Ok, so I have been sick of seeing Monopoly this and Monopoly that, for years now. Every time you turn around there’s a new one and I always imagine some lonely geek collecting each one and storing it away as they come out. But this latest Monopoly game I might actually buy and it might even make me want to play again.

This one features Mario, Luigi, Link, Zelda, Kirby, and other NES icons. The box comes with 6 collectible pewter tokens including Donkey Kong’s Barrel, Link’s Iron Boots, Hylian Shield, NES Controller, Mario’s Cap, and a Koopa Shell. I especially like the NES Controller. The Collectors Edition Nintendo Monopoly retails for just $33.00. As usual, it’s the same exact game. It just has Nintendo graphics everywhere.

Remember those new DS colors that we told you about the other day? Looks like the rumors were true. For Europe anyway, which would explain why they showed up on a Spanish site.

Nintendo has begun distributing these advertisements which show some new colors for the European market. Europe needs some more colors too. They haven’t had as many as the U.S. No word on when they might hit here. These will hit stores on June 13th. Look at all those pretty colors. It’s like Easter without the eggs.

If you’re anxious to get rid of some of that excess flab, you may be in for a disappointment. First Nintendo had a launch date of today, but it turns out that this was only applicable to the Nintendo World Store launch in New York. The rest of the out-of-shape in the country still have to wait until May 21 to get their hands on the Wii Fit.

Thing is, if you didn’t preorder a unit, you might not be getting on May 21st. Gamestop’s online store has them temporarily-out-of-stock, and Amazon stopped online preorders awhile ago, with 2.5 units being sold every minute. Your best bet is to get to your local video game retailer bright and early on Wednesday, since things are not looking good.

Beginning today, the Wii Fit (the accessory that’s bound to have a Richard Simmons Sweatin’ To The Oldies game in the future) is finally available to some large mammals in the U.S., starting with residents of New York City. It is currently only available at the Nintendo World store in Rockefeller Center right now. The rest of the country will have to wait until Wednesday to work off their double cheeseburgers with the $90 Wii item.

It obviously won’t replace visits to the gym, but once it is widely available, it will be interesting to see if it has any effect at all on our nations obesity problem. My guess is, most people will tire of it quickly and go back to getting their exercise in a line waiting for their fries.

Nintendo must have had some great feedback about the Metallic Rose Nintendo DS that came in the Nintendogs bundle, or it just didn’t do well and they have a lot of extras without the paw print. Either way the company is launching metallic rose as another standalone color for the lineup of DS’s, not to be confuse with the standard pink.

Some celebs by the names of America Ferrera and Carrie Underwood are going to also help push the latest DS in some commercials starting May 19. No pricing has been released but we would guess this model would be priced the same as the other standalone DS hardware systems.

For some reason it just seems nicer to me when I have some type of cradle, dock or stand to charge my gadgets with instead of just a cord and naturally we were excited to see this charging stand for the Nintendo DS Lite. Sure the docks take up more room on my desk and are difficult to take along when you travel, but with them each items has their own neat and special place.

This stand looks to take up a little less space then it could, holding the DS upright on its side instead of flat. It comes in colors of black or white to match the black and white DS’s, and is expected to be available from PlayAsia sometime yet this month for just under $17 USD.

You might remember Anascape Ltd, the company that sued Microsoft and Nintendo back in 2006 for controller patent infringement. Well, they’re getting a huge payday of $21 million. A jury found that Nintendo’s Wii Classic, WaveBird, and Gamecube controller designs are all guilty of violating Anascape’s patents. Nintendo will of course appeal, probably telling the judge that nothing can touch them while they are using Mario’s “star power”.

Microsoft settled the case before the matter went to trial. Aside from this case, how many of you have ever heard of Anascape? Do they provide any products or services? Not really, aside from getting money for patents. They need a few Goombas sent their way.

Microsoft is touting some new statistics trying to gain some additional momentum for the Xbox 360 game console, stating that in the U.S. they have sold 10 million units. There is no refuting that this is quite an accomplishment, but Microsoft is trying to add some more significance to the 10 million unit mark.

“History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle. We are uniquely positioned to set a new benchmark for the industry, ” said Don Mattrick, senior vice president of the Interactive Entertainment Business in the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft.

Obviously the Wii Fit will be one of the best sellers for Nintendo this summer, and the concept of fun exercise is very appealing to large mammals. It’s appealing to Atari too. Atari is releasing their own version of a fitness game called Family Trainer. In Atari’s version, you don’t use a step-on board like Wii Fit, the Family Trainer uses a floor mat similar to the DDR pad.(Is this thing going to slide and hurt people?)

Family Trainer features several virtual outdoor challenges like river rafting, log jumping, etc. Atari has plans to release Family Trainer in Europe this September. No information on pricing, but expect it to be comparable to Wii Fit.

Of all the emotions we go through when playing games, frustration is probably the dominant one. Here, we have a psycological profile of the gamecube come to life. In the fall of 2003, Kathryn Elliot was asked to pick up a product, analyze the intricacies of color involved, then redesign it based on a dominant emotion associated with it. She chose Nintendo’s GameCube, so it was naturally going to depict frustration. She named it the Frustration Game Cube. Or Frube. It’s designed to aggravate, portray and possibly even relieve a player’s frustration, with Frube’s many changes.

To highlight an element of frustration in the color scheme of the gaming device, she colored the GameCube purple and yellow, which are aggressive colors. The shape of Frube further irritates as it will no longer sit on a shelf easily. Some other design changes are asymmetrical position of the front plug-in panel and a jagged cut lid, which makes it difficult to figure out which side opens and how.

Nintendo has announced the launch of its WiiWare game download service for the Nintendo Wii. This launch comes almost a year after Nintendo announced the WiiWare game development platform last June. If you’ve hooked up your Wii game console to the Internet you can connect to the Wii shop channel, buy some Wii points and start downloading some new games online.

The Wii points exchange rate is at $1 USD to 100 Wii points and the online games run from 500 to 1,500 Wii points each with six games initially available. The service offers games built my independent developers that they can then post and sell through the Wii Shop Channel. The initial game lineup is different in the U.S. than those launching in Japan with the single exception of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As a King, which launches in both.

This week EA announced the release of Boom Blox for the Nintendo Wii, the first game created by the company in partnership with Steven Spielberg. The game takes players through a destructive path of blowing their way through puzzling challenges in 5 different “worlds” as a single player, co-op or multi-player modes for up to 4 players at a time.

The game features more than two dozen “blocky” characters, each with their own personality and of course with Steve Spielberg involved there ended up being a lot of “explosive action” throughout the game. Through funny gestures by the characters and using some potentially destructive tools in the game such as bowling balls and fire hoses players can bust their way through the challenges.

I just found myself back in 1984, but in an alternate reality. If I can I’m gonna stay awhile, cause this redesigned NES kicks all kinds of ass. Look at those curves. The controllers look like delicious and super sexy candy bars.

You can thank Javier Segovia, a digital artist from Spain, for this magnificent bit of eye candy. This is his vision of an updated, redesigned Nintendo Entertainment System. Appropriately, he calls it reNESED. Oh yeah. Several geeks have just wet themselves and have become drooling vegetables.

Walmart is moving in a more creative direction for the latest upcoming holiday and is promoting Nintendo’s Wii Fit as a “perfect gift for moms” for this Mothers Day. The retail giant has thrown traditional flowers and candy out the window as the Nintendo product is dominating the Walmart website home page with pre-orders for just under $90. The orders even come with a $10 gift card to Walmart so you can come back and get yourself a little something extra later on. The site’s home page portrays kids and men using the Wii Fit board as well, not to miss out on any type of demographic.

Walmart’s Mothers Day Wii Fit pre-order promotion with the gift card runs through May 11 and the Wii Fit will officially launch on May 19 for $89.99. Walmart will ship any pre-orders on or shortly after May 21 and ensures consumers that they been working with Nintendo to have adequate inventory to fill the pre-orders.

It seems that the days of drivers ed courses and gory safety videos are becoming a thing of the past. Soon teenagers will be able to prepare for the written portion of their driver’s license exam with the Drivers Ed Portable for the Nintendo DS. It was developed by DreamCatcher Games and JoWooD Productions. The idea is to give people a fun way to study the material. Let’s just hope that this title conveys the seriousness of the rules of the road and doesn’t have teens expecting to shoot red or green shells at their opponents.

The game will feature two modes: Test and Train. Test mode will have some sample tests for the written part of the driver’s license examination for all 50 US states, 13 Canadian provinces and territories, as well as Spain, Italy, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. User progress is tracked, so the player will know where they need to improve in order to be successful in the real life test. Train mode will include three fun and educational mini-games. I think it might be a good idea to get off the road very soon. Damn kids and their Nintendo.