As you can see, we had two simultaneous games going. Since Animal Crossing loads entirely into the console's RAM, I only needed one copy of the game. I fired it up on the Cube and then loaded it into the Wii.

Unbelievably, our guests had three Gyroids that I needed for my catalog. Now I only need four and I will have the whole set.

Not even Nintendo can stop this chicanery:

That's the Mario Strikers Charged leaderboard. I bet there's a huge Board of Directors meeting in Kyoto right now to discuss taking away the ability to name our online accounts. This is precisely what drove Nintendo into Friend Codes in the first place, so big ups to you guys for proving that online play remains a problem.

Last week's surprise system update underlines the lameness of the Forecast Channel. Here it is one in the afternoon and my Wii is showing a big bright moon on the forecast. Nintendo needs to get that Channel working properly, because a weather forecast that is ten hours old isn't a forecast at all. I could read the newspaper if I wanted out-of-date news.

USB keyboard support was a nice upgrade, though. Makes typing letters a whole lot easier. I hope this means we can use a keyboard for the next Animal Crossing game. I would prefer a Bluetooth keyboard usable on both Wii and PS3, so I am never satisfied.

And I'll tell you what, I am not that excited for Metroid Prime 3. The trailers just show more of what I never finished back in Metroid Prime 2. Blah blah. I'm interested in the new Wii Remote control scheme, but I'm going to need a lot more info on the game before I bother playing it.

I will say that doing a special Metroid Prime 3 Preview Channel was incredible and that Nintendo should have been doing this since launch day. Every major release should have a preview channel of some kind, even if it's just one Channel where Nintendo rotates through movies of upcoming releases. The truth is, however, that Metroid Prime 2 did not sell all that well and Nintendo is scared to death of a repeat of that for 3. (Bets are hedged, it appears... note that the 3 trailer says "go behind the visor, one last time"). So this particular Preview Channel is more of a marketing necessity than anything else. I'll be surprised as hell if Nintendo does this for Mario Galaxy or Smash Bros; those games simply don't need the promotion.

Here's a good idea for the next update: system-level screenshots. When you hit the Home button, you should have the option to save a screenshot of whatever is paused in the background, which the Wii would save to your Message Board.