Welcome back to another Wii Fit Wednesday, wherein I endeavor to prove that gamers are not a bunch of fat, lazy slobs living in their parents’ basement. Some of us own our own homes.

Last week, I rounded things out with a solid 3.1 pounds of weight lost in a flurry of yoga and strength training. How’d I do this week?

Well… that’s a gain of 0.2 pounds since the end of last week… but still an overall loss of 2.9 pounds. I guess there’s bound to be a little bit of an adjustment period. Maybe this week, I’ll try switching trainers. The male coach is kind of a dork.

And yes… I got a little lazy on the 26th. But I made up for it with three and a half hours of yard work and Halloween decorating.

Somewhere in the realm of 4 months ago, I made an impulse purchase, as I am often wont to do when meandering past GameStop out at the mall. Sadly, I have very little impulse control when it comes to clearance bins filled with video games, and they put the damn thing front and center right outside the door. Damn you, Gamestop! But I digress.

On this particular day, I ended up buying Wii Fit… partly because I wanted to try out the Balance Board, and partly because I had some company coming to visit the next weekend, and I knew they’d get a kick out of it. Suffice it to say, I played with my new toy for a few weeks, eventually got bored with the mini-games, and put it away.

About a week ago, after being reminded that I still had the thing to begin with, I dug it out again, and an idea occurred to me. Realistically speaking… just how effective is a game as a fitness coach?

Now, I’m the first to admit, I’m about as lazy as they come. But, all other things being equal, if I dedicated, oh say, 30 minutes a day to actually using Wii Fit, rather than just playing the mini-games and doing yoga poses, what sort of effect would it have on my slothful, slothful self?

Well, I’m going to find out. And since I’ve been indescribably bad about keeping this blog updated lately, you’re going to find out with me. So welcome to Wii Fit Wednesdays. In these posts, I’ll be keeping track of my losses and gains until such time as I get sick of this damn thing again and shove it back in the closet (my coworkers may feel free to start a betting pool on how long that’ll take).

To get things started, here are my first week’s results… and no, I’m not posting my actual weight…

Well… not a bad start. A total loss of 3.1 pounds, and I finished with a Wii Fit Age of 24 (just for for reference… I’m 28). Of course, next week brings with it my greatest obstacle. Halloween Candy.

Ever wonder what the Final Fantasy IV characters got up to after the game ended? (Well… the ones who lived through it, I mean…) I guess now we’ll find out.

No, really. There’s a Final Fantasy IV sequel out today on WiiWare. Apparently I missed the memo on this when it came out on various mobile phone platforms in Japan last year, because this is complete news to me (I’m almost ashamed to call myself a fan for not knowing about this).

For a mere 800 Wii Point, you can pick up FInal Fantasy VII: The After Years.

From Nintendo:

Good news for all you Wii owners who were jealous of those lucky Club Nintendo Japan users who were able to snag a Super Nintendo-esque Wii Remote add-on controller… It’s available to the general public now! Kind of.

Granted, you still have to import it, but at least you won’t be paying the price-gougers on eBay anymore. That’s not to say it isn’t still on the pricey side. Play-Asia.com is offering the controller for $74.90 + $6.90 shipping.

So, if the Wii Classic controller just isn’t doing it for you and you’ve got an extra $82 laying around somewhere, this could be all yours:

And about time.

Nintendo launched Club Nintendo for North America today. So what does this mean? The “club” is more of a rewards program, in which gamers register their Nintendo-published games (and certain WiiWare titles) and fill out surveys ‘n such to receive Coins, which can then be cashed in on the site for prizes.

So what can you get? Lots of nifty stuff if you’re a DS owner… not so much for us Wii people yet. You can check out the current rewards here.

The sites seems to be getting slammed pretty hard right now, so don’t be shocked if the registration process doesn’t go quickly for you.

Amazon.com has a pretty sweet deal on Guitar Hero for Wii today.

You can snag yourself 2 Frontman Wireless Guitars (for Wii) for $20 when you buy the software only versions of either Guitar Hero Aerosmith, or Guitar Hero 3 for Wii.

Regular list price on Frontmans runs around $49.99, so getting them for $10 each is a pretty hefty discount… so if you’re a Wii owner who passed on Legends of Rock or Aerosmith in favor of World Tour, or are in need of an extra Guitar or two, you might want to go check this one out. And since it’s one-day only, you might want to hurry.

This will probably be the one and only time I have anything even remotely positive to say about a sports game… or, for that matter, EA… so pay attention.

EA announced yesterday that they will be releasing a Madden 09 Pink edition, in honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which will be available exclusively at Target starting on October 5th, and will be sold for the duration of the month. The limited pink edition doesn’t have any new features (other than some spiffy pink cover art), but proceeds from the sales will contribute to a donation to the Deanna Favre HOPE Foundation.

Deanna Favre, wife of Madden NFL 09 cover athlete Brett Favre, founded the Deanna Favre HOPE Foundation after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 at the age of 35. The foundation is committed to helping underserved and underinsured women battling breast cancer.

The limited Pink edition of Madden 09 is available for the 360 and for the Wii at both Target.com and NFLshop.com.

Today’s press conference in San Francisco was a plethora of all things Nintendo. Some good news, some awesome news… some ehh news. Here’s a rundown of what they had to say:

1. The DS is breeding again. Nintendo’s mad geneticists got together and and spliced their handheld’s DNA once again. So now, in addition to the Nintendo DS, the Nintendo DS Lite, and their cousin no one talks about, the GBA, we’re going to have the Nintendo DSi.

So what’s new? Well, for one thing, Nintendo is following Sony’s lead and killing backwards compatibility… no more GBA slot on the DSi. Which is also bad news for fans of Guitar Hero: On Tour, since it’s peripheral uses that slot, as well as those who like the rumble cartirdge. But on the plus side (I guess…) you’re getting a camera! A 0.3 megapixel camera. … Yay? Well, actually, two cameras. One on the inside (presumably to be something like a DS EyeToy) and one outside (for… making people wonder why you’re taking their photo with a DS, I suppose).

Nintendo is also adding an SD Card slot for saving all those pics you’ll be taking with you DSi, larger screens, audio enhancements (meaning audio playback from the SD card, as well as recording capabilities), and a built-in web browser. It will be possible to download games (DSiWare) and keep them on the DSi via the DSi Shop, and will be available in two colors: black and white.

If you’re hoping for one for Christmas, though… keep hoping. The DSi won’t be North America-bound until late 2009. Japan, of course, gets it the first of next month.

2. Starting in Spring 2009 (again, that’s in Japan), the Wii will be able to download software directly to your SD Card. It’s still a far cry from the external hard drive many of us Wii fans want, but at least they’re finally doing something about the storage issues.

3. The U.S. is finally getting Club Nintendo! Finally, an announcement I can get excited about. Nintendo’s customer loyalty program is on it’s way, scheduled to debut at some point this holiday season, and soon we’ll be collecting points and spending them on items from the Stars Catalog. Geeky, yes, but I love crap like this. ^_^ About freaking time!

4. Wii Speak will be out in the U.S. next month. November 16th, to be exact. Retailing for $29.99, it will (until the games other than Animal Crossing that support it are released as well, anyway) allow up to four people who’ve exchanged Friend Codes to chat and leave voice messages, and will come with a code for a free download of the Wii Speak Channel.

5. New games! Coming soon to a Wii near you are such titles as Dynasty Warriors, Another Code (DS users may be familiar with this one), Sin & Punishment 2, and… Punch-Out. Yep, Punch-Out. The DS will be getting Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, and Mario & Luigi RPG.

In addition to new Wii titles, Nintendo is also introducing the “Play For Wii” selections… which are basically just repackaged rereleases of popular GameCube titles. The first to be released will be Pikmin.

Info for this post amalgamated from Kotaku, Joystiq, and Destructoid

I return (after using some of my rapidly accumulating vacation time, and being sick for most of said vacation… Gah…) with some good news for the Wii-less among you.

Frequent visitors to the217.com may have noticed a colorful ad banner floating around in the sidebar on many of the site’s pages, imploring you to vote for the buzz Best of CU awards. And do you want to know why you should vote?

Well, yeah, to show your appreciation for the many fine businesses in town, sure, but more importantly because voting automatically enters you into a random drawing to win a Wii! Yes, that’s right, we’ve got a Wii to give away here on the217.com (I’ve even seen it… they’re keeping it under lock and key, guarded by the company Giant Enemy Crab).

Along with the Wii, the kind and generous marketing people around here have also scraped together an extra Nunchuck and a copy of Wii Play (which comes with an additional Wii-Remote for use with the aforementioned extra Nunchuck).

So get out there and vote!

Giant Enemy Crab guarding the Wii… Clearly not a Photoshop job…

Alright, Ubisoft has hit a new low, even for them. And before you ask, no this is not a Photoshop job gone horribly wrong… it’s real cover art for a real game.

Imagine: Party Babyz (Why, God? Why?) is coming in late October. Personally, I think the entire Imagine series is pretty god-awful, but this is a whole new level of stupid.

Like essentially the whole series, Party Babyz is little more than a collection of themed mini-games. This set includes such favorites as Red Light, Green Light, and one wherein you must feed your baby as many bottles as possible within the time limit (Overfeed the Baby?).

And of course you will be able to customize your baby, GATTACA-style.

Ubisoft, please just do us all a favor and go back to working on Beyond Good & Evil 2… before your developers finally crack and kill themselves. Seriously, do you guys just sit around playing Mad Libs to come up with these games?