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More than twenty years and five home consoles later, you'd think Nintendo would get this "third-party support" thing by now. However, EA CEO John Riccitiello says the console manufacturer is still learning how to reach out and offer a hand to games other than their own. "They've always been first-party-centric, and they're learning how to be third-party supportive," Riccitiello told Gamasutra. Looking at November's NPD figures, it's clear that Nintendo has been very good to itself. But is there hope for EA on the Wii? "Third-parties can do a lot better on the platform with the right support from Nintendo."

What kind of "support" are third parties like EA looking for? Most likely, third parties are looking for co-opted marketing opportunities provided by other first-party platforms, like Sony's PlayStation.Blog or Microsoft's MW2-branded hardware. Unfortunately, Nintendo appears content with its hands-off approach to third-party marketing, offsetting all the blame for the failures of GTA: Chinatown Wars and countless other games at the hands of their respective publishers.

-DS: 1.7M1.2M (+262%)
-Wii: 1.26M753K (+149%)
-360: 820K570K (+228%)
-PS3: 710K389K (+121%)
-PSP: 294K119K (+76%)
-PS2: 203K85K (72%)

Check out the software sales chart after the break.

GamesIndustry.biz reports that the DS has officially exceeded 10 million units sold in the UK. The revelation comes courtesy of data from European number crunchers GfK Chart-Track and, according to Nintendo, the handheld is currently owned by one out of every six UK residents. Of course, there's no telling how many people have purchased more than one of the console's many, many iterations. Still, the DS has managed to reach the 10 million mark faster than the PS2 did, just shy of five years since the handheld launched in March 2005.

We've been holding this back for a while now, but it's probably time to just come out and say it: It looks like the DS is a success.

The reality: Nintendo is holding a fluffy PR event for grandparents and their little, angelic grandchildren at the Fairwinds-Ivey Ranch in Oceanside, California, this week. The event takes place this Friday, December 4, from 11AM-1PM. It's likely to be a schmaltzy feel-good event, inclusive of the whole family and further pushing Nintendo's "pioneering efforts" to expand the video game market.

The fantasy: At the event, some little snot will get mad that grandma can't figure out which button is used to jump, eventually swiping the controller from her hand and making her watch helplessly as her Toad floats through the stage in a bubble. Meanwhile, grandpa joins in. He's figured out the location of the jump button, but does that weird old people thing of moving the controller upwards every time he gets the character to jump, thus his avatar spins wildly out of control, dying constantly. Having never put the Wiimote strap on, he accidentally flings the controller into the television in a fit of frustration. That would be glorious.

Actually, the titular tracks from The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, don't feature very prominently in a recent batch of ads for the game from the UK. Instead, the ads task a young woman with solving some of the game's puzzles (presumably under the stipulation that she be adorable while doing so). All three of the commercials highlight the game's use of the unique features of the DS, namely the microphone and touch screen. We're not sure how entertaining it will be to blow into the mic to play the pan flute for the thousandth time, but the first glance seems novel enough.

Check out the ads after the break.

[Via GoNintendo]

Nintendo announced that over 1.5 million of its various game systems were sold last week. Not last month, last week. Thanks to Black Friday and two new DSi bundles, Nintendo could afford all the trimmings for a resplendent company Thanksgiving. Not that we know whether or not Nintendo had one of those. The point is, Nintendo sold a bunch of stuff and made a lot of money.

According to Nintendo's estimates, more than 550,000 Wii systems were sold last week, and over 1 million DS and DSi systems. The release of two new DSi bundles (along with a few crazy prices) could have had something to do with that last statistic. By selling that many handhelds, Nintendo broke its own sales record for the holiday weekend! Though the company didn't manage to beat last year's 800,000 Wiis sold, which means that, despite still selling a huge number of Wiis, and despite all those DS sales, Nintendo is completely doomed, right?

Nintendo tells the San Francisco Chronicle that sales of the Wii were up 85 percent week-to-week following the September price drop. The Chronicle's piece is mostly an examination of Nintendo's challenges in staying top console for a fourth Christmas in a row, with expectations that the console will have plenty of stock available this holiday for the first time since release.

The Wii may not have the explosive sales that it's maintained for the last few years, but Nintendo is still swimming in cash. Perhaps a slowdown in Wii sales can be seen as a good thing -- we know how Nintendo loves to introduce hardware revisions when the going gets tough slower.

[Via Gamasutra]

Nintendo's says it will investigate possible copyright infringement in Nokia's N900 smartphone after a Nokia blog post showcased the device playing retro games through the use of an emulator application. According to Edge, the video (which is no longer available) featured someone playing Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros. 3, and also showed off buttons that supposedly opened emulators for Nintendo's Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, NES and SNES.

Nintendo UK PR manager Robert Saunders told Edge the company was unaware of the smartphone's emulation feature and stated that Nintendo would take "rigorous steps" to protect its intellectual property. "Our legal team will examine this to determine if any infringement has taken place," Saunders added. Even if the feature ends up on the cutting room floor, we imagine some crafty hackers are already taking steps to get emulation software working on the Nokia device. Just like they do with everything else.

Ready for some fairly unsurprising news? Nintendo UK recently revealed what we all expected yesterday following the OFLC rating of a Q-Games project titled Reflect Missile -- the game is designed for the DSiWare platform, and features Breakout-esque gameplay with strategy elements. You have to use a special set of missiles to help you clear out the aforementioned bricks, but you've only got a limited number, so ballistic conservation is key.

Ready for some completely flabbergasting news? According to the same Nintendo listing, the game is out right now in the UK. Like, this second, now. You can own it, provided you live in the UK, and have access to the fungible assets required to purchase 500 DSi Points. We've contacted Q-Games to find out when Reflect Missile will be fired at North America.

Q-Games and Nintendo had a recent partnership in the release of Digidrive, but it doesn't seem like they're letting their relationship cool off any time soon. According to a new OFLC rating, Q-Games is developing -- and Nintendo is publishing -- a game called Reflect Missile. No platform was announced, but the safe money's on either a DSiWare or WiiWare release.

Now, let's get to determining exactly what a "Reflect Missile" is. Is is just, like, a really shiny missile, in which one might see themselves? Or is "Reflect Missile" a command in weird, broken English? For instance, "Captain Douglass, reflect [that] missile?" Or is the command being issued directly to the missile itself -- "Reflect, Missile!" The possibilities are as endless as they are nonsensical.

[Via GamerBytes]

Though the latest edition of Iwata Asks is technically focused on New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the first few pages of the interview go off on a tangent about the overall-clad plumber's roots which you might find interesting. For instance, did you know that Miyamoto's original plan for Donkey Kong was a video game based on Popeye? It's true -- it was only after he was denied the rights to put the muscly-armed sailor man in a video game that he created the most prolific video game character of all time.

Of course, just like a timid middle school student, Mario was forced to go through some awkward formative phases. Miyamoto revealed that in the original design for Donkey Kong, Mario -- who, at the time, was referred to as "Mr. Video" -- was unable to jump. Man, we feel like we just gazed into some kind of creepy alternate universe.

"It is me, Mr. Video. I'm going to slowly walk over there, all the while praying that I don't encounter any ground-based enemies."

As with all the things in our life we love the most, we're not sure if Zelda machinima "The Legend of Cool" is supposed to be a joke or not. But if you can watch Bucky Studios' delightful blend of Ocarina of Time, the freshest beats since "Ski Dance" and utterly earnest singing after the break and not walk away with a spring in your step, we can't help you.

Also, "Now get in my mouth and fulfill your destiny" is the new thing that you should say all the time. You're welcome.

In the upcoming issue of Edge Magazine, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto discusses a variety of topics with the UK gaming magazine. Develop Online got their hands on a copy of the magazine already, revealing a rather ... revealing quote from the father of Donkey Kong. "Nintendo has become one of those companies that graduates from colleges and good universities really want to work for ... I often say to [Nintendo head] Mr. Iwata: 'If I was applying for a job here today, I, with my actual college degree, would probably not have been employed by Nintendo."

Though he adds that he "might pick up on [applicants] and try to find out something really different within them which you can't judge just by a college degree," it worries us greatly that today's equivalent of the man who helped to birth some of the game industry's landmark franchises may end up unemployed or even dissuaded from game development altogether. All alone! Without a home! We imagine somewhat like a rolling stone!

... Our apologies. That was quite enough.

With the game pulling into the station on December 7, we visited Nintendo of America to get one last pre-launch look at The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. The latest trailer for the game revealed the Spirit Tower, a central hub of mini-dungeons that must be cleared in order to restore the train tracks that lead to the world's main temple dungeons. What we saw was the latter -- more specifically, the second of the game's dungeons, the Snow Temple.

This dungeon made heavy use of Link's ability to create whirlwinds -- the actual mechanic behind them is blowing into the DS microphone, but, thankfully, it doesn't require you to lean in incredibly close to the system or blow especially hard for it to work. Once the ability is selected by tapping it on-screen, it stays active, and dragging the stylus around Link makes him rotate, a yellow line indicating which direction the whirlwind will go. This mainly came into play when we needed to cross pools of water atop floating blocks. Like fanning a leaf in Wind Waker, firing off a whirlwind in Spirit Tracks sends Link sailing in the opposite direction.