At Toys R Us, in an ill-conceived and under-promoted and all around Far Too Late good idea.

Ever since the spring ticked by with very little free WiFi gifting by Nintendo, I've been consumed with the notion that Nintendo just does not care about living up to the game's promise. At every turn, they screw it up. You can only have eight patterns (and then one character shows up trying to get you to use his pre-made designs). You're maxed at four emotions. Tool usage is cumbersome. The holiday schedule is boring and unrewarding. The Player's Guide is embarassingly devoid of actual information. Item distribution (via travelling vendors) is even more random than in the GameCube version. The Flower Fest is distressingly unfathomable. There is almost nothing to do during online multiplayer except obnoxious one-line no-scrollback chat.

We know the game is packed with secret items that you can only get from Nintendo or by cheating. And to date, Nintendo has delivered ONE of them, the Mario Coin. The players' sentiment seems neatly summed up by this hilarious poll on Animal Crossing Community.

So here we are, seven months after the game's release, and all of a sudden Nintendo sends out an email that mentions exclusive ACWW downloads at Toys R Us. Starting this Sunday. I will bet Bells that my local TRU will not have the slightest idea what I am talking about when I march in there Sunday morning with my DS Lite.

"Downloads, sir? Do you mean, like, from our website?"

I'll be reporting on this sure-to-be glorious adventure soon. My store doesn't even HAVE a DS Download Station.

What's supposed to happen is this: you write up a quick bottle mail, then throw your game into Tag Mode. The magic WiFi blanket will sense your Tagginess and give you a reply bottle containing one of six items from the famed Mario furniture series.

Do I even need to ask if the six items will be chosen randomly? Will I have to spend half an hour at TRU sending out bottle mail and restarting, in hopes of getting all six items? If my store even knows what's going on? Will it be one item per day? Will it be one item per store? Could Nintendo have found a dickier way to do this?

The only good sign is that you can buy as much bottle mail paper as you want, but I'm sure Nintendo will bone this somehow.

What is it about Animal Crossing that has Nintendo so dead-set on keeping players from getting rare stuff? It's not like they have a MMORPG world economy to worry about. It's not a competition. Getting rare furniture should be difficult, but not impossible.

And why haven't they been doing this all along? Why blow out six items in one stealth marketing week at Toys R Us? I had hoped that Nintendo would remedy the ultra crappy holiday selection with monthly WiFi mailings... maybe not a rare item every time, but a little something to keep everybody feeling like this really is an online community. We received that Mario Coin around New Year's, and a goddamn daffodil for Mother's Day. Exuent. Was the Red Tulip scandal enough to bust up any future plans for online item distribution?

How are we intended to get that awesome Pikmin item?!? The optimist in me says they're saving that for the Wii's demo download service, since I highly doubt we'll see Animal Crossing Wii before late 2007.

Just when I think that all is lost with the Animal Crossing franchise... the news about an Animal Crossing movie breaks.

OK, I know, it's not like there's a ton of plot in either game. But there is a multitude of distinct, fun characters. I'm sure this is meant to lead into a full anime series, which strikes me as a natural fit. What are the chances that the movie (which has a Japan release date this December) will get an English dub? Who is Nintendo in bed with these days, animation wise? FOX has Kirby, Warners has Pokemon... maybe Cartoon Network would like an AC TV show as part of their tweenies block. If they skew the movie/show young and friendly (which I'm positive it will be), it's surely worth the likes of Hamtaro.

Somebody should figure out how to beam DS downloads out of a normal TV signal, like those new(ish) Batman toys.