Kyle Orland, a generous colleague and former blogmate of mine at Joystiq, has released his first book, Wii For Dummies. It’s probably more intended for your mom and grandpa who still don’t know what a Wii Channel is, but informed Wii owners like yourself might still be interested in:

* Ways to prevent damage to — and from — Wii remotes
* How to use the Wii’s full-featured Web browser
* Tips on choosing games
* How to enjoy photos, videos, and slideshows on your Wii
* All about the Wii Message Board
* Five hot Wii-specific Web sites
* How to customize the Channels menu
* Cool Wii games you can download

Jack will have a review posted later this month. You can snag the book from Amazon for $15.

It’s pretty crazy to think about it, but E3, with all its Wii Music-induced Nintendo-is-the-end-of-gaming paranoia, was about two months ago now. And, as predicted, the cacophony of rhetoric and vocal minority-driven criticism has subsided, only to be replaced with cold, hard facts.

Facts like Wario Land: Shake It and Mega Man 9, which will no doubt revolutionize and modernize 2-D platform gaming when they launch this fall. Or the fact that Disaster: Day of Crisis—perpetually delayed, canceled, and then revived for a rumored October release (in Europe)—is actually alive and ready for release, thank you very much. And then there’s The Conduit, now on the cusp of being published and heralded by respected tech blog ars technica as an impressive feather in Wii’s cap.

Hell, even Sadness, like the drunk uncle that shows up at Easter and Christmas, made an appearance in August with admittedly suspect “game play” footage. It’s what we’ve come to expect from the next great vaporware title (behind Duke Nukem Forever, of course), but at least it was something.

The bigger picture in all this (and my point), bigger in fact than whatever “negativity” arose from Nintendo’s kooky E3 keynote, is that each of these titles is pretty mature. They’re also all pretty exclusive, and none of them are technically Nintendo first party IP. Again, I renew my criticism to those who incorrectly belittled Nintendo for treating E3 as the clown-driven, yesterday’s news circus that it was. What’s the deal? It’s time to fess up, grow up, or shut up. Personally, I’d prefer a mashup of all three. (more…)

Nintendo of Europe today confirmed those pesky Oct. 24 release date rumors for Disaster: Day of Crisis. Still no word from Nintendo as to whether the game will be released in other markets this year.

Lots of juicy details are included in the press release:

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Blake hasn’t been sleeping well. He comes into work lethargic and drowsy. Once in a while, he’ll drop whatever he’s doing and start waggling his arms and humming loudly and out of tune.

I think it’s the Wii Music. He went into involuntary convulsions when he saw this logo released by Nintendo. I voluntarily joined him.

You’ve saved the princess. Now be ready to save the people.

Nintendo of Europe earlier today released 78 all-new screenshots of the long-delayed Wii action game Disaster: Day of Crisis. Select shots are posted after the jump, and GoNintendo has uploaded the entire set onto Flickr.

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime first revealed Disaster: Day of Crisis onstage during the company’s E3 2006 press conference. The game has been delayed numerous times since, prompting speculation that the project had been canned.

Yet recent developments suggest otherwise. As reported Wednesday on Infendo, Nintendo has confirmed the project is still alive and in development. With a rumored Oct. 24 European release date and this new batch of screens, the recipe for Disaster seems just right.

Expect official word from Nintendo soon. Until then, here are some catastrophic new screens to tide you over.

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This news broke last week by way of GamePro, but it was seemingly overlooked by announcements coming out of Germany during the Games Convention. In any case, Nintendo is still backing Disaster: Day of Crisis.

“Disaster: Day of Crisis is still in development,” a Nintendo of America representative told GamePro on Monday. Unfortunately, the representative would not comment on a tentative release date or when Nintendo might divulge further information.

Granted, “still in development” doesn’t necessarily mean “actively working on.” But Nintendo fans can take heart that the statement is more official than a rating from the Australian Classification Board.

See also: Disaster: Day of Crisis: What we know

The Nintendo World Store in New York is throwing a Mario Super Sluggers launch party on Sunday August 24th from 12pm to 4pm. Where you can play, sample, and buy the new Baseball game before it is actually released. Not only that but there is probably going to be some games and contests where you can win some prizes or a copy of the game. Now if that didn’t make a perfect launch party, how about getting an Autograph and your picture taken with the voice of Mario, Charles Martinet! Although their might be a slight catch of…

Get an autograph and have your picture taken with Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario, with purchase of Mario Super Sluggers!

So… yeah. However, how often do you get a chance to meet the actual voice of Mario. However, that leaves two questions… What to get signed, and anyone up for a road trip?

Wow. I think I just glimpsed a little bit of Nintendo’s dark side.

If you focus on the negative, all you see is the negative. So says Games Radar writer David Houghton in this spot-on, he-nailed-it top 10 list entitled “10 Reasons to Stay Loyal to Nintendo.” I feel a certain kinship with my loyal UK Nintendo defender, because he see the forest through the trees, is able to look back and forward more than a month, and is completely right. Again, rational thinking trumps all.

A sample here and after the jump, then hit the link for an honest, level-headed assessment of Nintendo.

#5. Third-party developers are seriously getting their sh*t together
So Nintendo doesn’t have a huge amount of hardcore material on the way that we know of, but forget the old “Third-party Wii support sucks” cliche and look at the reality. Madworld, Fatal Frame IV, Dead Rising, Overlord, The Conduit, Mushroom Men, Deadly Creatures, Spore, Facebreaker, Sam & Max, Tenchu… They’re all coming to the Wii, more than a couple of them are exclusives designed specifically for the hardware. And none of them are mini-game collections. The tide, it finally does seem to be turning…

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Chalk this one up to coincidence and an over-active imagination on my part, but there’s an inkling of a possibility that the makers of The Conduit, that hyped FPS for the Wii without a publisher, might have a little coup up their sleeves for the upcoming Penny Arcade Expo.

But first a word or warning: This post is entirely comprised of back channel speculation on the part of Infendo editors in our highly secure Infendo Compound (read: Gmail).

With that out of the way, we ask: Is High Voltage ready to announce that Nintendo will take on The Conduit and make High Voltage a 2nd party developer at PAX? Here’s what we know so far:

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Our elite group of Infendo Ninjas just returned to the underground lair with some good news. Nintendo has confirmed that they will be present at the 2008 Penny Arcade Expo. At this time we do not know exactly what titles will be playable, but my guess is the same games you saw at E3 2008. PAX 2008 will be running August 29th-31st. Be sure to keep checking with Infendo for all developments at this event.

Will you be attending? This means more Wii Music…

Nintendo’s E3 2008 press conference

Or…

Sony’s E3 2006 press conference?

The single postcard delivered by courier pigeon to Infendo’s underground lair today reads:

Thank you for attending our E3 media briefing. Nintendo aims to bring people engaging experiences… to make them smile… and we hope we provided you at least a little of that during our event.

Signed,

Reggie Fils-Aime
Cammie Dunaway
Denise Kaigler

(I was to lazy to take a picture; if it doesn’t show up online, I’ll upload it shortly.)

Just some context for Derek’s classic “When there aren’t any asses left to kick, why not kick your own?” post from this morning…

Apparently 29 of the top 40 games sold in Britain last week were for Nintendo consoles, including the entire top 10. I dare say it’s a nice spread of titles too, with the usual Nintendo chart toppers topping the chart as usual.

And we’re talking about July here, folks, JULY! (click image to maximize)