(Let’s unwrap. Future unwrapping game.)

So I bought the EU version of Let’s Tap today, which might just be the most fun I’ve ever had opening a videogame before. And yes, I know I should probably get out more. Anyway, it starts with an almost-but-not-quite-A4-sized box like this.

Slide the lovely, colourful slipcase off and you get this…

…one of the tap boxes required to control the game (in case you don’t know, you control Let’s Tap by resting the Wii remote upside down on one of these and tap the box, with the vibrations registered as control inputs). Open that up and you get…

…another tap box! And finally, inside that box…

…you get a cardboard insert keeping the game itself all warm and snug. Aww. It’s like a solo game of pass-the-parcel.

Anyway, fantastic stuff, and almost worth buying Let’s Tap for alone, especially at the rather bargainous RRP of £24.99 (though a quick shuftie online should net you the game for over a fiver less). As you may recall, I rather enjoyed the Japanese version of Let’s Tap, and am looking forward to reacquainting myself with this altogether unique Wii game.

There’s an additional surprise, too. If you have save data for Prope’s WiiWare title Let’s Catch (which launched on the service yesterday for 1000 points) you can unlock bonuses for three of Let’s Tap’s five main game modes.

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The game's Power Cruising mode looks to have a couple of variations.

A little unenthused about Wii Sports Resort after Nintendo’s lacklustre onstage presentation at E3? This here video could well change your mind.

If you can cope with the frequent pauses (it seems Nintendo of Japan hasn’t quite got the hang of how to make a video buffer effectively), then you’ll see a game with much more to it than the original - a fact which was hardly made clear by the game’s E3 showing. Twelve events, some of which appear to have multiple modes, and from the looks of things there are certain individual challenges (that basketball clip near the end as some sort of certificate is awarded is surely evidence of that).

I’m also really keen on the resort hub. While Wii Sports was fun, the events felt disconnected. There’s much more charm to an island environment filled with Miis, and I’m hoping that during the aeroplane sections you’ll be able to swoop down and see characters from your Mii Plaza duking it out with swords, shooting hoops, or wakeboarding in the surf.

The clip instantly shot the game to the very top of my wanted list for this year, and the thrilling news that I’ll likely be getting my hands on it in three weeks (when the Japanese version launches) has me very excited indeed.

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Issue 202 of Edge magazine is thudding onto subscriber doormats as I write this, and this month’s mag has plenty to interest Nintendoites.

Space Invaders Extreme 2 gets a 9/10 review, there’s a very positive preview piece on Punch-Out!! and there’s an interview with the key players of Japanese developer CiNG, creator of Hotel Dusk and Another Code R.

But most exciting of all is the next month page - at least, unless my eyes are playing tricks on me. It shows a close up picture of a seemingly featureless patch of grass, but in the top right-hand corner is a tiny little lilac-coloured blob, which looks very much like a Pikmin.

Does this mean the magazine will be talking about Pikmin 3 next month? Or is my imagination running riot over this seemingly incongruous tiny spot of colour? It’s so small that there’s no point in me posting a scan of the page (though that in itself would be a little naughty) so for the moment file this under ‘rumour and speculation’.

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Sad times for the former King of Pop - he’s now so skint he’s even having to auction off his collection of arcade machines - and there’s some great stuff in there. I never really had Wacko down as a gamer, but he’s got a wide range of cabs, from the nostalgia-inducing to the ultra-rare.

Visit Julien’s Auctions and you can have a look at the items which are going under the hammer on April 24th. A Virtual Boy in its stand-up store display is one of the highlights, but there’s also an N64 unit, and several Nintendo-related arcade classics, like Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. Plenty of other machines of interest there, too - and the starting prices are absurdly low considering some of these are genuine collector’s items.

Expect the prices to rise and rise as wealthy gamers start upping the ante, but for now, $100-$150 is the price for Gunpei Yokoi’s legendary cornea-scorcher - should you fancy giving yourself a permanent headache, that’s all the Virtual Boy will cost you. Bargain!

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UPDATE: Nintendo of Europe has said it’s “too early” for its own Q2 list. Expect that at some point in March, probably in two or three weeks.

NOA has released an uncharacteristically early list of titles which will be released in the second quarter of this year, including a date for Punch-Out!!, the announcement of an Excite Truck spin-off and the news that popular Japanese character Starfy will finally be making his western debut this May.

The big surprise - shocking in a where-the-hell-did-that-come-from kind of way - is Excitebots: Trick Racing. Apparently building on the Excitebike and Excite Truck franchises, it “lets everyone in the family use the Wii Wheel accessory in unique and changing environments, play fun minigames and perform crazy tricks”. In other words, it’s about as hardcore as Scouting For Girls, but hopefully not quite so fist-chewingly hateful.

Donkey Kong Jungle Beat gets a five-months-late localisation in the New Play Control range on May 4th, while Punch-Out!! is out two weeks later, and has some rather spiffy boxart, as you can see above.

Pleasingly, Nintendo has made a bit of a fuss about a few titles coming to WiiWare - Bit.Trip Beat and Eduardo the Samurai Toaster joined on the official press release by Swords and Soldiers and a new title named Night Game from the makers of Cave Story - the latter also coming to WiiWare soon.

The launch of Rhythm Heaven alongside DSi is confirmed, while Personal Trainer: Walking is a handheld accompaniment to Wii Fit which includes two pedometers, and the first use of Miis on the DS. Meanwhile, The Legendary Starfy will be released on June 8th - nice to see it arrive, but it’s nothing to get massively excited about. One for the kids, definitely.

It is, of course, a partial list, so best not to get too irate about any omissions, both non-surprising (Another Code, Fatal Frame) and faintly worrying (Wii Sports Resort). With MotionPlus guaranteed to launch before May, the latter is probably pencilled in for an April release - the gap between the New Play Control pairing of Mario Tennis and Pikmin (March 9th) and Excitebots (April 20th) surely a bit of free space for a first-party biggie. One cry-making absentee - Mario and Luigi RPG 3. Let’s hope that one’s just waiting on a concrete date.

Elsewhere, there’s little on the third-party list that’s too surprising, though I’m heartened to see giganto-quiff detective Jake Hunter make a reappearance in a new adventure named Memories of the Past. The first one was pretty naff - albeit charmingly so - but definitely had promise. An improved sequel would go down like a sack of potatoes, to paraphrase a line from the original.

The full list can be found after the jump. Nintendo of Europe, your move.

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Big news in the Japanese hardware charts this week - Microsoft’s Xbox 360 not only shifted more units than Sony’s HD rival, but also managed to outsell Wii, and by quite some margin to boot.

For the week ending 22nd February, the 360 topped home console sales with 21,013, more than four thousand ahead of Wii on 16,900. Meanwhile, Sony is snapping hard on Nintendo’s heels with 15,967 PS3s sold for the week (these figures taken from CVG.com).

The software charts make the reason for the 360 spike obvious - Square-Enix role-player Star Ocean: The Last Hope, sold a whopping 162,000 copies, easily beating last week’s chart topper, Mario and Luigi RPG 3, into second place, the latter suffering a large drop in sales to 62,000 units on its second week of release.

The other big success was the PSP, with poptastic starlet-grooming franchise Idolmaster greedily hogging three chart positions, with the Perfect Sun, Missing Moon and Wandering Star variations snaffling third, fourth and fifth place respectively. Shining Force Feather kept the DS’s end up, taking sixth spot with 30,000 copies sold.

Thanks to GAF for the software numbers.

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Mario & Luigi RPG 3, as predicted, topped the charts, but there was a disconcerting lack of Wii games in the Japanese top ten this week, as Sony dominated the upper echelons of the chart.Though some were predicting even higher numbers for Mario & Luigi, just under 200,000 copies is by some distance the best first week for the handheld franchise. Indeed, it beat the first week sales of both Superstar Saga and Partners in Time combined. A localisation really can’t come soon enough (will it launch alongside the DSi in Europe perhaps?)

Elsewhere, the sole other Nintendo console representative was the DS version of Echoes of time, hanging in there with a small drop in sales this week to a still-healthy 20,000 units. The Wii take on the game is outside the top 30 despite a hefty price cut. Ouch.

Meanwhile, Street Fighter IV was the other dominant force, the exceptional revival of the 2D beat-em-up genre’s most famous series coming in at second on PS3 and 5th for the 360 iteration. Many Japanese stores reported selling out, which, assuming Capcom gets plenty of stock back in, could make it a contender for the top next week (though Xbox 360 exclusive RPG, Star Ocean 4, could yet have a say).

Full chart below - hardware will follow tomorrow.

01. [NDS] Mario & Luigi RPG 3 (Nintendo) 193,000 / NEW
02. [PS3] Street Fighter IV (Capcom) 86,000 / NEW
03. [PSP] Kidou Senshi Gundam: Giren no Yabou (Namco Bandai) 40,000 / NEW
04. [PS2] Kidou Senshi Gundam: Giren no Yabou (Namco Bandai) 38,000 / NEW
05. [360] Street Fighter IV (Capcom) 38,000 / NEW
06. [PSP] Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 (Konami) 27,000 / 174,000
07. [PS2] Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 (Konami) 25,000 / 170,000
08. [PS3] Demon’s Souls (SCE) 22,000 / 62,000
09. [PSP] Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 (Namco Bandai) 22,000 / 280,000
10. [NDS] Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (Square Enix) 20,000 / 156,000

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In a surprising move for a new Japanese IP, Rising Star Games today announced that strategy role-player Little King’s Story will launch in Europe before any other territory, hitting PAL shores on April 24th.

The much-anticipated Wii title is a collaboration between some of Japanese gaming’s biggest names, who’ve individually worked on quality titles such as Harvest Moon, No More Heroes, Final Fantasy XII and Super Mario RPG. In other words, it’s a bit of a developer dream team.

It’s all about building a kingdom, which suggests hints of WiiWare title My Life as a King, yet this offers a more hands-on approach, with the Lilliputian monarch literally leading his followers as they attempt to expand the kingdom and ward off any unwanted intruders.

To celebrate the forthcoming release, Rising Star has shown off a couple of bits of character art, an example of which can be seen above. Early word has been very positive, and hopefully this will live up to its immense potential and become a hardcore Wii game to treasure over the usually fallow Spring months.

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A nice spot from GoNintendo here - Nintendo has some new info on its official Japanese site which says that Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai is involved in a brand new project. Naturally, this being Nintendo, there are few concrete details, but it seems to be a new second-party company working under Nintendo named Project Sora, whose rather clinical looking official site can be found here.

GoNintendo also has a quote from Satoru Iwata claiming that the game is “an experience that’s different from anything [you've played] up until now.”

Feel free to start speculating, WiiWii readers. Will this new game use MotionPlus? Will it think outside the box like Yuji Naka’s Let’s Tap? Will it really be different from anything we’ve played before? All these answers, and fewer, will be drip-fed from Nintendo when it deems us plebians are worthy of knowing more.

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It’s a bit of a surprise to say the least (particularly given its low sales in Japan), but Yuji Naka’s Let’s Tap (which, you may recall, I rather liked) will be released in both Europe and the US, Sega announced today.

Perhaps Sega thinks its quirky control scheme will appeal more to western gamers. With the remote placed upside down on a cardboard box, the game reads the vibrations your finger-taps make and registers them as control inputs, such as making a wireframe man run and jump, or setting off ripples in a fish pond in one of the game’s several visualisers. Best of all, the rhythm mode will have you merrily tapping along to the beat with a series of incredibly catchy tunes (including the theme song featured in the YouTube video above).

It’s due for a release at some point this summer. A budget price would be sensible, as would a decent promotional campaign explaining why it’s such a hoot in multiplayer. Even with that, it’s difficult to see such an oddity performing well in the west, but then you could have said that about Wii itself, and now look at it.

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