Here’s another reason to love your Wii - as far as game consoles go, it’s the most energy efficient of the current generation. As determined by the US Natural Resources Defense Council the Wii uses on average around six times less electricity than the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 when turned on. In fact, it even uses a little less power than the Gamecube !
photo credit: cursedthing

Nintendo’s engineers deserve credit for creating a more environmentally responsible console. Sure the PS3 and Xbox fanboys will never tire of highlighting that the graphics capabilities of their consoles is superior; but it all comes at a cost - a higher carbon footprint (around two refrigerators worth) and a higher electricity bill for every hour of play.

Keep in mind, however, just because the Wii is the best on energy efficiency, every console manufacturer has room to improve …Greenpeace rated the Wii least environmentally friendly compared with Sony and Microsofts offerings, due to the levels of toxic materials in the Wii and Nintendos lack of recycling policy.

Here’s my “environmentally friendly gaming tip” for the day (maybe for the year): help reduce waste and buy secondhand games. Don’t encourage production of more copies of Red Steel or Ninjabread Man “landfill”.

(see also: The power consumption breakdown at Nintendo Wii Fanboy)

Image via Wikipedia

This post over at kuro5hin describes the latest Wii peripheral driving Nintendo fanboys and fangirls wild in Japan … the WiiLove.

Of course, this is just a rip-off of an idea already released years ago with Rez on the Sega Dreamcast, but it’s nice to see this style of peripheral being introduced to a new audience.

No info on release dates in North America, Europe and Australia yet.

(ah, it’s a joke, Joyce).

I’ve just heard some great news !

“Club Nintendo” will soon be available to Australian Nintendo fans.

More details at Aussie Nintendo, and The Age Screen Play Blog

Some updates to the recently launched Japanese WiiWare site reveal that Nintendo hasn’t been lying about their estimated prices for WiiWare games - the first crop will cost between 500 and 1000 points, with only Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles - My Life as King breaking the 1000 Wii Point mark;  that will cost Japanese players 1500 points. That’s around ~$5, ~$10 or ~$15 per game (in USD, or AUD). Lets hope these attractive prices also apply to WiiWare when it launches in other parts of the world.

Scanning the list of release titles in Japan, I don’t see the WiiWare game I’m looking forward to the most - Pop (by Nnooo). Not to worry; the release titles outside of Japan are very likely to be different.

See the Gamasutra coverage for more details.

Hot on the heels of Hori’s Wii Fighting Stick comes this sweet looking arcade stick from SNK-Playmore and Sega Logistics. Hey, SNK knows fight games, so this has gotta be good right ? It is supposed to work with both Virtual Console and regular Wii games. Let’s hope it works nicely with the real “King of Fight Games”, Street Fighter II.

Via wiitech.info and Wii Fanboy.