They say that the Japanese are known for their impeccable respect of timeliness. So why is it that leading Japanese mag Famitsu is revealing its 2008 Game of the Year winners now? Here are some highlights:

• Person of the Year -- Hideo Kojima
  This is a man that not only has time to pen the complex and convoluted script behind Metal Gear Solid 4, but will star in weird videos meant solely for fanboys. That's a man you can respect.
• Rookie Title Prize -- The Last Remnant
  Perhaps "rookie" is a good word to use for Square Enix's RPG that almost played at a respectable framerate on a system that almost sold well in Japan.
• Innovation Prize -- Wii Music
  This game innovated by being the first Nintendo-developed Wii game that didn't sell billions of copies.
• Game of the Year & Best Seller Prize -- Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G
  We love it when "best selling" means simply "the best." In America, the best game of 2008 is Wii Play.

For the complete list of Famitsu's 2008 winners, visit 1UP.

Wii sales have been the lowest they've ever been in Japan. Is the Japanese public losing interest? Screen Digest analyst Ed Barton told GameBizBlog that the Wii sales downturn is mostly due to the lack of staying power exhibited by Animal Crossing: City Folk and Wii Music.

Barton says that the continued success of Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii only back up his claim. "These are older games that obviously have shown tremendous stamina, but Nintendo always needs to bring out new ways to drive console sales forward, and we just didn't see that with Wii Music and City Folk." Even though both titles sold decently enough (Animal Crossing was one of the region's top 10 selling games in 2008 and Wii Music debuted with 92,000 units sold in its first week), they lacked the necessary sales stamina of Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii.

He says that there isn't much hope on the horizon either, despite the imminent release of Monster Hunter 3 on Wii. He warns that trying to transfer the user base from handheld to home console is risky and that the gamble may not pay off for Nintendo. Barton is of the mind that "it won't have the same level of success that it had on the PSP."

Update: The All Wii Gold Box event is now over.

We don't mean to alarm you at such an early hour but ... Amazon is holding an All Wii Gold Box event today, March 31. Beginning at 3 a.m. EDT (12 a.m. PDT), Amazon will offer savings on six different Nintendo Wii titles. Time sensitive promotions (a.k.a. Lightning Deals) begin at 9 a.m. EDT (6 a.m. PDT).

Today's Gold Box Deal: Wii Music, priced at $29.98 (40% Off) and the downloadable PC game, Airport Mania: First Flight for 98 cents.

Amazon has updated the Gold Box page with the following hints for today's Lightning Deals (and we take a wild stab in the dark at what it could be):

• 9:00am ET -- Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party - $29.98 [expired!]
  
• 1:00pm ET -- Ready 2 Rumble Revolution - $29.98 [expired!]
  
• 5:00pm ET -- Super Mario Galaxy - $39.98 [expired!]
  
• 6:00pm ET -- We Cheer - $19.98 [sold out!]
  
• 9:00pm ET -- Animal Crossing / WiiSpeak bundle - $49.98 [sold out!]

This week, the Nintendo Channel has plenty of videos and, much to our surprise, some new DS demos as well. Avalon Code is back, and it brought its friend Trackmania DS along for the ride. Then there's the lovely Nintendo fluff for Wii Music that you can see in the video above. Want the full list? Click past the break and you can have it for the low, low price of free.

A Washington D.C. elementary school has turned to Wii Music to help win support for its music program.

FOX News 5 D.C. reports H.D. Cooke Elementary school isn't using the software to replace the music curriculum but to further pique the students interest in music. The Wii Music injection is, in part, a response to a mandate by D.C. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee for every school to have a music teacher on staff. H.D. Cooke is the first school to use such a program; however, the program is planned to spread to 50 schools across the United States.

The supplemental usage of Wii Music is a good example of engaging kids with popular tech from their generation; however, it will give them the false hope that playing a trombone is as simple as waving your hands around like a crazy person.

[Via Kotaku]

Nintendo has made a business of manufacturing money printing machines, but how has it done in marketing those machines to people? Well, as you can guess from the title of this post, the company hasn't done too badly.

Phoenix Marketing International's Travel and Leisure Division conducted its Video Game Advertising Performance Index (AdPi) Audit and found Nintendo was the only gaming company in Q4 of 2008 to earn above average AdPi scores. The score, which determines effectiveness and impact in all three media categories (print, television and digital), shows that Nintendo has done a pretty good job of pushing its wares on the populace.

The highest-rated ads were:

• TV: Nintendo's Wii Music; and Activision's Call of Duty: World at War
• Print: Nintendo's Wii Fit; Disney Interactive's Disney Think Fast; and MTV Games' Rock Band 2
• Digital: Nintendo's Wii Music; Activision's Call of Duty: World at War; and Ubisoft's The Price is Right

In order to gauge the effectiveness of an ad, consumers were asked if they would buy the game, if the ad was worth watching again, and if the ad was inspiring or worth talking about. Well, we know of at least one ad that definitely fits the bill.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has no problem admitting Wii Music didn't live up to the company's expectations, but he doesn't want you to consider it a failure, either. During a recent Q&A session, he spoke about the company's hopes regarding Wii Music, as well as the difficulty Nintendo has had with consumer reception.

"There are people who highly appreciate it and those who do not appreciate it at all," Iwata said, adding that perceptions can be changed. It's all about word of mouth to him, as he said, "A cycle is born where people who have hands-on experience can immediately understand its appeal, easily explain the positive experience they had to those around them, who then spread that information to the others." That works, unless you're a blog who pretty unanimously hated it and told everyone how you felt.

With Wii Music, the company was never able to achieve this "positive cycle," and Iwata says Nintendo now needs to "reevaluate" why it hasn't been able to "clear that hurdle." Nintendo, here's a protip from us: Emphasize that it has a dog suit and beatboxing. You might sell a few extra copies if you push that.

If there's one thing that's stuck with us concerning Wii Music, it's the ability to play the dog. Well, okay, there's also Stan Lee on the beat box. Now, thanks to a collaboration between Nintendo and MENC (The National Association for Music Education), such fun can be had in the classroom.

Nintendo and MENC are working together with teachers in 51 cities across the United States to implement Wii Music into their lesson plans. "By partnering with educators and bringing Wii Music into their classrooms, we hope to give students a memorable, hands-on experience that helps them discover their own creative voice," said Cammie Dunaway. Executive director of MENC, John J. Mahlmann, agrees, stating "At any grade level, it's essential to provide students with the tools and encouragement they need to be creative."

It's pretty cool, me must admit. Video games never were welcome in the classroom when we were younger, so we're glad that educators are seeing their potential. What's next? Physics professors mapping out the force of Mario stomping on a goomba's head?

There's an entertaining interview with Shigeru Miyamoto over at the Official Nintendo Magazine site, in which Shiggy mostly comes across as a bumbling, endearing eccentric: apparently, he "strummed on an invisible guitar" for the entire interview, and voiced his suspicions that his cat is hiding games from the Miyamoto family. Ha.

Anyway, the article is mainly designed to promote Wii Music, but there is the odd very vague comment about the next Zelda. The opportunists at ONM couldn't resist mentioning the 'Z' word, but Miyamoto wasn't budging too much. "I'm really not sure when we'll be able to make a public announcement on that," he said, adding, "I can't even say if the next E3 will be the right opportunity to do so. But rest assured, our teams are working on new projects right now."

So the next Zelda ... might not be at E3 next year! If that's the case, we could reasonably expect to see something at Nintendo's fall conference(s). We'd at least like to have a peek next year -- having downloaded Ocarina of Time from the Virtual Console over the weekend (spoiler: it's still unfathomably brilliant), this blogger is aching for a new entry in the series.

In October, the Wii was the top-selling console in the US, with 800,000 systems sold. Then in November, Nintendo sold 2.04 million Wii systems. No, wait, that's not right -- it needs italics, bolding, and underlining.

2.04 million Wiis. In one month. This is what happens when Black Friday and adequate stock meet. It's a record for November, obviously. Is this the turning point for the Wii? Is this when it starts to eclipse the mighty DS Lite for good? Who knows? We're too dazzled by big numbers to analyze.

Unsurprisingly, the surge in Wii sales meant great numbers for Wii Play, because people tend to like having multiple controllers. Much more unexpected is the appearance of Wii Music in the software top 10. It's not a Wii Fit or Wii Play-caliber hit by any means, but some people bought it. Also on the subject of Wii music, the Wii version of Guitar Hero World Tour was the only version to make it into the top 10. No Animal Crossing, though. Check after the break for the top 10 list.

- Wii: 2.04m 1.237m (154%)
- DS: 1.57m 1.079m (220%)
- Xbox 360: 836K 465K (125%)
- PSP: 421K 228K (118%)
- PS3: 378K 188K (99%)
- PS2: 206K 70K (51%)

In case you weren't clear about Nintendo's intentions for Wii Music, this should clarify things for you: a Japanese winter-themed commercial for Wii Music, almost two months after the game launched there. Pushing a game well past its initial release is becoming one of Nintendo's favorite tactics (just ask the UK). Is it working in this case? Sort of. Despite enduring a rocky start in Japan, Wii Music is still in the Media Create top 30 (27th this week), so it's not totally off the radar.

Two other things of note: having just celebrated its second birthday, Wii Sports is still 30th in the Japanese charts this week! And is that what Japanese snow is really like? Totally beats the brown/gray slush variant we get here in the UK.

Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto recently conducted a rather large Q&A with Edge, talking about all kinds of fascinating things. Actually, to tell you the truth, the man could talk about used Q-tips and we'd still find it fascinating. To call it a crush would be a severe understatement.

It's no secret that Wii Music hasn't been selling too well, but Miyamoto still has hope that the game will be a success. "I think a very large audience can enjoy Wii Music," Miyamoto said, adding that when Nintendo demoed the game, "many took to it." That can't really be said for the critics, however, who've not enjoyed the game overall.

"I really appreciate that the gaming media has a different view of anything as new as Wii Music today," Miyamoto stated. He said these scores help show "how different and unique Wii Music is" and that he has this "big ambition" for the game and "that it can eventually be something very influential so that it might be able to influence what music means in the world."

It's a pretty lengthy interview, so click here to read the whole thing. It's always nice to get a glimpse into Miyamoto's mind.

Nintendo of Australia's executives have probably gotten congratulatory phone calls from Japan by now. For Wii Music's launch week (two weeks ago), the controversial musical toy was the top-selling console game in the region, according to a Nintendo press release. The 28,000 copies of Wii Music no doubt helped the Wii have its best week ever in Australia, with 35,000 units sold.

According to the press release, the Wii has passed the 750,000 mark in 102 weeks, the shortest time to that milestone in the history of the Australian games industry. Of course, the DS experienced its own milestones, becoming the console to reach 1.5 million in the shortest time.

It's well-established that most average gamers don't seem to think too much of Wii Music, but what about all the casual and irregular gamers in your life? Do they even know about Wii Music, and if so, what do they think of it? Heard anyone asking for it, or know anyone who's gone out to buy it? Nintendo seems to think the title has a lot of potential in the home stretch, and we want to try to measure that by what you've heard and seen.