There’s good news and there’s bad news for the big N. Nintendo’s net sales of $12.4 billion for the period ending on March 31st 2011 was 29 percent less than during the previous year. Also its $825 million of net profit was 66 percent lower than it earned last year. Things are not so great in the Mushroom Kingdom.

However, there is some good news. The 3DS has reached 3.61 million sales worldwide, but at the same time the Wii is down to 15 million global sales, a 25 percent drop from its 2009 total of 20 million. Looks like the timing is perfect for the new console.

People really really love the Mushroom Kingdom. In the first week alone in the US, the big N managed to sell a whooping 435,00 DSi handhelds. Here’s something more amazing. In the month of March Nintendo systems accounted for just under 60 percent of all video game hardware sold in America.

This during a 17 percent drop in Wii sales during the same month. The news definitely gives Mario and Yoshi something to get excited about.

Today at GDC09, Masato Kuwahara, project leader on the development of the Nintendo DSi, gave people a first-ever glimpse at two Game Boy spin-offs that never were. The first a is hefty predecessor to the Game Boy Advance; the second a touch-screen GBA SP.

Kuwahara says that the unnamed Game Boy Color successor was in development in 1995/96 and based on a 32-bit ARM RISC processor. The second, more recent R&D project was essentially a Game Boy Advance SP with a touch-screen over its flip-up display. The guts of the unit were actually from a Game Boy Color. It “was not well received” by Nintendo management.

Brando’s ingenious 7-in-1 USB Charging Cable is like a gadget charging orgy. It provides power for your PSP, DS, DS Lite, DSi and Game Boy Advance handhelds, and all it costs is a USB port and $7. Sure, this cable is a Brando product, and could possibly fry all of your well loved game handhelds, due to it’s questionable craftsmanship, but what is life without some risk.

At $7, what the hell. If it explodes, you’ll have some new parts for a future DIY project. I’ll put it to you, valued readers of the ‘Brick, would you trust Brando’s latest charging gadget with your handhelds?

HM Revenue & Customs has released an official report warning that “hundreds of imported counterfeit game consoles seized at UK freight depots were found to have been supplied with potentially dangerous power adapters.” Most of the consoles had been purchased at a huge discount from Asian websites that claimed to sell “genuine Nintendo products” for over 50% off. Yes, these fakes can kill you.

Nintendo has already confirmed that the DS / DS Lites are counterfeit, and the included power adapters were also labeled “potentially dangerous, since they had not been electronically tested and do not meet strict UK safety standards.” The moral of the story is that parents need to stop buying their kids these cheap-ass imitations.

Are you content with simple multi-touch and built-in accelerometers? Microsoft Research thinks not. In fact they’re already working hard in the labs, toward integrating force-sensing technology. The kind of thing that will enable gestures and let you twist on-screen imagery without making UMPCs out of flexible material.

Those behind the idea feel that such tech would “turn an otherwise passive component that just holds the device together into an active input surface.” Auditory cues might even enable users to be alerted when they’ve applied enough pressure to cause a change. I just figure it’s a great way to play Rubik’s Cube in the future.