Remember way back at E3 2008 when everyone’s favorite Reggie Fils-Aime promised Wii Sports Resort and MotionPlus for a spring time release? Here we are and I still haven’t gotten to ecstatically throw a virtual beach frisbee, Cammie Dunaway style. MTV Multiplayer blog backed the Nintendo of America president into a corner (is that even possible?) and unintentionally managed to give us a semi-clear time frame.

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Yep, you read right. The SNES classic, Super Punch-Out!! is set for download from the Virtual Console this coming Monday, March 30th. The download is no doubt in honor of the upcoming Punch-Out!! Wii, due for a May 18th release.

Will you be paying out 800 points for this classic?

IGN

In their latest email newsletter, GameIndustry.biz takes a far less alarmist approach to dissecting OnLive than I did.

There is simply no readily available comparison for what OnLive is suggesting here. Streaming high-definition video services, even hugely popular ones like YouTube or the BBC’s iPlayer, are several orders of magnitude less demanding – because all they’re really doing, at the end of the day, is serving a pre-rendered file to their users. They’re not doing anything in real-time, unlike OnLive, which is proposing to 3D render an extraordinarily taxing scene, encode it as a high-definition video and send it across the network, anything from 30 to 60 times a second – for every single connected user.

It is truly an enormous undertaking, bordering on snake oil–especially when one considers the controlled environment OnLive’s handlers used to sell the thing to wide-eyed journalists at GDC.

Just to be clear, I’m also doubtful that OnLive can seriously deliver even 1/10th of what they’re advertising at GDC this week. Nevertheless, it’s a first step towards a legitimate paradigm shift in the way we play video games, and I still think Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and any other company that relies on both software AND hardware to make a buck should take notice.

Google handed us a little update today for the iGoogle homepages some of you might be rocking right now.

With the update, users can skin their pages with all manner of video game themes, including Mega Man, Mario, Wii Sports, Link, and several other video game personalities of noteworthy imprtance.

Infendo’s David is rocking Animal Crossing right now, and I’m leaning heavily toward Mega Man, which should come as no surprise given the amount of cheerleading I did for Mega Man 9 last year.

At Level-5′s panel, director Akihiro Hino showed a list of current projects, including Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, an English translation of the name of the second Layton game. Later, during the Q&A, someone asked Hino if the sequel was being localized for North America and Europe. Hino responded that he wants to release all six Laytons (including the new trilogy), and that Diabolical Box is indeed in the midst of localization — he hopes to have it out in six months.

Layton is confirmed, much rejoicing should be had!

[Joystique], Originally [Via GoNintendo]

At long last Square Enix is bringing the Final Fantasy series to the Virtual Console. The series kicks off in Japan during May 2009 with the original Famicom favorite, Final Fantasy. VC dates for the United States and Europe are set for a TBA 2009 release.

As if that isn’t enough, Square revealed two new Final Fantasy titles for Wiiware. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord, and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years are both due to release sometime in 2009.

Hit the jump for an official press release.
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I was talking to a friend/editor today who is attending the Game Developers Conference. I promptly asked what he’s liked the best. His response? “Boom Blox 2 is epic.” The word “epic” caught me off guard, so I asked him to clarify. “It’s awesome,” he added. “The graphics are 10 times better, there are way more modes, and it’s super-easy to send and download new levels with no friend codes.” Well alrighty, then. Boom Blox Bash Party, as it’s officially called, comes to Wii this May.

The other day, Nurse Toadstool and I talked in the break room over reheated mushroom casserole. She appeared sad. She mentioned turning a Goomba away because his health insurance wouldn’t give him enough gold coins for treatment. Then I realized why the same viruses continue to appear again and again. Each time we turn a patient away for financial reasons, not only are we denying care to the poorest creatures, who often need it the most, but we’re putting the disease back into the world, where it continues to spread. Furthermore, the patients I do treat get hooked on my expensive medicine. Mushroom Kingdom’s health-care system has turned into a sick, addictive game.

Read more at McSweeneys (thanks Jack!)

At this year’s GDC keynote, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata addressed the common complaint that third party companies just can’t compete with Nintendo.  Iwata explains that he used to feel the same way before he came to work at Nintendo, and saw Miyamoto’s creative process at work.

I sinceirly hope understanding his (Miyamoto’s) methods might be some help to you. Maybe even inspiring.

Iwata spent the first half of the keynote outlining Miyamoto’s development process – from prototype stages, to fine tuning, all the way through Employee kidnapping:

Sometimes Miyamoto “Kidnaps” employees.  …The victim is handed a controller, and told to start enjoying himself – but there are no questions, not topics, no need for the player to talk about his reactions to the game.

He elaborated by saying that Miyamoto is watching for what bores the player, what entertains them, what they find engaging – all by watching their reactions. This, Iwata explained, is how Miyamoto measures success in game development.  It was just one point of many in hopes that third party developers might start looking at their creative process in a new way – maximizing their resources.

Do you want to hear more about Miyamoto’s development process and Iwata’s suggestions for third party developers?  Let us know!

Nintendo Wii owners have long awaited the official announcement of Nintendo’s “Storage Solution,” for the Wii.  Previously limited to playing games stored on the console’s internal memory, Wii owners were often forced to “clean out the ‘fridge” to download new WiiWare and Virtual Console games.  The process of transferring games back and forth from system memory to SD card was time consuming, cumbersome, and aggravating – but that problem ends today.

At today’s 2009 Nintendo Keynote at GDC San Francisco, Nintendo announced the WIi System Menu 4.0, available for download today!  The new menu adds an “SD” menu where WiiWare and Virtual Console games can be viewed, booted, and played directly from the SD card.  The update also adds SDHC support, which means your Wii is now capable of supporting high capacity SD cards – giving you up to 32 gigabytes of additional storage for your Wii!  What does this REALLY mean? It means that with a 32GB SD card and Wii System Menu 4.0, your Wii can hold an additional 240 Wiiware and Virtual Console titles.

This update is long overdue, and although we’re happy to have it – it should have been introduced in the same quarter as WiiWare.

What are you going to do with your newfound space?  Does this solution work for you? Tell us what you think in the comments!