Rayman Origins will be released on 3DS in both the US and Europe this June. The US release will hit store shelves on 5th June and the European release will follow on 8th June. A demo can now be downloaded from the 3DS eStore.

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the demo. I think it’s fair to say that general thoughts on the web haven’t been all that positive.

In order to celebrate the launch of Mario’s Tennis Open on 3DS, Nintendo has organised a Yoshi hunt which will take place in Asda stores around the country. The hunt will involve gamers travelling to their nearest participating Asda store and scanning QR codes which in turn will hand over to you a Yoshi character which in turn will unlock a new playable character in Mario Tennis Open.

The full list of participating Asda stores can be obtained by clicking here.

Hey Folks!

On June 5th at 5pm (UK Time) Nintendo will be presenting their E3 Conference and so I hope to not only catch but provide WoN with coverage of the event. Hopefully we can get a page set up where anyone can watch it with us and of course view afterwards like the U-Stream. Also like U-Stream i’ll try post a text archive of happenings as the occur for you all to flick through and whatnot.

With Mr Jonah’s permission i’d love to set up an E3 Coverage Forum where I can post updates to, regardless I look forward to the event. With hopes of seeing plenty of Wii U and 3DS updates, announcements and previews lets hope 2012 goes off with a bang

Amazon in the states now has a listing for Wii U up and running and it reveals some very interesting facts and stats. Click the image below and take a peak for yourself.

Can anyone tell me who Peter Molyneux is? Well he’s joining Spike TV’s team in order to cover E3 and this is what he had to say about Wii U in the build up.

“Nintendo’s slightly lacklustre Wii U is going to have to blow us away with better specs and great firstborn party line-up.”

I don’t know what it is with the Spike TV/Gametrailers lot but they are so negative towards Nintendo. The Big N could release the most spec heavy machine on the market and they would probably still complain. The fact is Nintendo hasn’t had a great history with the media and developers and I see it changing anytime time soon.

Nintendo has now released its promised patch for Mario Kart 7 which removes a number of glitches from on-play. The tracks affected are “Wuhu Island Loop,” “Wuhu Mountain Loop,” and “GBA Bowser Castle 1″. If you don’t download the update then you will not be able to play online until you see the error of your ways.

To download the update simply update using the latest Nintendo 3DS system update which in turn will allow you to access the MK7 update via the eShop.

Nintendo is doing a pretty good job with the Virtual Console in Europe but US gamers are unhappy with the service in the US. Numerous US media outlets are referring to the US virtual console service as suffering a drought but here is NoA’s official response to the situation.

“Each week Nintendo makes available a mix of Nintendo eShop, Virtual Console, WiiWare and Nintendo DSiWare games. Combined, these services currently provide gamers with hundreds of fun and interesting downloadable games to choose from. There is no preset schedule as to how many games will become available in a given week, but many more are on the way via all of these digital-delivery systems.”

Has Sega lost faith in the 3DS? Some media outlets seem to think so because in their latest summary of upcoming releases for 2013, out of a total of 40 games, only 3 are scheduled for a 3DS release. There are no titles planned for Wii or DS in the next fiscal year but that’s to be expected.

So what do you think. Has Sega lost faith in the 3DS? Would it surprise you if they did?

Total US video game sales for April 2012 has fallen 42% since April 2011. Video game sales for 2012 registered sales of $292.1 million where as April 2011 figures saw sales of $503.2 million. Console sales has also fallen by 32% compared to last year. There was good news however for online game subscriptions which saw a rise in sales (totalling $370 million) which illustrates how important the online market will be to the future of game sales.

Nintendo has released the latest charts detailing the all time sales for virtual console titles on Wii.

The top three titles for NES, SNES and N64 titles look like this:

NES
1. Super Mario Bros 3
2. Super Mario Bros
3. Pacman

SNES
1. Super Mario World
2. Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
3. Donkey Kong Country

N64
1. Super Mario 64
2. Mario Kart 64
3. Paper Mario

Interestingly the top three for Sega Genesis are:

1. Sonic the Hedgehog
2. Sonic the Hedgehog 2
3. Sonic the Hedgehog 3

To glance at the full charts then click here

The Aqua Blue 3DS is no longer being shipped by Nintendo. It seems that Nintendo has ceased production of this particular 3DS version and so if you would like to buy one then you will need to purchase one pretty quickly. Saying that does anyone care about the Aqua Blue 3DS anymore? I mean the colours available now are far nicer and probably far more popular. Did you purchase a Aqua Blue 3DS on launch?

Cam Weber, EA Sports general manager of football, recently took the opportunity to talk about the forthcoming Madden game which is due to be released on Wii U. Weber was asked a number of questions including whether or not he thought the Wii U was truly a next-gen console…

There is some fear that Nintendo’s Wii U platform will be stuck between the current generation and the next one. Is the console really a next-gen platform?

“Absolutely. It’s a platform with a new controller input, so we’ll do everything we can to deliver an experience that will take advantage of the hardware for that consumer.”

Michael Inglis, the creator behind the viral Lego Zelda video, has had his dream come one step closer to reality as over 10,000 people have backed his Lego Zelda concept at the official Lego website. Because Inglis has managed to get over 10,000 supporters Lego will have to review the concept and decide if it’s something they would like to do. Of course, they would need to get Nintendo to approve the concept as well. A certainly interesting suggestion, I also think Mario would shape up well in the Lego shapings

Kirby Pinball is coming to the eShop. The game has been given an age rating by the Austrailian classification and it should be heading our way very soon. I love pinball titles and this is very much on my gaming radar.

We all know about the 3DS’ struggles after its initial launch. Well in a recent interview with Edge, Shigeru Miyamoto reflected on Nintendo’s latest handheld problems and made a connection with the current issues PS Vita is facing now.

“It’s obviously a very hi-spec machine, and you can do lots of things with it… But I don’t really see the combination of software and hardware that really makes a very strong product… When we launched the 3DS hardware we didn’t have Super Mario 3D Land, we didn’t have Mario Kart 7, we didn’t have Kid Icarus: Uprising. We were striving to have all of these ready for the launch, but we weren’t able to deliver them at that time… Looking back we have to say we realize the key software was missing when we launched the hardware.”