Shamoozal has a feature up taking a look at how much influence the Super Nintendo controller has had on succeeding game controllers. We’ve seen it in the PlayStation games, we’ve seen it on the Xboxes, it’s even showing back up in the Wii’s Classic Controller!

Is it that perfect of a design? As the first major controller to feature four main action buttons, what advantages did the SNES controller provide in certain video games? Head on over to Shamoozal to read up on their feature!

Thanks, Phil!

Shamoozal

Three new VC games for Europe this week. Check ‘em out:

• Battle Lode Runner - TurboGrafx16 - Hudson Soft - 600 pts
• Final Fight - SNES - Capcom - 800pts
• Mighty Bomb Jack - NES - TECMO - 500pt

When Nintendo first predicted selling 6 million consoles by the end of March, many saw it as an unbelievably hefty goal. While Nintendo didn’t quite make this mark, the reason was not demand, but supply. The Wii enjoyed a rare phenomenal success that few new consoles enjoy right out of the gate, and it became clear that had Nintendo shipped enough units to avoid stores selling out several weeks worth of held consoles within minutes, they may have well surpassed the 6 million mark.

Nintendo president admitted, “We must do our best to fix this abnormal lack of stock. We have not been able to properly foresee demand.” He did not specify to what degree, but Iwata promised that Nintendo was working to boost production capacity on the Wii. If Nintendo’s prediction of selling 14 million Wii consoles is any indication, Nintendo will be producing at least 1.2 million consoles per month.

GameDaily BIZ

Nintendo recently released the handouts it gave at their analyst meeting, which included a couple of pages of release dates for the year. You can view the page for Nintendo releases and the page for third party releases below, but here are a few North American release highlights to get you excited:

• May 28 - Mario Party 8
• June 11 - Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree
• June 25 - Pokémon Battle Revolution
• June 29 - Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party
• July 31 - High School Musical (DS)
• August - Heroes of Mana
• Summer - Mario Strikers Charged
• November - Dancing with the Stars
• Holiday - The Legend of Zeld: Phantom Hourglass
• 4th Quarter - Project: Treasure Island Z
• Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games (Wii/DS)
• NiGHTS: Journey into Dreams

Check out the images below for the full list that Nintendo revealed.

Below is the final page from Nintendo’s Financial Statement. You can find sales totals for the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, and Wii. In addition to lifetime totals, you can look at the numbers for the year ending March ‘06, the year ending March ‘07, projections for the next year, and everything broken down by region of the world.

It’s interesting to note that Nintendo doesn’t project any GBA or GC sales for the next year. Also, by predicting 14 million Wii units sold in the next fiscal year, Nintendo is hoping to hit 20 million Wii units sold in the system’s first 16 months of availability. In the same timeframe, one of Nintendo’s competitors has yet to reach a 10 million unit sell through of their next generation console, and even after 6 years the Nintendo GameCube has only reached 21 million sold.

Compared to the previous week, all Nintendo hardware (other than the Game Boy Micro and original Nintendo DS) saw an increase for the week ending April 22. The only other system to see an increase was Sony’s PSP. Check out the sales below:

• DSL:Â 172,359Â (+39,034)
  
• Wii: 77,913Â (+2,154)
• PSP: 29,459Â (+4,609)
• PS2: 11,398Â (-1,474)
• PS3: 11,000Â (-948)
• Xbox360: 2,307Â (-593)
• GBASP: 860Â (+206)
  
• GBM: 449Â (-168)
  
• GC: 266Â (+99)
• DS: 81Â (-65)
  
• GBA: 55Â (+29)

Media Crate

We knew earlier this week that it would happen sometime this week, and it seems that day was Thursday according to Kotaku. The Wii is officially available in Singapore. As stated previously, the standard Wii package was supposed to be available for S$499. However, it seems that retailers are forcing bundles that include the Wii (S$499), an extra Wii remote (S$79.90), and Sonic and the Secret Rings ($69.90) for S$649. Sure, there’s no real loss or gain there if you live in Singapore and were intending to pick up an extra Wii remote and Sonic anyway. Though when you consider that S$649 is the equivalent of $428 USD, things start to look a little pricey.

Note that the Singapore launch was handled by Maxsoft and not Nintendo.

Kotaku

I love this video. Everyone loves babies, and this is just adorable. Check it out!

YouTube

Sorry guys, I’ve been really out of it lately. I’ve had to pull two all-nighters in the last three nights and I really need to lie down. I might be back later to post some stories I’m sitting on, but just in case I’ll leave you with some interesting videos in case you’re at home this Friday night. First up, a claymation version of the Super Smash Bros. Brawl trailer by Sgsugar:

YouTube

Donkey Kong Jet Race has been renamed as Donkey Jet, and is scheduled to be available for the Wii in Japan on June 28th. As shown, the game will feature four-player racing over 16 tracks.

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More after the break.

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