If you're like us, then you've been cruising the Wii aisles at Best Buy and Target, hoping you might be there at the magical moment when a shipment comes in and snag a Wii fresh off the truck. However, all that usually comes in are a fresh batch of Friends DVDs, or possibly more copies of XXX.

Well, now you can win a Wii without having to register your credit card somewhere, buy a raffle ticket, or sell a kidney. That's right, sit there in the comfort of your chair/beanbag/couch/captain's set. ThisNext and Cool Hunting have teamed up to give you a Wii, so check out the details for their "Be A Wii-Ner" (oh not they didn't) contest and get yourself a Wii for free.

Variety magazine, a mainstay daily trade for folks in the entertainment business, has an article out about the scaled-down E3 and what it'll mean to the gaming industry this year. Basically it's a summary of everything you probably already knew about this year's E3, but it shows how all eyes will be turning towards the show this week, just as if it was E3 as usual. They cover the now-confirmed PS3 price cut rumor and speculate that Microsoft will most likely follow suit, or will possibly improve what's in the box, like maybe bundling that HD-DVD player finally?

They also mention the biggies that will hopefully be shown off for the majors, including Killzone 2 for the PS3, Mass Effect for the 360, and Super Smash Bros. for the Wii. We're certainly hoping there will be more than three games at E3 this year, and if you could see our E3 appointment calendar for this week, you'd think we might be wishing there were only three. There's going to be a boatload of information later this week, so be sure to stay tuned.

We love how they say Nintendo basically doesn't have to do anything at E3, other than mention some game dates. Even Nintendo's George Harrison says "Nintendo goes as its own pace. It always does things its own way." As Fleetwood Mac would say, you can go your own way ... but you'd better be giving us some Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. dates when you do.

Tiger Woods attempts to recreate his famous "Golf Trick" ad with a Wiimote, and all we can think is, "That's no way to treat a Wiimote!" Although he did have the wrist strap on, if you notice, we don't think it's good to be smacking balls around with it like that.. A slap in the face to Wii owners.

If he was trying it with a Guitar Hero controller or something more club-like, then sure. But come on, Tig ... what did that Wiimote ever do to you?

It's a tranquil day, you're laying by the banks of a babbling brook, nearby some sort of livestock feeds, off in the distance come the gentle lulling sounds of buzzing insects, and then suddenly! Startling your reverie! Chasing away the imagination! Poking holes in your dreamtime! It's ... !

A dork with a guitar. "Here," he says "let me play you my rendition of "Are Young Going To Scarborough Faire?" Give us a break, where's Jon Belushi when you need him? (No, "He's dead. Did he drop any good loot?" jokes please).

Nowadays, with Guitar Hero and other rocking games, any man can be a thrashing monster of the metal. The Wii is playing 3rd place catchup in the sheer rockability arena, and this homebrew strumming interface and whatever Nintendo proper might be working on give us hope.

If only the song weren't so ... Ren Faire-ish.

Check out the full on transforming antics of the different Nintendo systems through the ages. We'd love to see Optimus Prime try this out. Where is version 2.0 with all the different handhelds? We mean you too, Virtual Boy.

You've already been able to see some of our impressions of Super Paper Mario from GDC and watch the first 30 minutes of the gameplay, but watch the first TV commercial? Not until now.

The "Wii would like to play" campaign is slightly creepy, just because we don't want shadowy Nintendo agents watching us while we get our game on ... but if they come bearing Wiis and games, we wont complain too loudly.

You can also watch the introduction of the game after the jump. It's a lot shorter than the 30 minute gameplay video, and much easier on the patience. With all of the videos available, where's the game already? Looks like fun.

Okay, so we've had videos of people winning both Wii and now an Xbox 360 in these Stacker machines for (we hope) like a buck or two. Where's the PlayStation 3 to complete the trifecta? Heck, we'd even settle for some video of a Nintendo DS or a PlayStation Portable sliding down the chute as a fairly worthwhile substitute.

One thing is for sure, whoever makes the Stacker games has to be loving all of this. As our own beloved Ludwig Kietzmann put it, "I want a video of someone winning a Stacker machine from a Stacker machine. " Ditto.

On a side note: this video isn't nearly as swear-filled as the Wii one. Yet another innovation from Nintendo, non-stop cursing. Zing! In fact, the whole video is a lot more sedate. The guy just sort of calmly walks away, vanishing into the night.

Note: the embedded video above is definitely NSFW, or NSFH(ome) if you have little kids running around, because it contains some pretty strong language.

It shows something we all thought could never be done -- one really lucky sucker winning the big prize from a Stacker game. The same kind you see in malls, movie theater lobbies, and Wal-Mart vestibules around the country. We've spent our fair share of quarters in them, trying to score much lesser prizes, like copies of Outlaw Golf.

Now someone just please try and explain to us why Wiis are sold out across the country, yet sitting in Stacker machines where people can win them for a buck? Perhaps it's all part of a secret new marketing campaign from Nintendo. Now to start looking for more Stacker games ...

[Via Nintendo Wii Fanboy]

In an interview with LevelUp, Nintendo's Miyamoto hints that we might be seeing the Miis marching out of their parades and into virtual worlds similar to The Sims. Since Miyamoto didn't reveal much at GDC this year (in part due to shareholder regulations), they grilled him about his speech, and about Sony's PlayStation Home announcement.

While Miyamoto claims not to have seen the video of Sony's goods (which is hard to believe, you think he'd be studying up on the competition) he does go on to say, "I wouldn't be surprised if we also did something along those lines further in the future ... in terms of taking the Miis and expanding them, that virtual kind of Sim-type experience. It's something that a lot of people have already done and shown interest in, and we have a lot of people internally who are interested in that type of a project too."

We'd be interested too, as long as it doesn't feel like Nintendo is trying to copy anyone else's effort. Bring on something that allows us to take our Miis out of the house using the DS. Maybe you can teach them new skillz in some kind of game, and then bring them back home, or take them to visit someone else. Then they teach that person something new, and they teach two people, and they teach two people and then the world is taken over by Miis.

Check out the full article for the details, as well as Miyamoto's description of bizarre-sounding game called Love and Berry.

So, there's good news, and bad news in the Wii camp. Which do you want first? Okay, the bad news it is: the final version of the Wii Internet Channel is delayed. Although delayed in the nick of time, as it were. It was supposed to be available in late March ... and here we are in late March. No final Internet Channel sighting over here, up in the crow's nest? Negative sir, only the beta. Opera tells us that it will now be available some time in April ... although no actual date has been announced yet. Our money is on late April, it's possibly too much to hope for an Easter surprise.

Onto the good news, then: the Wii Opera browser will be available longer for everyone's favorite price ... FREE! That's right folks, don't order yet because er, you don't need to. You can just go ahead and download the free beta, and then grab the real goods when they're offered up in April. The Opera browser will cost 500 Wii points ($5 for Americans) after the free period, which was set to end in June, but will now be sliding to July. The only great unknown is the current beta browser, which was good until the end of March -- will they be extending that until the real one comes out?

[Thanks, tqt]

This panel brought together Robert Nashak, GM of Yahoo Games, Chris Charla, director of business development for Foundation 9, Charles Merrin from Real Networks, and Brian Ring, the GM of Interactive Content for Scope Seven. The purpose was to discuss the top five trends in 2007 in the realm of gaming and entertainment.

When games meet entertainment brands, it's traditionally meant a game based on a movie that comes out a few weeks (or months) after the film has hit theaters. However, for the past few years games have started to be released concurrently with the films, or even before the movies come out. Hollywood studios now include video game development in the earliest stages of pre-production, and even involve game companies in the writing process.

Games + Entertainment Brands also encompasses traditional board games, like Scrabble and Monopoly, being licensed for video games, and toys like Bratz and Barbie as well. We break down the top five trends that will be hitting games + entertainment brands in 2007 after the jump.

So do we. However, we've gotta try our hand out and hope the lucky wheel of fate spins our way just like everyone else. We'll be entering WiiTube's TMNT contest, and you should too.

Why? Because it's incredibly simple. All you have to do is head to the site, sign up (be sure to give yourself an avatar), and upload at least one video. That's it. A lucky winner will be chosen at random, hopefully by throwing a Wii-mote at a dartboard and seeing who wins. That's how we would do it, and of course we'd film it and upload that for the next contest.

WiiTube has really been taking off lately. When we first blogged about it, they had around 400 members. These days they're pushing 1700. Plus we've heard that they will also be giving away an entire Wii system soon, so expect that number to go up. Get in on the ground floor while the gettin' is cheap!

This is by no means new stuff, and might be old to some of you, but it's so darned good that we had to share it. Some people with a lot of time on their hands recreated GoldenEye in live-action goodness, complete with the score and sound effects from the game. That garage scene is FTW!

While that whining alarm sound brought back too many nightmares, this really makes us want to drag the N64 out of storage and hook it up, just to play GoldenEye again. If Nintendo sticks this on the Virtual Console, it'll go through the roof.

[Thanks, uakronkid]

Ubisoft released some video a little over a month ago showing off the motion sensitive "waggle" technology for the upcoming Prince of Persia:Rival Swords on the Wii. Today two more videos have hit the web, and one of them shows off the joy and singular pleasure of ledges and levers. Check out that Wiimote waggling and nunchuck flicking action at work. With Disney getting behind this with a possible feature film franchise, look for the Prince to be around for some time to come.

You can also check out the other video that was released today: Climbing and Combat. It's a bit longer, but is also drool-worthy. We're ready to start running on walls and doing acrobatics around poles right now.

UPDATE to the UPDATE: GameVideos now has the correct videos uploaded, and that's what we're featuring here now. Enjoy.

And to still quote Tina Fey to you naysayers: "Ya burnt!"

Talk about making everything else look bad. Nintendo officially released The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the Wii's Virtual Console today, alongside obscure Genesis shooter Bio-Hazard Battle and the even more obscure Chew Man Fu for the TurboGrafx-16. Cashing in at 1,000 Wii Points ($10), Ocarina of Time for the Virtual Console is the original version, as last seen on your Nintendo 64. You know it, you probably love it and so we don't need to go into details. Your wallet will take care of the rest.

Bio-Hazard Battle and Chew Man Fu on the other hand ... well, we won't hold it against you if you have absolutely no clue what these games are. Bio-Hazard Battle costs 800 Wii Points and is an easily forgettable, horizontal shooter that never really did anything of particular interest aside from featuring nuclear enemy crabs. Chew Man Fu is right out of the Pengo, Kickle Cubicle mold and while more compelling than Bio-Hazard, 600 Wii Points sounds like a bit much to ask.

All three titles are currently available and causing massive damage to a Wii near you.