Nintendo is counting piles and piles of 3D cash. Without glasses of course. The company has issued a press release claiming that “U.S. day-one sales numbers for Nintendo 3DS were the highest of any Nintendo hand-held system in our history.” To clarify, that’s unit sales.

We don’t have exact numbers, but the big N says that more information will be available when the NPD releases its report on the first-week sales. So it looks like the $250 price point might have been right on target and plenty of fans opened their wallets wide.

The 3DS just went on sale over the weekend here in the US, but the console has been available in Japan since February 26. But are they tired of it yet? It’s starting to look that way. Japanese retail blogs are reporting that the handheld keeps being sold back to stores.

That isn’t good news for Nintendo. So, what is the reason? The black screen of death? Well, it seems that there are many reasons that users are ditching the console. There’s the lack of good games for one, even though that will change. Maybe there is just a general disappointment after the buildup.

If you were hoping to import Japanese games for your US Nintendo 3DS, this is bad news. If you want to play imports, you will have to buy a foreign system since a 3DS from one territory will not play games from another. It won’t even show up in the menu.

This is confirmed for the Japanese version so it is safe to assume that the US version will work the same. To some this is not a deal-breaker, but to others this is a big issue. If you want to play foreign games, you’ll need a 3DS from the same country.

You know that slider on the side of the 3DS? It adjusts the 3D aspect to the user’s preference. And although the 3DS’ screen doesn’t force you to wear glasses, it does have to be held at just the right angle to get the most out of the 3D effect. And there are many of us who would just want to use it for plain old 2D gaming. So it’s good to know that Nintendo now says that no game should require 3D as part of its gameplay mechanics. And frankly that’s just a good rule of thumb for making a good game if you ask us.

Hideki Konno, one of Nintendo’s producers says that the company wants all of its 3DS games to be playable in 2D, reducing the 3D aspect to an aesthetic enhancement. Some might feel ripped off, but what did you expect? Nintendo wants to please the mass market, otherwise people will soon tire of the 3DS, like they did with the Wii. Novelties wear off quickly.

Gamer anticipation is reaching critical mass as it is now less than one week until the Nintendo 3DS launches. Sure the line-up of launch games leaves us a little cold, but more games will come in due time and at least we will get to hold the 3DS in our hands.

Those who live in New York have another reason to be excited about the 3DS launch. Nintendo is throwing a midnight launch event. It starts at 9:00 PM EDT at the Best Buy in Union Square. There will be plenty of hands-on 3DS demos, food, music, and giveaways. Probably a bunch of people in costume too. Sounds like a good time. Additional Best Buy locations will also be selling the device at midnight, but maybe with not so much fanfare.

The Nintendo 3DS launches next week and now there are rumors that the company may focus on a replacement for the Wii. Frank Gibeau, label head at EA Games, said in a chat with IndustryGamers that he was aware of a follow-up coming. The device is unknown and wasn’t confirmed, but it is a fair bet that it will have have HD support, rivaling competitors from Microsoft and Sony.

Nintendo has been one of the most conservative console makers especially during this generation of console. The Wii was mostly built using faster but nearly identical processors as the GameCube. The company has often refused to discuss the possibility of a next-gen console as long as sales continued to dominate, but sales are not what they once were and it would seem that the time is right.

So after its 3D capable handheld protable gaming device, which is all the rage, Nintendo is now incorporating glasses-free 3D technology into the Wii gaming console. Nintendo Producer Hideki Konno showed a demo of how Wii Nunchuck can be used to control the 3D depth effect in a special version of Mario Kart Wii.

The demo was shown at the GDC 2011 event in San Francisco. There’s no word on how soon gamers will be able to play 3D on their Wii, but we would guess it won’t take very long before you are racing Mario and friends in 3D.

At GDC 2011, Satoru Iwata and Reggie Fils-Aime revealed a ton of info about the 3DS. As far as video content, the news is that the 3DS will get Netflix this summer as well as the ability to pause a video on your handheld and continue watching on your Wii.

We aren’t sure but we assume that you can also do the same with an XBox or PS3 as well. Nintendo is partnering with AT&T to provide free WiFi access at 10,000 hotspots starting in late May. It will also use the SpotPass passive connection feature that works even when no game is in the system and when its in sleep mode, to download new content.

Need to spice up your office space? How about this hand-crafted Nintendo GameCube desktop organizer? These are made by Etsy seller GreenCub , who removes all of the GameCube’s innards, adding pencil/pen slots where its power and reset buttons once were, and controller ports that are now a drawer.

The disc tray is now a storage tray. Even the side vents are converted into a magnetic paperclip holder and the carry handle is an iPhone/iPod holder. He did a great job and now I want one for my desk. There are three colors available with prices starting from $40 to $50.

The Nintendo 3DS was torn apart before it was even official and now a Chinese site has been able to get their hands on another 3DS before the official release in Japan. They have done their own teardown, revealing all its secrets.

Tearing apart devices is fun and can’t be done too many times after all. The official launch of the Nintendo 3DS will be March 27 in the US with the console priced at $249.99. Europe will get it a few days earlier, for an unknown price.

Despite a poor economy leading to poorer sales than the company was used too, Nintendo has announced that it still ended up with the best selling gaming systems of 2010 according to numbers from the NPD Group. The Wii was the best selling game console for the year with 7 million units sold in2010. Not bad at all.

Likewise, the DS was the best selling portable with 8.5 million sold in 2010. Nintendo had great sales during the holiday season, with some impressive sales numbers in December to help it along.

If you buy the 3DS you might want to consider a wall charger as well. Nintendo has unveiled figures for the 3DS’ battery life, and compared with its predecessors, it doesn’t look good. The official numbers are three to five hours per game, or five to eight hours if playing an older DS title. It takes up to three hours 30 minutes to fully recharge.

The DS gave us 10 to 14 hours, DS Lite 15 to 19 hours, DSi 9 to 14 hours, and DSi XL 13 to 17 hours. It’s safe to say you won’t be having any all-nighters playing a 3D Mario game on this thing unless you are plugged in.

You can now reserve a Nintendo 3DS at any GameStop store, despite the fact that there’s no word on an official US price. How much money you will need seems to depend on the location A New York store wanted a deposit of $50, while an Arizona store said $25.

Whatever the case is in your location, your money will go directly towards your 3Ds, which is likely $300. Then you just need to wait patiently for the handheld to arrive in March.

You might remember that awesome Mechanical Mario from earlier this year. Well, Donald “KodyKoala” Kennedy is at it again and has created a Yoshi version.

It is simply amazing like Mario. He used a Playmobile police station for Yoshi’s back and a couple of Lego laptops for the front display and keyboards. We’re not sure how tall it is, but we picture it rampaging over a large city causing mayhem.

Nintendo saw a resurgence in sales during Thanksgiving week. Starting from November 21 and running through this past Sunday, the company shipped 900,000 DS, DSi and DSi XL systems as well as 600,000 Wii units.

It credited the spike to the usual Black Friday push as well as new colors for the devices. The company didn’t say whether or not either figure was a record for the week, but both are well above Nintendo’s average sales results through the rest of the year.