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Shigeru Miyamoto had an interview in the 100th issue of Weekly Famitsu. He talked about how the GameCube failed, and it went on to influence the creation of the Wii. Miyamoto said that the GameCube controller was the pinnacle of controllers, and if it couldn’t help the GameCube to sell, that there must be some other way to engage new players.

Miyamoto also said that when creating the DS he wanted mothers to enjoy it, and be happy to see their children playing as they are when they see their children watching a Disney movie.

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The Wii controller has had a ton of peripherals, accessories and add-ons in it’s life, but here’s one that may be the most practical yet.

Peripheral veterans Nyko have announced that they are releasing a Nunchuck controller for the Wii where the two halves aren’t connected by a cable. But owners of wired controllers need not fear, because Nyko are also releasing an adaptor which transforms the standard Wii controller into a wireless one! (see image)

Both of these products have been announced for a February release, though it’s not clear if this is a worldwide release or just the US release.

So does this mean we won’t be able to call it the ‘Nunchuck’ anymore?

Nintendo has announced that life-to-date sales of the Wii have now passed 20 million units worldwide, totalling 20.13 million as of December 31, 2007. This means that in just over one year the motion-controlled console has almost caught up lifetime sales of the GameCube (21.72 million units). This also means that, when broken down, three Wii’s were sold every four seconds worldwide in 2007. Amazon alone sold a Wii every 17 seconds last year - pretty amazing!

The Wii’s 20 million units break down to 8.85 million in the Americas, 4.99 million in Japan and 6.3 million across other territories including Europe.

The Wii has overcome all the shortcomings of the GameCube and truly made Nintendo a competitor again.

Since the dawn of the Wii gamers have begged for a channel that lets us taste the Virtual Console games before we play them. In a strange move Smash Bros Brawl will feature over a dozen demos of Nintendo masterpiece games, some of them being unlockable. Of course there will be restrictions on these trials, many of them by time limits. Titles that will be available out of the box are Ice Climbers, Super Mario Bros, Kid Icarus and Kirby’s Adventure to name a few. Japan even gets Mother 2. And to think there wasn’t already enough to fit onto this disc!

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