Wii RapidFire Kit by Acidmods.COM from CyberPyrot on Vimeo.
Here’s a pretty simple Wiimote hack that will take you back in time and get you all nostalgic for those days when the NES Advantage gave you “turbo” fire while playing the classics. Is it cheating? We don’t care. It was awesome and many games fell to the magic of turbo-firing. The hack even makes your Wiimote look cool with a new LED light, but mostly you’ll have rapid fire on virtually every wii game.

These Wii dogs win any costume contest hands paws down. Now I have a burning desire to see a Wiener dog as a Wiimote. While the dogs look thoroughly humiliated, this sort of thing pleases humans. How about a cat connected to the Wiimote dog, acting as a Nunchuk? Just awesome. Truly awesome. They even went so far as to recreate the wrist strap. I just hope the creator got them out of costume before they made Wii-wee.

Nintendo has come up with a solution to the number one issue that Wii gamers face. Storage. And yes the solution is obvious. During the Japan fall press conference they announced that in the spring of 2009, gamers can expect the ability to load and play software directly from an SD card in your SD slot, as well as download items directly to the SD card. There’s a 2GB maximum, so you’ll want to stock up on 2GB SD cards. I guess it’s better then another peripheral to clutter up our lives.

Cue 2001 theme, but think “2011: The Year Wii Makes Contact”. 2011 is three years from now. So you would expect a new Wii by then right? HD would be nice on a new console. Word is that they are showing off a Wii-HD to developers and publishers, who’ve nicknamed it “Wii HD”. Reportedly, the followup will stick with all of the motion control goodness and amp up graphics, digital distribution, local storage and even be backwards compatible.

The only hard evidence was cited by What They Play, and that is the fact that Nintendo’s R&D spending has grown greatly since the Wii’s launch. I don’t see that that makes the case for a new Wii by itself, but it’s not a stretch as they are surely looking toward the future of the Wii. Many of us would like to see some improvements now rather then later. Like storage for instance.

Thrustmaster is getting in on the fake lightsaber game too with these Glow Sabers, which may arguably be the best take on the Wii lightsaber yet with their attention to detail. They actually resemble Jedi instruments of death.

The red and blue dueling Glow Sabers each have 17 LEDs and the Dual Trigger Gun comes complete with a Nunchuck holster. The Glow Saber 2-pack can be had right about now for $34.99, while the Dual Trigger Gun will be available shortly for $17.99. Pretty sweet deal.

I hear ya. The Wii and DS already have Wi-Fi. True, but this device is a Wi-Fi router/bridge for those who don’t have wireless networks. Even when you do have a wireless network, it can be a pain to get your Wii set up depending on your provider. The device will be available in Japan on September 18th for $53.

Obviously it resembles one of those Wii knockoff jobs from China, but it’s the real deal. The adapter has a switch for three modes on back: “Router”, “Bridge” and “Auto”. “Router” is self-explanatory, while “Bridge” connects to another router and then communicates with the Nintendo DS and Wii. “Auto” will switch the household’s network over automatically.

Wood classes up almost any gadget. Even simple USB drives. But when you give the Wii a woodgrain makeover, the result is simply awesome. It’s as if the the old Atari woodgrain consoles merged with the Wii. Much better then boring Wii white. For now it’s just a concept design by Joe D, which is a shame. Nintendo would sell a ton of product.

Joe’s concept apparently has a layer of woodgrain veneer on the Wii-Mote, Nunchuk, even the Classic Controller and Nyko Perfect Shot. That’s sweet enough, but he also gave the controllers get some bright white backlit buttons and black paint to bring out the wood. Once you see design like this it’s hard to come back to reality and pick up your white wiimote.

Hackers will get a machine to do all kinds of things that it should do, but doesn’t. Correcting the oversights of those damn lazy companies. We want things the way we want them. That’s why some Wii coders have made it so the Wii can have DVD playback.

It’s done by installing a hidden channel on the console, which gives it a DVD access library so you can watch all your favorite dvds with the MPlayer application, an open source media player. The install file works on both modded and unmodded Wiis. They are apparently experimenting with playing media from SD cards as well. Now you’ll be able to watch any DVD you want one last time before Blu-Ray creeps into your life.

Apparently it’s a true story, even though it sounds more like a comedy movie. A kid named Yang from China wasn’t to happy that his parents refused to buy him a Wii. So he found a couple of lowlife friends and faked his own kidnapping.

The ransom they demanded was $1,400 USD. The geniuses got nabbed trying to withdraw it from an ATM machine. Yang’s cut of the money would have bought him a Wii for sure, although I’m certain it would have been suspicious that he suddenly has a Wii right after.

The company that worked with Nintendo on the MotionPlus controller add-on, has now released a video that demonstrates the capabilities of the new hardware using 3D tools called LiveMove2. Turns out that the 1:1 tracking is really 1:1. Also the response time is pretty instant.

Before you know it they’re playing with lightsabers and fighting off Seeker Drones, then tossing around a 3D dummy with the lightsaber. All in all a lot of fun. The end result is that this technology can map incredibly complex motions to even more specific commands then before. It’s pretty damn impressive.

This is the second Wiimote charging station we’ve seen in a week’s time. First Sanyo’s Eneloop, now this 4x charging station from Penguin United hits the scene.

This one has Li-ion batteries that promise to give you 13 full hours of playtime from each Wiimote. And it juices them up in just 4 hours, with LEDs to show you charging levels. They’ll cost you $44.99 and insure that you always have a Wiimote ready.

Canoing is supposed to be about the great outdoors, exercise and relaxation. But for nerds, canoing is like anything else, it needs to be modded for laziness and the end result should be a lot like sitting on the couch and playing a game. Mission accomplished.

This guy made a small electric motor that’s controllable via a Wiimote. The result is that the canoe is steered by finger movement. Sure it would have been cooler to see him control the rowing by wiimote, or have the canoe walk itself into the water, but I’m sure this is just a geek stepping stone to bigger things.

Here’s something else to complain about when it comes to Nintendo’s constant need to keep things away from American hands. A new partnership between Nintendo and Fujifilm is spawning the Wii Digicam Print Channel, which is immediately available for Japanese Wii consoles to access.

It lets owners upload images from SD cards and get customized prints, photo books, business cards, and more in the mail. I’m not entirely sure why they feel the need to waste resources on this one when people can just use their computer, but I’m sure one or two people will love it. Probably the same people who bought the gameboy printer. It will likely hit North America and Europe at some point in the future.

When the Wii game console could only play media on external discs the issue of storage was not a problem, but now that owners can download, store and play games online the issue of storage, as with competitor consoles such as the PS3 and Xbox 360, has suddenly become an issue.

Sure you can store some data onto SD cards and swap things in and out of 512MB of internal Wii storage, but that capacity is quickly becoming inadequate and is putting a damper on those wanting to download a lot of games not to mention the ability for Nintendo to sell more games online.

Settle down now. I didn’t mention Batman or Spiderman, now did I? A Japanese joint venture between several comic loving entities will be distributing digital comic books to the Nintendo Wii through the Internet. Again, settle down. The service will be available to those in Japan only.

In fact, the digital content delivery service has already begun, and they are working on being able to transfer the data to the DS Lite platform down the road. This means that it’s only a matter of time until we can get actual Marvel or DC comics delivered to our Wii. And that is the most awesomest thing ever. But for now, just settle down.