the idea that news of a new console would be coming anytime soon saying that the Wii "...has a lot of room to grow." She went on to mention that just because there is no news now, doesn't mean that Nintendo isn't preparing for the future:

"That said, part of Nintendo's heritage is to always be looking at innovation, and to always start working on the next hardware every time we launch a platform, so we'll have it ready when the time is right."

Analyst Michael Pachter once said that there wouldn't be any new consoles released till 2013. This theory may be well suited for Microsoft and Sony, but considering the Wii is already underpowered and lacks HD capability lets hope that we won't have to wait much longer for a successor.

[via Gamespot]

Nintendo of America's Cammie Dunaway has announced at Nintendo's media summit that the super sized DSi XL will be coming state side on March 28 for $190. The oversized DSi comes with a larger screen (sans resolution bump) and a larger stylus.

Originally pitched towards the elderly in Japan as the DSi LL Nintendo has been steadily releasing the oversized system to different countries over the last few months. Dunaway also announced that a 100 electronic books will be available to kick off the launch, saying that readers will hold the device sideways as if your, well, reading a book.

Other than a larger screen and stylus the DSi XL doesn't include any kind of spec bump over its regular sized predecessor.

Nintendo is going on a string of media conferences world wide so all sorts of golden information nuggets are dropping at our feet. The latest bit of news from Nintendo's conference in Australia has some surprising regardin two of Nintendo's biggest releases this year.

While more information is due to come later today, during Nintendo's U.S. media conference, the big N let slip that Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid Other M are being slated for a mid year release as opposed to the expected holiday drop.

With Red Steel 2 arriving in less than a month and these two games coming only a few months later things are looking pretty good for the Wii owner this year.

[via Kotaku AU]