Thanks, Nintendo, for once again not even making an effort to tempt me to purchase anything from you right now!

What is a better game (points is not a factor)....Super Mario 3 or Super Mario World? Thanks!

Super Mario World, but 3 is a close second. World is like 3 on roids, and I much prefer the super feather than the animal costumes. The addition of Yoshi just pushes this game over the edge. Both are well worth your money though.

Thanks! I know they are both great, just not wanting to fill my VC with Mario games from the geto go. Appreciate the input.

Ouch...

NINTENDO DOWNLOAD: DO THE MATH - ANIMAL APPS, TOPPLING TOWERS AND HUNGRY PENGUINS

May 4, 2009

Fans of the popular Animal Crossing™ series can enjoy a pair of downloadable—and practical—debuts this week via the Nintendo DSiWare™ service. Whether you're telling time or doing arithmetic, these handy applications will give your daily number-crunching a critter-friendly boost. A new WiiWare™ game also takes a fun peek into the animal kingdom, while the latest Virtual Console™ release sends players underwater for classic Commodore 64 action.

Nintendo DSiWare

Animal Crossing Calculator (Nintendo, 1 player, 200 Nintendo DSi Points™): Need to figure out what you owe Tom Nook or the amount in your savings account? Animal Crossing Calculator features the full functionality of a traditional calculator, including a Memory key and the ability to display up to 13 digits, adding a layer of atmosphere unique to Animal Crossing. Use the Unit Converter to turn one unit of measure into another (such as length, weight, volume and age), or track the history of calculations you've performed. Listen to the Animalese pronunciation of numbers when you press them, and watch for a favorite Animal Crossing character to appear when your result meets certain criteria. Get ready for an inventive and practical way to experience the charm of Animal Crossing.

Animal Crossing Clock (Nintendo, 1 player, 200 Nintendo DSi Points): Enjoy the atmosphere of Animal Crossing in a whole new way with Animal Crossing Clock. Select from either an analog or digital clock and set up to three alarms (with snooze functionality for those who need it). Make your own Town Tune or use sounds created in Nintendo DSi™ Sound, then assign them to the alarms you've set. Use the system's internal clock or offset the time however you like. Then sit back and watch as different characters from Animal Crossing appear and the color of the sky changes as time passes. You'll never miss an important appointment with one of your Animal Crossing friends again.

WiiWare

Penguins & Friends - Hey! That's My Fish! (Gammick Entertainment, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone, 800 Wii Points™): The penguins are hungry and need your help. Catch all the fish you can before someone steals them from you. Strategy is fundamental in this exciting game. Keep moving ahead of the other penguins so you don't get trapped, and try to get to the ice floes that hold more fish. One to four players can play Penguins & Friends at the same time, provided they can handle the polar cold. The board is made up of ice blocks with a set number of fish under them. The ice blocks are hexagonal and form a structure like a beehive. The starting position of the ice blocks can change, creating different game boards.

Virtual Console

Tower Toppler™ (Commodore 64, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone, 500 Wii Points): Weird things are happening on Planet Nebulus. Someone or something has begun building huge towers on the sea floor without a construction license. Your mission is to ascend each of the eight cylindrical towers, passing various obstacles along the way, and to trigger the tower's destruction mechanism to demolish the evil threat. Praised upon its original 1987 release for its graphical innovation, this is considered to be the most outstanding game from Hewson. Don't miss out on this classic favorite.

Nintendo adds new titles to the Nintendo DSi Shop and the Wii™ Shop Channel at 9 a.m. Pacific time on Mondays. Users with broadband Internet access can redeem Wii Points or Nintendo DSi Points to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel. Nintendo DSi Points can be purchased in the Nintendo DSi Shop. A Nintendo Points Card™ can be purchased at retail locations. All points from one Nintendo Points Card must be redeemed in either the Nintendo DSi Shop or the Wii Shop Channel. They are not transferable and cannot be divided between the two systems.

Remember that both Wii and Nintendo DSi feature parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other features, visit Wii.com or NintendoDSi.com.

They don't have a clue. They might do something big at E3.

If the Animal Crossing Calculator was a scientific calculator, I would have picked it up...

Epically bad week for DSiWare. I want Mighty Flip Champs ASAP.

YES YES and YES.

It's laughable at how badly they've dropped the ball on the Virtual Console.

Yep. And they keep touting how many downloads they have...can't imagine that number if they actually released more of their catalogue. One game and it is from the Commodore? Wow...

I think they might just be saving stuff. You know how it is with DVD/BD, where they don't want to release everything at once. The Wii has at least two more years to go, and they probably want to be able to release games right up until the end.

You need to think about the thousands of possible titles they could release from all the platforms the VC supports. Over 2 years will get 104 titles if they keep up the 1 a week bullcrap. That is going to leave hundreds of good titles unreleased.

The VC, Wiiware and DSIware are completely disasters. There is no way to smooth it over. They trickle these things out and then go months without even releasing a good title, because I guess they want to force us to buy the garbage titles as well. I can hear the argument that they don't have enough Wiiware and DSi ware to do more than 1-2 a week, but they could release 10 VC titles a week and not come close to releasing everything we want fast enough. Parish mentioned on Retronauts that there are third parties that submitted multiple titles to Nintendo that months later have yet to get a single title released on the VC. It seems simple to me. The VC supports 8 or so formats then every format gets a title released every week. If the N64 or SMS don't have enough for that kind of schedule you can slow theirs to 1-2 a month. The floodgates on the NES, SNES and Genesis should be wide open though.

It really is a bad joke. The VC was the main selling point for me buying the Wii. Remember how Nintendo hyped the VC before the release of the Wii? I thought I would be downloading dozens of games by the month. Boy, was I wrong.

Update for 5/11:

Wow....after a decade playing catch up, now Nintendo is the new Sony.....they are number 1 and don't feel like they even need to try....
It's just SO pathetic how they make no effort now! They waste their time adding "new" VC platforms like the C64 and Arcade, but then continue to put out this one-a-week crap and neglect all the great stuff left to be released on the original platforms! Seriously, we're only going to get less than 100 VC releases this year at this rate, and that's for almost 10 possible platforms! They REALLY need to pick up the pace.....

Exactly. Even if they want to push the DS and Wiiware stuff, which is fine, they could still dump old school stuff as well. No Contra? etc....

I have 1,400 points on my balance and at this rate I may just have to dump it.

I've had 800 points sitting in my account for like... a year? Waiting for the next "great snes" game. I don't think we'll ever see one at this rate.

I have 1800 that's been sitting there for at least a year. I think I've earmarked it for World of Goo. Just waiting for a rainy day, or a shorter unplayed pile.

Their N64 game releases have screeched to a halt also. For the first couple years there was a release every couple months, but there has only been one new release in the past year. If they aren't selling well, maybe they should lower the price rather than stop releasing new games.

I have my free 1000 points still on my DSi. Who knows if that will ever get spent. I have 800 points on my Wii after buying World of Goo and 5 2000 point cards still unopened from back when Toys R Us sold them for $12.99 (scratch that 4 I gave one of them away). I have waited and waited, but Nintendo refuses to give me much in the way of content worth buying.

The upside though is the iPod continues to deliver fun downloadable games for $1 to $5 and it looks like Sony is finally going to open up the PS1 a lot more as we get to E3. There are a ton of titles on the PS1 I wouldn't mind paying $5.99 for. I have pretty much given up on Nintendo. I'm sure they are making so much money on Wii Fit and other casual games that they can't be bothered to make a small profit on VC and Wiiware. They do little promotion, have no sales and release very few titles. I guess we should be happy they support it with a game a week at all.

You guys should spend your points on WiiWare.

It seems to be heavily neglected here but there are some great games there.

Definitely. If you have points you want to use World of Goo, Bit.Trip Beat, Tetris Party, Lost Winds, Art Style games especially Orbient and Maboshi's Arcade are all pretty darn cool and there are definitely others to consider like Strong Bad, Mega Man 9 and so on.

I just wish they had demos for more games and did more to promote these but there are some gems on WiiWare.

Bit.Trip Beat is great, I love the music as well as the game....not easy either.

Just downloaded Super Mario RPG....never played it before either....now I just have to scrouge around and find my Wavebird controller and I'll be good to go.

Has anybody bought this game? I'm interested to read some reviews