Nintendo has gone to some fairly great and seemingly unnecessary lengths to help people keep their hands on the motion sensitive controls that come with the Wii game console. The company has put out a couple of strap revisions and added a free padded jacket for the controller but people still manage to occasionally cause some damage.

The makers of this Gamers Glove for the Wii Remote are betting that the strap and jacket that come with the controller just aren’t going to be quite enough for you with your wild swings during boxing and tennis matches. The glove is made with some slip-resistant and stretchy material to give it a snug fit and to help keep the controller in the palm of your hand where it belongs. It will also undeniably call you out as the Wii-loving fanboy geek that you are.

As if it hasn’t been hard enough to find a Nintendo Wii game console this year, rumor has it that a retail chain called Slackers is taking their shipments of the popular console and selling them on Ebay at a jacked up price.

According to Ars Technica an insider with Slackers stated that any Wiis that they receive, at least in the Illinois/Missouri area stores, are not available for the suggested $249 retail price at the store and are instead marked up to $499 on Ebay. Recently reports say that the Buy It Now price has been dropped to $399.99, which is still $150 over suggested retail by Nintendo.

Maybe it isn’t a marketing scheme and Nintendo really is having trouble keeping up with production for the Nintendo Wii game console. Nintendo is offering hope for some of those still looking for Wii this holiday season, although opening a present with a piece of paper promising a Wii in a month just might not be the same as the real thing.

In a telephone press conference today Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said they the company is working with GameStop to give out “rain checks” to those looking for an Wii this year with a deliver time frame in January of next year.

It’s about time we start seeing some Jedi action on the Wii. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is headed to the Wii next Spring, but in the meantime you can get your Star Wars fix with this new lightsaber attachment. You can get it now from Play.com.

A few features are a power up/down effect for saber glow. It can also be dimmed down. It sports 22 ultra-bright LEDs and an on/off switch. You’ll need 3 AA cells to keep it lit. These are scheduled to ship later this very month. $31 is all it takes to be a very happy Jedi.

To qoute Ben Kenobi, “The light saber is an elegant weapon from a more civilized age.”

Earlier today at Nintendo’s Fall Conference the company announced a release date and price for their new WiiFit balance board game in Japan’s market. The WiiFit game will go on sale December 1 for 8,800 Yen, or about $75 which might seem a little bit on the steep side but it does come bundled with the balance board. Similar games like Guitar Hero that come with the guitar accessory are usually priced similar or more. There was no announcement for a U.S. release of the WiiFit game yet but you can bet that it will be launched in the states before the holiday season, likely for a similar price.

The Nintendo Wii again has lead the game console sales in Japan selling 245,653 units in the first four weeks with the Sony PS3 trailing at 81,541 units. That’s about a 3 to 1 lead that Nintendo has over Sony’s console sales which is actually good news for Sony as that ratio has been shrinking the past couple months.

In June Nintendo sold around 6 times as many Wii’s compared to the Playstation 3 in the Japanese market, and in July that ratio dropped to about 4 to 1. The PS3 with its Blu-ray player has been behind Nintendo in console sales since they were introduced last year, likely due the PS3′s higher price and lack of popular game titles, but Sony’s plans for the coming months may help keep this trend going. The company is planning to add a number of games towards this holiday shopping season to hopefully entice more PS3 sales, including the very popular Gran Turismo 5 which will go on sale in October.

Today Nintendo held a demonstration of a new type of controller for its Wii game console called the Wii Balance Board. Looking like an aerobics step, the balance board can sense the weight you put on either side of the board with your feet and through this also sense your balance. No doubt taking a hint from all the exercise people are getting in on with the console, the associated Wii Fit “game”, users can work on aerobics, muscle conditioning, yoga and balance through the game console giving a total of more than 40 exercise activities.

The Wii Balance Board can even work in tandem with the Wiimote to create full-body interactive games working on balance and coordination. Nintendo didn’t announce any prices or specific release dates which most likely means it won’t be real soon, but we’re sure …

Not only is Nintendo’s sales of the Wii game console staying ahead of the competition, but they are continuing to rise and pull further away from rival Sony’s PlayStation 3.

Last month we reported that the Wii was outselling the PS3 in Japan at a ratio of 5 to 1 in May with 251,794 units. Reuters is now reporting that these numbers have risen and Nintendo sold 270,974 Wii game console units in the first 24 days of June in Japan. This, compared to the 41,628 units of the PS3 that Sony sold ups the ratio to that of 6 to 1 Wii’s to PS3′s sold. Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which is also a major competitor in the current generation gaming consoles, sold 17,616 consoles during the same period.

This trend of dominate consoles sales from Nintendo …

Nintendo today announced a new game-creation service called WiiWare which will open up game development for anyone to create games to play on the Nintendo Wii game console.

The WiiWare service will enable developers from around the world to create new and unique games that take advantage of the popular, motion-sensitive Wii controllers. If you thought there were some strange and interesting games available that utilize Remote and Nunchuk now, just wait.

While the popularity of the Wii game console along with the massive fun people have with it may alone be enough incentive to draw some developers, Nintendo may also offer the chance for them to make some bank from their game creations. Game creators will have their Wii games placed online on the Wii Shop Channel which can be viewed and downloaded by the masses through redeeming Wii points. …

Not only has the Nintendo Wii been consistently leading sales for the current generation game consoles in the U.S., Reuters is reporting that the Wii outsold its rival Sony PS3 in console units by a whopping ratio of 5 to 1 in Japan last month.

In May Nintendo reportedly sold 251,794 Wii game consoles compared to 45,321 PS3′s from Sony. The trend appears to be a growing one as well, as the ratio was 4 to 1 in favor of the Wii the previous month.

The Wii game console has led sales of the current generation game consoles in the US for four months in a row including April, and is expected to have led sales again in May. For the first three of the four-month run, Sony actually …

Rumors continue about the possibility of the Nintendo Wii getting a hard drive, despite Nintendo denying any such claims.

The latest crop of speculation was roused by talks of new Neo Geo game titles coming to the Wii game console which require as much as 330MB of space on the mere 512MB of space available with the console. ComputerandVideoGames.com is also talking of rumors that Nintendo may make an announcement of said hardware to increase the Wii storage capacity at the next E3 show.

The Xbox 360 and Sony PS3, Wii’s competition in the current generation game consoles, both utilize hard drives for storing games and other multimedia files, and speculation of the Wii getting one has been around since shortly after its launch. We’ll keep watching for some type of solid indication, but …

According to a Bloomberg report, sales of the Nintendo Wii Japan continue to dominate over its Playstation rival.

Back in January SlipperyBrick reported that Wii sales were already significantly ahead in Japan after its launch on December 2nd, even though the PS3 launched about 3 weeks earlier on November 11th.

As of March 25th, Nintendo has reportedly sold 1.95 million Wii game console units in Japan, which is more than twice as many compared to 812,000 PS3 consoles sold by Sony in Japan since each of their respective launch dates.

The PS3 is a little more pricey game console, however. Actually sales yen makes the difference not quite as great with the PS3 having 47.6 billion yen in sales versus Nintendo’s 48.7 billion yen during the same period.

[Image via BBC news]

Today Nintendo announced that a free trial version of the Opera web browser will be available for the Nintendo Wii game console on Friday, December 22nd.

If you have a high speed internet connection, you can download the Opera web browser to activate the Internet Channel on your Wii game console and start surfing the internet on your TV through your Wii. This trial download will be available until the end of March when the final version of the Opera web browser for the Wii will be available for download. The final version will also be a free download, but only until June. After June the Opera web browser will cost 500 Wii points to download, so you’ll want to be sure to get it before then.

The Wii motion sensing controller can be used to navigate the browser using …

GameStop, which is probably the biggest video game retailer in the US, said on it will be accepting limited pre-orders for the Nintendo’s Wii video game console yesterday (Friday), one per household. If you haven’t gotten your order in, you better get on it.

All you need is 50 bones to reserve, but many stores were reporting to be out of availability within minutes. Maybe it’s hype, but you can call your local Gamestop store first to see if they have some left. No online pre-ordering is/was available, but they say they will have something at a later date.

Nintendo expects to supply 4 million Nintendo Wii units to stores by year end, and Sony expects to ship 2 million PS3s in the same time period, so by my count if you missed the pre-order you just might be ok.

The Wii’s one-hand controller …