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The weekly Virtual Console and WiiWare updates are here, making available two new games for download: Evasive Space, a new WiiWare title, and Life Force, a classic NES shooter. The former is 1,000 Wii points, while the latter will cost you 500.

Hit the jump for details on each title.

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Over at Joystiq they're reporting that the NPD, Enterbrain, and GfK Chart-Track numbers for software sales from the past year have been compiled, revealing the industry's top-selling titles for 2008 in the U.S., U.K. and Japan:

• Mario Kart Wii - 8.94 million
• Wii Fit - 8.31 million
• Grand Theft Auto IV - 7.29 million
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl- 6.32 million
• Call of Duty: World at War- 5.89 million

Also, according to the report, the U.S. and U.K. markets both saw significant gains in sales at 15 and 26 percent, respectively, and the Japanese market took a big dip, dropping 13 percent.
 
It's not surprising that the best-selling games were either first-party Wii titles or established core games that appeal to a broader audience, seeing how creativity hasn't lent itself well to high sales figures over the past few years.

Overall, though, the industry is doing better than ever from a sales standpoint, but whether it's in good condition or not is a highly debatable topic depending on how you feel about the impact of the casual player upon gaming.

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It's been four years since the launch of DS and two years since the launch of the Wii, but it seems like neither system is showing any signs of slowing down when it comes to the sales charts, and that's never been more apparent, as the Toys "R" Us in Times Square has opened an entire department dedicated to everything Nintendo.

MarketWatch has an article up about the new department, which is around 1,000 square feet and is located on Level One of the store. It features a slew of Wii and DS demo stations along with a gallery containing images from throughout Nintendo's history.

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While it was a great idea to bring Samba de Amigo, an old Dreamcast game in which you play Latin songs with two maraca peripherals, to the Wii, the final product suffers greatly from absurdly imprecise controls. It's difficult to have fun playing various tracks when you're frustrated to the point of violence at how hard it is to line up the Wii remote and nunchuck's cursors with the symbols on screen. Stay away unless you are really itching for yet another rhythm game to play.



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Let me be honest: I never played the original Samba de Amigo. I don't know how fun it was, nor do I know whether or not this Wii port does a good job of replicating the original's gameplay. What I do know is that this version of the game isn't good.

My complaint has nothing to do with the colorful, friendly presentation or the cheesy Latin music or the dancing animals or the core gameplay element itself, even if it is a little antiquated in this new era of rhythm games. Nay, all my problems with this game boil down to one thing: controls.  This game controls horrendously, and it makes what could be a great experience into a nightmare.

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Turns out that the Wii won't be getting this week's Guitar Hero World Tour Jimi Hendrix pack after all, as a representative from Activision Blizzard has confirmed to MTV's Multiplayer Blog that the console won't be getting the download pack.

“Due to technical or licensing restrictions, the DLC offerings will not be the same for every console platform,” the representative told Multiplayer's Patrick Klepek. “For example, certain artists prefer to keep the integrity of the track pack rather than releasing singles and the Wii’s infrastructure only allows us the ability to release single songs as DLC.”

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I'm beginning to think that I'm turning into a shameless NIS shill, but I can't help the fact that I keep coming across NIS related information this week. On November 4th NIS signed a contract that made them an official Wii developer. Their first title is tentatively titled and dated "Let's Hitchhike" and March 09, respectively. That's all there really is to know just yet. I suppose one could expect NIS to push their PS2 style sprites onto the Wii. Personally, I'm rather interested in see how this effects their PlayStation 3 Development.

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One of the more exciting announcements to come out of Nintendo's latest press conference was the revelation that Punch-Out!! Wii is in the works. Besides the 2009 release date, there aren't any details to be had, but a trailer has been made available. Check it out after the jump.

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I never thought I would say this, but I think technology is moving too fast.  Perhaps I'm growing old, but it seems as if this generation has hardly learned to crawl and already there are rumors of the next generation of consoles due in 3 years.

Within the last 24 hours, rumors for both the PS4 and Wii HD have surfaced on the web.  Just for safety's sake, they're rumors, again, rumors.  That being said, it's not implausible that both are interested in getting onto the market first after seeing how much having a first place spot helped the Xbox 360 and PS2 (Let's ignore Dreamcast for argument's sake.) 

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The weekly update for the Wii's Virtual Console is here, featuring two new WiiWare titles: Art Style: Orbient and Bomberman Blast, priced at 600 and 1,000 Wii Points, respectively.

For the Virtual Console, Nintendo released Super Terrican 2 (Super NES) for 800 Wii Points.

Hit the jump for a list of details for all the games.

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