On the fence this week about buying more Wii or DS games? I mean, sure, you’re probably busy with Ring of Fates, but remember: Sega Superstar Tennis and Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 both come out this week. That’s an automatic dent in the wallet for you, right? Wrong.

Toys ‘R’ Us is trying to get you to come back to the stores, where you probably haven’t bought a video game since March 9th. What’s in it for you? Well, if you buy any two select DS games, you can get $10 off. Buy any two select Wii games, you save an entire Jackson. Not a bad deal, right? Especially for those of you who completely forgot about and haven’t yet picked up Twilight Princess or Prime 3, it’s time to head out to TRU.

Toys ‘R’ Us (Wii) (DS)
via La Femme Reaper

Not impressed by the look of the bundled wheel for Mario Kart Wii? Well then, why not take a wheel and attach it to some bulker plastic. Pure genius! AWG, a third-party accessory developer, has created the abomination known as the G-Racing Wheel (the G probably standing for “garbage”). With force feedback and four suction cups for mounting, the G-Racing Wheel is a waste steal at €19.99.

Personally, I think it just seems impractical to have extra bulk on something that is already fine the way it is. That is, if it was “fine” to begin with…

Wiiz

Why bother hunting down a brand new Wii? You can rent one that’s probably slightly used for as little as $79 and play on it for a month! Plus, if you rent it for a whole year, you’re allowed to just keep the Wii. Sounds like a great deal, right?

You bet it is! Anyone can pay $250 for a new system. Think of how amazed your friends would be after you told them you scored a used console for nearly four times that instead.

The Consumerist
via Kotaku

Currently going for just over $102 on eBay is this promotional Nintendo 64 sign from back in the day. Now sure, it’s not hard to get a hold of old promotional signs. Kiosks and fiber-optic signs? Different story.

Of course, you’ll probably have no desire for this sign for anything other than the sheer joy of actually seeing one in person, so feel free to donate it once you’re done admiring it. It would look great in the future The Tanooki offices in Southern California.

eBay Auction
via GoNintendo

Hooray for Friday! For today only, Amazon is offering five Wii games at significantly reduced prices. While the deal of the day, Super Paper Mario, will be available throughout the entire day, the other four games will be revealed in four hour increments.

See the new Amazon widget to the right? Keep an eye on that throughout the day, as the four “lightning deal” games will be revealed through the widget in real time. While none of the four games are available at this time, Amazon is offering clues for each title:

• An epic tale of swords and beasts for fantasy and role-playing Wii gamers.
• A must-have game for sci-fi-loving Wii owners.
• Move to town, turn it around, and make it bustle with life. A sim-ple pleasure!
• You’ll have big super happy fun fun with this Wii classic.

If my own guesses are correct, then we are going to be in for some great deals. I won’t spoil the fun for everyone by sharing my predictions, but feel free to speculate in the comments.

If you’re in the spending mood today, you can combine items from The Tanooki Online Store with today’s deals for total shopping bliss! Now, excuse me as I sit and watch the countdown clocks throughout the entire day.

Update: Wow, these deals are going by fast. If you missed out on Super Paper Mario, Amazon added a new deal of the day- Manhunt 2, which is available in The Tanooki Online Store.

Walmart’s online site has a listing for Beautiful Katamari Wii, saying that the product is coming soon and will be available online only. They even offer up a March 3rd 2008 release date. There are a lot of things that don’t add up here, not the least of which being why online only? In any case, don’t hold your breath, but if you want to pre-order the game head on over to the listing’s page.

Thanks for the heads up Nin10do-Klown!

Beatiful Katamari Wii - Walmart

This Friday, Amazon will be giving five Wii games the Gold Box treatment. Starting at 12:01 AM PST, the identity of first game will be revealed as the Deal of the Day. The next four games will be revealed at 6:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 2:00 PM, and 6:00 PM.

While the first game will be available at a discounted price throughout the entire day, the other four games are “lighting deals” that are only available for four hours, or until the discounted price coupons are claimed.

From past experience, the discounted price coupons for these lightning deals tend to disappear fairly fast (hence the lightning?), so if you are interested, we recommend keeping a close eye on these deals. Seeing as Amazon is hyping up these deals quite a bit, I can only assume that we’ll be treated to some worthwhile deals. We’ll keep you updated on each deal throughout the day on Friday.

Amazon

I used to have this “Pog Maker” toy where I could use magazine clippings or color printouts to make my own custom pogs. They’re out of style now, so the toy is just sitting in a closet back home. Buttons, however, never go out of style.

Flickr user Scarlett Dawn is a huge Nintendo fan, and made these quality buttons featuring games like Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Sword of Mana, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Advance Wars, and more. She was nice enough to take the picture above for us so you could all get a great look. She’s selling them, too, so you can try to pick some up for yourself - they’re being sold in sets! You can read her blog here and check out these buttons listed on eBay here (look along the left side).

A few more photos can be seen after the break.

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Update: It seems that Amazon bumped the price up to $50 while I was sleeping. Maybe $39.99 was too good of a deal after all…

Pop quiz! How much would you pay for a platinum GameCube? $99? $75? $50?

Still too high? Let’s try $39.99. Ah yes, much better.

For this price, the GameCube could very well be a worthy purchase for the gamer on an extreme budget. So, if you’ve been holding out on getting a Wii and a GameCube, then your time has finally arrived to jump out of the cartridge world and into the land of optical disc gaming. Toss in another $50 to your budget and you’ll be able to pick up a few great games to jump start your library.

And for the rest of us, $39.99 isn’t too shabby for a sealed console that is sure to be a collectors item fifteen years down the road. As always, free shipping is included with today’s deal and is only available until midnight tonight.

The Tanooki Online Store

The year was 1988, and Nintendomania was sweeping the nation. Everybody wanted a piece of the NES action, and with that, hundreds of non-gaming products found their way onto store shelves. Between the beanbags, party sets, pajamas, and cereal, if you could think of a way to throw Mario onto a random item, that product was most likely already sitting in the aisles of your local Venture.

The Nintendo Cereal System is by far one of my favorite spinoff products from the NES era. Between the two different flavors (Fruity for Mario and Berry for Link), the generic shapes that in no way represent Link or Mario (I will admit that the key shape is spot-on), and the hologram t-shirt offer on this particular box, you just can’t go wrong with this sealed box of cereal that’s currently on the auction block.

Bidding is currently at $80 with 2 days left, which works out to about $.50 for each individual piece of sugary, Koopa-shaped goodness. Seeing as this particular box of cereal will celebrate its twentieth birthday sometime this year, I’m finding it hard to criticize it for being so expensive. Respect your elders!

If you want to learn more about the Nintendo Cereal System, jump over the break for some retro Link on Mario advertisement action.

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