*Now that we have your attention, JB HiFi is running a deal which allows Wii owners to get their hands on Mario Kart Wii without forking out any cash at all. Nothing in this world that is worth having is free though, and as such you are required to trade in two of your old Wii games.

Be sure to check the list of games that don’t count as a trade-in for this offer before you head to the store.

PalGN has posted up a whole range of new screenshots for the impending arrival of Mario Kart Wii game. These new screenshots bring us a taste of what to expect in the online play feature.

With the games recent release in Europe and Japan lots of details have emerged. There are a total of 32 courses, 16 old ones, and 16 brand new tracks. Alongside this, two new characters (Baby Peach and Boo) are playable drivers as well as your own home-made Mii characters. Also in a first for Mario Kart games, motorbikes are available as vehicles in 100cc and 150cc modes.

The ships with a steering wheel and the controller will slot into this framing. Only one is included though, but it is possible to purchase additional wheels.

We have 10 days to go until the April 24th release date, time to get excited!

With the highly popular Guitar Hero slowly slipping down the sales charts, it’s a welcome announcement that Harmonix are developing Rock Band for the Wii console.

Unfortunately, even though Wii has the online capabilities, the developers have decided against having downloadable content and online play available when the game launches later this year. No Australian release date is confirmed yet but I think we can expect to see it in the second half of ‘08.

The Nintendo Wi-Fi connection which allows Wii users to play multiplayer online games has been completely free to use since it’s launch. That is soon to change however with the announcement that Nintendo plans to introduce charges in order to make use of the online play capabilities of some games. By introducing this cost, Nintendo believes they can make full use of the online play option and offer features that were previously impossible.

Our guess is that this decision will have been made hand in hand with the upcoming Animal Crossing game. In order to have a fully thriving online community and perhaps even economy within the game, it might be necessary for Nintendo to charge a nominal fee to the user.

It’s been revealed today that games originally developed for the Sega Master System will soon be ported to and available on the Wii’s Virtual Console. Game prices are set to be around 500 points and the releases are set to begin in February, with Fist of the North Star and Fantasy Zone finding their way onto the virtual console. It might be a while longer before we see them here though, with these initially touted dates expected only to be Japanese release dates.

While many were shocked by the uniting of two of the gaming industry’s biggest rivals, Mario and Sonic’s groundbreaking truce has lead to an unlikely Christmas period bestseller. Mario and Sonic at the Olympics for the Nintendo Wii was the top selling game over the holidays (based on US stats), beating Call of Duty 4 for the Xbox 360 and many other great games to the number one spot. We haven’t got our hands on a copy yet but based on these figures maybe we should.

A member on tehskeen.com, a lesser known tech community, has released a small piece of software which enables users to decode the ISO’s from which Wii games are run. They essentially store all the info about that game and by being able to see this info, it’s thought that we are now only a whisker away from seeing the Wii fully open up to homebrew software.

Yes Mario, you have every right to be angry and confused as Nintendo having already delayed the North American release date of the Wii version of Super Smash Bros, will still not give us a release date for PAL regions Europe and Australia. At least we have one bit of info which is that the Sheikh, a character in the Zelda series will be making their fighting debut in Brawl.

Nintendo has released a statement responding to reports of their annual and seasonal sales totals. Not only were the Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii the top sellers over the christmas period, they were top sellers for the entire of 2007. Although the statistics quoted are from a US report, it can be expected that similar results will be announced here in Australia. After the comparitive flop that was the Gamecube, it seems Nintendo has pulled out of the rut and our on the up and up.

Just 4 days now until the 29th November release date for the highly anticipated Super Mario Galaxy game. The game has received rave reviews thus far and it appears as though it is going to be a game that defines the Wii in the industry. In it’s US release earlier this month, Galaxy became the fastest selling Wii game yet, shifting 500,000 copies in just a single week. I hope everyone has their money saved up as this game seems as though it will be a must buy for any and every Wii owner.