Hey, grab a Molson and pull up a comfortable ice block and listen up. The AP is reporting that the Wii has become the first system to reach a million units sold in Canada. That's like one system for every two people or so you've got up there, eh? We're guessing it's because the pearly white exterior of the system matches the decor of your igloos (not to mention the polar bears roaming around outside).

According to NPD statistics, the Wii has sold 1,060,000 Candian units through July, meaning the upcoming Wii version of NHL 2K9 can count on at least 1.5 million sales up there in the frozen North (some Canadians will buy an extra copy for their pet moose, you see). Microsoft and Sony are rumored to be planning competing lumberjack simulations and marketing tie-ins with popular maple syrup makers to increase their systems' appeal to the Canadian market, but as the Quebecois say, this might be "trop peu, trop tard."

(Apologies to all Canadians, who we're sure are too polite and respectful to get mad about this, right?)

As you could probably deduce from earlier posts concerning ill-conceived pseudo-peripherals for Nintendo's latest home console -- we're not really fans of most Wiimote attachments. We don't need a cheap, plastic tennis racket snapped to the front of our controller to "get our McEnroe on" when playing Wii Tennis. We don't need our Wiimote to look like an ugly sword to carve up baddies in Twilight Princess. However, we suppose the only thing that could counteract our disdain for these shoddy add-ons is our unbridled love of Latin American percussion instruments.

We caught a glimpse of the "prototype" Samba de Amigo maracas a couple months ago, but a recent Amazon listing for the attachments shows that the ol' bean shakers have undergone a makeover, taking on a sassy red finish. The date Amazon has listed for the maracas is September 23 for the price of $14.99 -- though considering the title will come bundled with the attachments, you'd only need to pick these up if you wish to share the true Samba experience with a multiplayer pal. Or if you somehow broke yours, we guess. Or if you're Goro.

Wha? What is this? Well, to offer you a more streamlined recap of the goings-on in the Nintendo world, we've combined the DS Lite and Wii Fanboy Weekly recaps into one powerhouse, now dubbed Nintendo Fanboy Weekly. Hopefully, you'll like the new approach.

But enough of that, check out our links. They're homegrown with the finest original features and old coffee grinds.

The Best of DS

• DS Fanboy Review: Bangai-O Spirits
  Treasure's latest is an absolute, uh, treasure
• Point/Counterpoint: The Worth of Chrono Trigger DS
  Really worth the high price tag?
• Gaming to Go: Planet Puzzle League
  See why this one's perfect for the on-the-go gamer
• The DS Life: Captionz Needed
  Kitties and DSes = awwwwwww
• Show and Tell: Put it on
  Our weekly look at the latest creations from the DS community

The Best of Wii

• Wii Fanboy @ EA Summer Showcase: Nerf-N-Strike
  Our hands-on writeup of the peripheral and game
• Want to watch DVDs on your Wii? Let us show you how
  Our step-by-step guide on watching movies on your Wii
• Wii Fanboy @ EA Summer Showcase: Boogie Superstar
  Our hands-on writeup of EA's next installment in the franchise
• Born for Wii: Rogue Squadron
  The game gets re-imagined for Wii
• VC Monday Madness: Mega Man and Neo Turf Masters
  I'm like the best Mega Man player in the world
• Point/Counterpoint: Pros and Conduits
  We debate the hype surrounding The Conduit
• Revolutionary: Special Effects
  A technical look at why games look good

We initially dismissed Zoink and SnapDragon Games' KORE when it popped back into the news a few months ago -- after all, how good could a game that was initially designed for the original Xbox, cancelled, then revived for the Wii possibly be? Our hopes for the title were admittedly low -- however, a pair of videos for the redesigned platformer, including the trailer above and an 11-minute gameplay montage (embedded after the break), recently made their way onto GameTrailers ... and into our hearts.

Okay, we're still not entirely sold on KORE quite yet, but the robo-platforming and Psychonauts-esque visuals are more than enough to pique our collective interest. We'll be keeping an eye on the resuscitated title as its ambitious developers continue revamping it -- we just hope they kan limit the inkorrekt usage of the letter K. It upsets the English majors among us.

Following rumors of a cancellation, it's nice to hear any kind of news about Monolith Soft's Disaster: Day of Crisis -- even if that news is somewhat inconclusive. It seems the title, which was announced alongside Nintendo's latest home console before being put on indefinite hold, recently received a Mature rating from Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification (for "violence, themes and infrequent coarse language", for those who were curious) on Wednesday. Could this signify an end to Disaster's time out? We'll let you know when we hear something more concrete.

It's been well over two years since Nintendo unveiled its "revolutionary" console name (2 years, 3 months and 17 days to be precise). But, much like truthiness, it'd be silly to think it had been the first time the term had been used. Just ask Wii Yatani, a 26-year old New Yorker who experienced all the oh-so clever urine puns decades before the House of Mario. MTV's Stephen Totilo has a profile on Yatani and how the waggle-inducing name has changed his name's perspective.

Additionally, according to Totilo, there were over 1900 pre-Nintendo Wii references in the newspaper and magazine database Nexis. From a Singaporean record-setting stair climber to a Papa New Guinea lieutenant, Wii has traveled the globe. And although Nintendo hasn't attributed an exact definition, Yatani's Wii is derived from two Kanji characters meaning "universe" and "willpower."

Nintendo isn't exactly swinging for the fences with the remainder of its 2008 Wii lineup, but then, when you hit your grand slam so early in the year, it's easy to fade in the second half of the season. Thankfully, homebrewer Erant has stepped up to the plate and delivered a clutch hit: DVD video playback.

... Um, let's try that again: DVD VIDEO PLAYBACK!!1!!!!!

The no mess utility is easy to install (well, maybe not for grandpa) and includes a media player that also makes nice with the video files stored on your SD card. All we need now is a VHS-to-DVD converter so we can transfer mom's old step aerobics tapes onto disc. That's right, homebrewed balance board games! Who knew all this old stuff could feel so new again?

[Via Wii Fanboy]

Saints Row 2 producer Dan Sutton tells CVG that the game isn't coming to the Wii over controversy and graphical concerns. He explains that implementing Wii controls for "chainsaws, satchel charges, stuff like that" in the game might risk the title running into Manhunt 2-style controversy. That's a bad thing? Apparently, SR2's developer, Volition, isn't totally run by the marketing department.

Sutton also explains that SR2 won't be making it to Nintendo's waggle-enriched juggernaut because Volition is "about pushing really good graphics" -- he believes the Wii feels like an older console. Ouch, at least he didn't mention duct tape.

Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq, a column on legal issues as they relate to video games:

GamePolitics recently posted a piece on Forbis, the makers of the weemote, and an issue that is all too familiar in Trademark law: trademark infringement. To summarize the GamePolitics piece, Forbis Technologies trademarked "weemote" in the year 2000 for a children's television remote. According to a Time piece on the weemote, sales have fallen considerably since the Nintendo Wii was released. The blog-o-sphere coined the term "Wiimote" soon after the Wii hardware was announced, and the term has stuck ever since. Nintendo, however, does not have a trademark on the term "wiimote," only on "wii."

Forbis is hoping to enter into a business arrangement by which it can re-brand its product and Nintendo can take control of "wiimote" and "weemote" (pronounced the same) because, as they put it, "the damage has been done here (whether intentional or not)." In fact, in cases of possible infringement between a significantly larger player and a smaller one such as this, a settlement of this nature would not be unusual. Even if Nintendo believes it would be successful in an infringement suit with Forbis, this may be the far cheaper option to resolve the issue. After all, the weemote brand had minimal value before the introduction of the Wiimote based on the company's self-described weak sales. Nintendo has thus far declined to purchase "weemote." But stopping at an out-of-court settlement wouldn't do much to illuminate the legal points that exist here, so let's take a look at this as if it were going to go to trial.

Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime acknowledged, "from an Americas-centric perspective," that the Wii's storage capacity is becoming a "mainstream" problem as the regional consumer base embraces WiiWare and the Virtual Console. He tells MTV there is an "urgency" to finding a storage solution, and even states that Nintendo is working on a solution, albeit one that isn't ready to be announced yet.

Meanwhile, we can't help but notice that USB external hard drives with plenty of space are pretty cheap, but would that solution be too simple? We wouldn't to want make things easy ... that's just too complicated.

Though little is known about the Wii's recently unveiled peripheral, the MotionPlus attachment, other than the fact that it will allow you to throw virtual frisbees to virtual puppies with unparalleled accuracy, Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development director Katsuya Eguchi alluded to a new Wiimote model that would include the MotionPlus technology during an E3 developer roundtable.

In Eguchi's own words, Nintendo is "looking at whether or not it will be an attachment or built in," so a MotionPlus Wiimote is far from confirmed. Still, we certainly hope Nintendo never ceases production of the attachment altogether -- forcing a populous that scrambled to acquire the Wii's elusive controller last year to chase after a new Wiimote SKU could lead to an unforeseen, if not slightly ironic, revolution against the prosperous company.

Let's face it -- most of the gamers who read this (or any) gaming blog aren't the audience Nintendo was targeting during their E3 2008 press conference. Many long-time members of the Wii camp felt betrayed by Ninty's "major" announcements -- that's why we thought we'd try to buck-up your spirits with a GameTrailers developer interview for a title that's been gathering quite a bit of attention from fans of the pint-sized home console: High Voltage Games' The Conduit.

Voltage's Chief Creative Officer, Eric Nofsinger, doesn't exactly dish any new dirt about the title in the above video, though the gameplay shown looks solid, and fairly attractive by the standards of its designated console. Whether or not it's worthy of the hype surrounding it, we'll have to wait until the first quarter of next year to find out. In the mean time, you'll just have to feign excitement over the Wii's thoroughly unexciting Noise Creation Engine.

At Nintendo's E3 press conference this morning, the company announced that their an English version of their popular Japanese Nintendo DS recipe application, Cooking Nanny, will be coming to America in November. More as we get it.

At Nintendo's E3 press conference this morning, the company announced Animal Crossing: City Folk, a new game in the series that will have graphics similar to those of the GameCube version. The game will use the Wii Message Board to allow players to send messages to friends and allow players to put on masks to look like their Miis. It will also support a new community microphone option known as WiiSpeak that will allow you to talk directly to other players around the world. More details as we get them.