Here is the latest weekly update for you folks either on Nintendo 3Ds or Nintendo Wii. Click on the link to be forwarded to each titles profile page on Nintendo.com.

Nintendo eShop 
Blaster Master: Enemy Below - Using the strong weapons and high jumping power of his legendary battle vehicle, Jason must explore a subterranean region where a sinister life form resides. (For Nintendo 3DS™)

Nintendo eShop / Nintendo DSiWare™
Elite Forces: Unit 77 - Drive armored trucks and tanks, defuse mines, locate explosives and rescue hostages. Gather your forces into a crack squad or control a single game character based on the strategic requirements. (For Nintendo 3DS /Nintendo DSi™)

Check out more after the break.

more »

According to a Wired report, Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto is stepping down from his current position at Nintendo. He plans on staying at the company, albeit in more of an advisory role. Miyamoto wants to focus on smaller projects, rather than big-budget productions that require multiple years of development time.

“What I really want to do is be in the forefront of game development once again myself,” explained Miyamoto. more »

After 6 months since stating that 3DS sales are off to a smooth start and roughly 3 months since the handheld received an early price cut Nintendo now has to admit it has a very real problem. The company has forecast its first annual loss since it began reporting finances in 1981. Specifically, Nintendo expects to suffer a loss of ¥20 billion ($264 million) for the year ending March 2012. It seems the Wii 2 could be make or break for the company which was once leaps ahead of Sony and Microsoft.

Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto has weighed in on Wii’s core appeal, or lack thereof, calling the omission of HD support as the ‘biggest factor’ in creating a casual stigma among the public.

“But one of the key reasons that such things as the core and the casual exist today is that we decided not to adopt HD on the Wii console,” said Miyamoto in a recent Iwata Asks segment.

He added, “Of course, besides that there are things like issues with the controller and the challenges that it brings, network functionalities and many other things, but I think HD was the biggest factor that everyone was able to clearly understand the difference.”

However, Nintendo chief Satoru Iwata feels the rift between core and casual is a ‘psychological barrier,’ one that he hopes the Wii U will break down. more »

While Nintendo is no stranger to price cuts, a markdown of $80 on the 3DS was unprecedented for them in such a short time span. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has expressed concern that the sudden drop could have an ill effect on Wii U momentum, in the sense that early adopters that felt burned by the 3DS reduction may hold off.

To remedy this, Nintendo is making strides to ensure that early adopters are treated well, as it outlined in its Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors program.

Our decision of the price markdown this time has a side effect that, at the launch of the Wii U, people may feel that the price might drop in the near future if they wait. Nevertheless, we have decided to cut down the price of the Nintendo 3DS as we consider it as a necessary decision now. What we will be able to do to recover the consumers’ trust before the launch of the Wii U is very important to us.

A price on the Wii U will be announced sometime after March in 2012.

The recent Wii U announcement has generated an ample amount of interest from third-party publishers and developers, even those that completely skipped the Wii due to its lack of horsepower  – like Valve. Turns out, Elder Scrolls and Fallout developer Bethesda is also watching the Wii U closely.

Company vice president Pete Hines told UK trade site MCV that while the firm isn’t ready to make any commitments, Wii U support is being considered — provided the tech specs are a “good fit.” Hines was keen to note that the firm is not willing to make compromises for the sake of releasing on another platform. more »

While Valve has always admired Nintendo, the company remains distant from the Wii for an obvious reason, the lack of power under the hood. Has the recent Wii U announcement piqued Valve’s interest? You betcha. more »

Although it just recently received its public unveiling, Nintendo’s main man Satoru Iwata revealed in an interview with industry site Gamasutra that the underlying concept behind Wii U dates back to 2007, almost immediately after Wii was released.

Iwata said the company mulled over various ideas, one of which described a dual-purpose approach — having the Wii U controller work in tandem with the console, but also as a standalone system. In the end – presumably for cost reasons, it decided to leave all the processing guts in the console itself, with the controller simply receiving images through wireless connection. more »

By way of an official email sent to customers today, Sega confirmed a security breach of its Sega Pass online service. This is the latest in a rash of hacks and DDOS attacks that hit EVE Online, Codemasters, Bethesda, and Sony over the past couple weeks. The infamous LulzSec is not taking credit for this intrusion, however.

According to Sega, an investigation into the extent of this breach is ongoing. Thus far, “a subset of SEGA Pass members emails addresses, dates of birth and encrypted passwords” have been identified as stolen. Sega stresses in the email that passwords were not stored in plaintext. Furthermore, payment information remains safe as the company used external providers to process transactions.

As a precaution, Sega is resetting affected SEGA Pass accounts. Users will be prompted to change password once the service is back online. Read the full email after the break. more »

While Nintendo has been rather coy regarding its online plans for Wii U, president Satoru Iwata reportedly told investors at an E3 Q&A that the company is aiming for flexibility. The service will be adaptable to the desires of third-parties, says Iwata:

So, I think that, going forward, the question is really to what degree Nintendo can create a more flexible system for its consoles.

And, what we found at this point is that, as we discuss the online structure with different publishers, the things that the different publishers want to do are in fact seemingly rather different. Our current direction is how we can take the desires of the third parties and create a system that’s flexible enough to enable them to do the types of things that they might want to do.

It’s notable that Nintendo is trying its best to win third-party devs over, given that many have expressed frustration with the company’s current online approach. Here’s hoping concrete details aren’t far off.

Thanks, Gamasutra.