Happy Mother's day! We were so happy to play ... by gaming hours on Earthbound on our dusty ol' Super Nintendo console. Wait ... wrong mother? Oh well. (Image credit: protozoider) Check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
Japanese hardware sales, April 28 - May 4: Mothers in gaming edition
This Week in Review visits LittleBigPlanet
Weekly Webcomic Wrapup looks up at the stars

News
Gears of War 2 gameplay footage debut
BioWare drops 10-day validation from Mass Effect PC
EA wants you to "Skate It" on Wii and DS
EA takes out $1 billion loan for Take-Two acquisition
Facebreaker trailers: Meet the pugilists
Miyamoto: Ocarina of Time could have been in first-person perspective
Gamecock's Wilson announces candidacy for ESA president
Amazon and Gamestop offering God of War III pre-orders, claim March 2 release

Rumors & Speculation
Rumor: Kid Icarus Wii details, concept art revealed

Culture & Community
GamePolitics speaks with federal game bill sponsor, ESA deems bill unconstitutional
Ikea'nt believe it: A fully functional giant NES controller/coffee table
Spend Mother's Day playing games with mom

Mother fans, rejoice! EarthBound, also known as Mother 2 and the only game of the series to be released in the US, has been rated by the ESRB for the Wii. While that seems to be a good indication the game is bound for the Virtual Console, we're not going to make that leap without an official confirmation from Nintendo. Besides, given the rabid fan base of the game here, we're half-serious when we say we suspect Nintendo might consider selling the game unchanged for $50 on a disc. We guarantee it would sell like gangbusters.

An ESRB rating is the only outside hurdle the Nintendo-owned property to putting it on the Virtual Console (if that's the route they take). Now wouldn't that make for a clever Mother's Day gift, hm?

[Via VC-Reviews; thanks, Jango311]

When Nintendo president Satoru Iwata refuses to "do the easy," you may think he's merely declining to perform some sort of elaborate dance maneuver. Given its name, we imagine such a dance move simply entails lying face down on the floor and remaining motionless until everyone else has gone home. It makes perfect sense really, as Iwata isn't going to take things lying down (see the connection there?) when it comes to a Wii Sports sequel.

Simply adding new sports isn't good enough, he explained in an on-going series of discussions posted on Mother designer Shigesato Itoi's news blog, Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun. "We're not going to take such an easy way, not by including seven new sports in the game since Wii Sports has five," said Iwata." We're not closing our doors to the possibility of a sequel, but it's definitely not coming out soon." He goes on to say that if Nintendo hopes to continue expanding its audience, the element of surprise is vital.

And what affords Nintendo the opportunity to explore new things and have unexpected games pop out of their little white box? "But realistically, I think we can say 'we won't do the easy' because we are currently making profit."

Seeing the words "Mother 3" in the same sentence as "released" is cause for excitement. In this case, though, it's more like a kick in the stomach. The Mother 3 soundtrack has just been released on the US iTunes store. All 26 songs from MOTHER3i and the arranged album MOTHER3+ are available for $9.99 each. After almost a year of pestering Nintendo to localize the game, we get a soundtrack.

A soundtrack.