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Indie Megabooth has a problem.

It's not something that's easy to bring up in polite conversation. Like a friend complaining that he has two dates in one night, or someone pouting because she has too much ice cream, the problem could easily be misconstrued as a humblebrag and brushed aside. But it's a serious issue.

Indie Megabooth is too popular.

"One of the problems we were running into, is that the amount of submissions that we have this year far exceeds what we can support," Indie Megabooth marketing mastermind Rami Ismail tells Joystiq.

This is a major roadblock because Indie Megabooth's goal is to promote the full spectrum of independent gamess. Aven though the Megabooth takes up the most space of any exhibit on the PAX East and Prime show floors, it isn't enough to give every willing developer a spot. Indie Megabooth hosts 40 - 60 developers at each show - that's larger than Sony's booth at E3 - but this year, 150 developers submitted 200 games for consideration, Ismail says.

"We just don't have space for that," he says.

Luckily, Indie Megabooth has a solution. Or two.

Some thought it disappointingly shallow where others had an unusual, but ultimately enjoyable experience. Nintendo's latest Wario-themed Wii U-exclusive assortment of quirky and highly imaginative minigames, Game & Wario, is unquestionably divisive. The minigames themselves got a lot of complaints, and were said to be a mixed bag concerning quality and depth, but Game & Wario's saving grace, to many, was its unending imagination and creativity—not to mention its huge number of unlockables. Here's a sampling of what the critics have said. Joystiq Wario's been with us for two whole decades, and in that time, Nintendo has used Mario's Garbage Pail Kids variant to disrupt some pretty fundamental gameplay ideas – especially in endlessly inventive portable series like Wario Land and WarioWare. As made evident by its E3 2013 lineup, though, Nintendo has placed less of a priority on tinkering during the Wii U generation, instead focusing on producing sequels to established series. So, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Game & Wario is essentially a reworked Nintendo Land. GamesRadar If you boot up the game in hopes of solo play you'll be met with a surprisingly long list of options. A strange campaign brings you through 16 different games that Wario, himself, created. As such, they're absolutely insane, with nose-tipped arrows flying into robots pirates launching attacks on Captain Wario's ship. Each attempts to take advantage of the GamePad in some way, be it by providing touchscreen/tilt controls or use of the two-screen setup. In some cases it's a success—one game, called "Gamer", tasks you with playing typical WarioWare microgames on the GamePad while trying to hide from your mother, who thinks you're sleeping. It's wacky, and couldn't really be done without the Wii U's unique setup. "Taxi" is enjoyable as well, and has you driving a taxi in first-person (on the touch screen) while trying to shuttle farm animals back to their barn while fighting off invading aliens. Edge Magazine [The game's] first and perhaps biggest hurdle is expectation. Players will see Wario’s name on the box and Intelligent Systems’ logo on its reverse and understandably expect a carnival of fast-paced, anarchic mayhem. Yet Game & Wario is not a WarioWare game (except during one of its 16 activities, where it all too fleetingly is). Its games are not micro but mini, a distinction Nintendo is distressingly keen to make, as if there was something wrong with WarioWare’s design. Arriving several months after Wii U’s launch, it doesn’t even have the ancillary benefit of demonstrating the console’s featureset, beaten to it by the more rounded Nintendo Land. This is an ideal pack-in title, a bundled collection of tech demos arriving far too late to the Wii U party. EGM I’m not usually one for collectibles, but Game & Wario’s trinkets are actually useful or amusing—or even a combination of the two. Once you complete a specific challenge—or even when you’ve just turned on the game after a break—you’ll get a token, which allows you access to one of 240 collectibles via the Cluck-a-Pop capsule machine. I couldn’t wait to pop open one of the capsules, since I never knew what to expect. It might be a hint to help pass a particular challenge, it might be some inside intel on the crazy world of Diamond City courtesy of Mona, or it might be Monty Python–esque theater of the absurd. All are equally welcome, as far as I’m concerned. Destructoid Game & Wario is the most "normal" game in the WarioWare series (assuming it's officially a part of the series) which is part of what makes it so weird. As a whole, it's all over the place, sometimes original, sometimes derivative, sometimes dry, sometimes funny, sometimes simple, sometimes complicated. It's clear that Nintendo just wasn't sure what to do with some of these games, so they threw them in the Game & Wario package whether they fit there or not. Game Informer The selection of multiplayer games is disappointingly small, with only five in total. Similar to the single-player game, even though the choices are limited, the offerings are of high quality and built to be played with a single GamePad. You won’t need additional controllers, which fosters inclusion without much investment. A decent version of Pictionary is included, as well as a game where the GamePad player tries to hide in a crowd of NPCs while other players try to pick out who the player character is. My friends and I had fun trying to pick each other out of a line-up, and trying to blend in with a crowd. Kotaku If you want to play a great game on Wii U, pass. If you want to laugh a lot and marvel at the daring creativity and strange sensibilities of some of Nintendo's own developers, get it. I was expecting to loathe this game for what it isn't. Instead, I'm smitten by what it is. Top image courtesy of Gergő Vas. Questions? Comments? Contact the author of this post at andras-AT-kotaku-DOT-com.

When I was a child, I paid like a child, I saved like a child, I bargained like a child. When I read the Moneysaver, I put the ways of childhood behind me. We've got deals for days but they won't last for days. Get Tomb Raider bundled with Sleeping Dogs and Just Cause 2 in the PC section for a paltry $24, or Tomb Raider with Absolution for 35 bucks on the consoles. DLC for Borderlands 2 and Bioshock Infinite is discounted, FEZ and Mirror's Edge are five bucks, and that's just to name a few offers. Here's your new gaming headset. Here's new release Company of Heroes 2 for $45. Here’s your new dead simple cheap surround sound system. The Commerce Team Wants You! We're looking for two new team members, one to take over Gizmodo's Dealzmodo and one to take on the challenge of creating a similar segment at Lifehacker. If you think you've got what it takes then hit up one of the job listings below. I'm happy to answer questions in the comments section, on Twitter, or at Shane@Gawker.com • Commerce Specialist, Gizmodo • Commerce Specialist, Lifehacker PC • Tomb Raider + Sleeping Dogs + Just Cause 2 [Steam] ($24) | Gamefly | Use code GFDJUN20 • Dishonored + Bethesda game of your choice [Steam] ($15) | GetGamesGo via Comments • Dirt 2 + 3 + Showdown [Steam] ($14) | Gamefly | Use code GFDJUN20 • Spec Ops + Darkness 2 + Duke Nukem Forever [Steam] ($8) | Gamefly | Use code GFDJUN20 • A few other Gamefly bundles, same code GFDJUN20 • Bioshock Infinite DLC Columbia's Finest [Steam] ($4) | Green Man Gaming via Dealzon | Use code GMG20-6WUSQ-LBC4U • Borderlands 2 DLC Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep [Steam] ($8) | Green Man Gaming via Nimble Cat | Use code GMG20-6WUSQ-LBC4U • Borderlands 2 DLC Psycho Pack [Steam] ($8) | Green Man Gaming via Nimble Cat | Use code GMG20-6WUSQ-LBC4U • FEZ ($5) | GOG | Normally $10 • Dyad ($5) | GOG | Normally $15 • Hotline Miami ($3) | GOG | Normally $10 • More GOG deals • Humble Bundle with Android #6 has added Nightsky, McPixel, and Waking Mars. • King's Bounty + 9 other games [Steam] ($2.50) | Bundle Stars • Joe Danger 1 + 2 ($15) | Steam | Normally $25 • Sniper Elite V2 + Gatling Gears + 3 more [Steam] (~$6) | IndieRoyale • Sweet Borderlands sale over at GetGamesGo [Steam] • Mirror's Edge + DLC ($5) | Amazon • Far Cry 3 [Physical] ($20) | Amazon • Pre-order Super Splatters ($7) [Steam/Humble/DRM-free] | Developer via Reddit | Normally $10 | Releases tomorrow Mac • Borderlands 2 DLC Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep [Steam] ($8) | Green Man Gaming via Nimble Cat | Use code GMG20-6WUSQ-LBC4U • Borderlands 2 DLC Psycho Pack [Steam] ($8) | Green Man Gaming via Nimble Cat | Use code GMG20-6WUSQ-LBC4U • Sweet Borderlands sale over at GetGamesGo [Steam] • Pre-order Super Splatters ($7) [Steam/Humble/DRM-free] | Developer via Reddit | Normally $10 | Releases tomorrow PS3/PS4 • Tomb Raider + FREE Hitman: Absolution ($35) | Newegg via 9to5Toys • GRID 2 ($40) | Amazon • Injustice: Gods Among Us | Amazon • Tomb Raider ($30) | Amazon • Far Cry 3 ($20) | Amazon • The Walking Dead ($20) | Amazon • Mushroom Wars + Germinator + 5 0thers ($20) | PSN • BreakQuest + Jetpack Joyride + 3 others ($6) | PSN • FREE Spartacus Legends | PSN Playstation Plus • Fat Princess ($4) • Hydrophobia Prophecy ($0.60) 360/One • Tomb Raider + FREE Hitman: Absolution ($35) | Newegg via 9to5Toys • Gears of War: Judgment ($40) | Amazon • Tomb Raider ($30) | Amazon • Far Cry 3 ($20) | Amazon • The Walking Dead ($20) | Amazon • FREE Spartacus Legends | LIVE • Microsoft has a selection of games on sale at their store. It's mostly either so-so games or so-so deals, but you may find something you've been wanting. Witcher 2 and Amalur are good bets. Wii U • Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate | Amazon • Injustice: Gods Among Us | Amazon Vita Playstation Plus • FREE Virtue's Last Reward • Escape Plan ($4) 3DS • Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate ($33) | Amazon via Daily Game Deals • LEGO City Undercover ($23) | Amazon via Daily Game Deals • New Super Mario Bros. 2 ($30) | Amazon • Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon ($35) | Amazon • Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D ($29) | Amazon iOS • FREE Gesture Touchpad for Win8 | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $5 • FREE Arpeggionome for iPhone | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $3 • Goodnight Moon ($1) | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $3 • Apreggiome Pro ($15) | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $20 • FREE 100 Binuaral Beats | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $3 Android • FREE The Pixelizers | Amazon Appstore via Brand Name Coupons | Originally $1 • Anomaly Korea ($1) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $3 • Earth and Legend ($1) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $3 • R-Type ($1) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $2 • Another World ($1) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $2 • Beautiful Widgets Pro ($1.29) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $2 • Raiden Legacy ($2) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $6 Media • Scarface Limited Edition with Humidor ($300) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals | This was over $700 yesterday • Pre-order World War Z 3D [Blu-ray] ($25) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals • Here are the best movies leaving Amazon Prime this weekend, and here's a free trial. • Sopranos Complete Series [DVD] ($125) | Amazon | Tied for lowest price ever • Firefly Complete Series [DVD] ($13) | Amazon Tech • Razer Surround is a new FREE tool that's compatible with any pair of stereo headphones. • V-Moda Tru Blood Earphones ($130) | Amazon via Dealmac | Originally $200 • 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive ($15) | Amazon via Dealmac | Originally $20 • 1TB Toshiba Portable Hard Drive ($60) | Amazon | Lowest price ever • Yamaha 7.2ch 4K 3D Receiver ($480) | Newegg via Wirecutter | Down from $650 • Acer 27-inch Monitor ($243) | NewEgg via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever • 27" Dell U2711 Monitor ($550) | Dell via Techbargains | Originally $700 | Use coupon code PV4NQ1C11JQZBD • Sanus Wall-Mount Home Theater Shelving ($80) | Best Buy via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever • Monster Surge Protector ($14) | Amazon via TechDealDigger | The company, not the adjective. • HTC One LTE [Sprint] ($80) | Amazon via FatWallet Rigged • Corsair 80 Plus Bronze 500W PSU ($30) | Tiger Direct via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever after $20 rebate • 22" iMac ($1085) | Ebay via 9to5Toys | Originally $1300 Inventory • God of War Blade of Chaos ($95) | United Cutlery via @mindflare77 | $224 list price • Table Top Pool or Hockey or Foosball ($25) | Justdeals via Ben's Bargains • Northwest Territory Dome Tent ($25) | Sears via Deals Kinja | $35 and up elsewhere • 10' x 6' Inflatable Pool ($19) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever • Men's Shirts up to 60% Off | Amazon via Deals Kinja Keep up with Shane Roberts on Kinja and Twitter. Check out Dealzmodo for more great tech deals, and Deals.Kinja.com for even more discounts. Join us every weekday at 2:15pm ET for the full Moneysaver roundup, brought to you by the Commerce Team. We're here to bring Kotaku readers the best gaming deals available, and to be clear, we also make money if you buy. We want your feedback.

Take control of the battlefield this week with Company of Heroes 2...

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The credits in the new Nintendo game Game & Wario are as weird as the rest of the game, but they're also possibly the best credits ever. They serve a serious, modern purpose. And they make some good jokes. The serious purpose: they break the team down by job focus (directors, programmers, producers, etc.) and by demographics. Most of the demographics are silly, but some actually provide a fascinating snapshot of who on a big Japanese Nintendo game development team has kids, who is left-handed (okay, that doesn't really matter) and, simply, who is male and who is female. Male developers on this game (including the entire sound department, orange; senior producers, white): Female developers on this game (two at the director level, purple; a good number of them in graphic design, pink bordered by maroon): The not-so-serious purpose of these credits: tell us who on the development team has a sweet tooth, is a cat person or hates peas. Pea-haters: The credits are interactive, as you can see in this video. The big grid shows all the developers. The Wii U gamepad lets you tap different groupings to see the various clusters of game creators. In cast it's not clear, those aren't the game developers' faces you're seeing in all these grid shots. Each box actually shows a sketch of the developer's nose. That's why they call the credits the Schnozzipedia. Amazing. To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo

The cheap wind begins to blow. Time for another week of deals here in Moneysaver land. With a great selection of recent high profile titles like Far Cry 3, Tomb Raider, DMC, and Judgment, a great app selection, and Jurassic Park on blu-ray, we've got the antidote to your Monday. Here’s your new dead simple cheap surround sound system. The Commerce Team Wants You! We're looking for two new team members, one to take over Gizmodo's Dealzmodo and one to take on the challenge of creating a similar segment at Lifehacker. If you think you've got what it takes then hit up one of the job listings below. I'm happy to answer questions in the comments section, on Twitter, or at Shane@Gawker.com • Commerce Specialist, Gizmodo • Commerce Specialist, Lifehacker PC • Tomb Raider Survival Edition [Steam] ($20) | GamersGate via Dealzon | Lowest ever by $9 • DMC: Devil Mar Cry [Steam] ($24) | Green Man Gaming via Daily Game Deals | Use code GMG20-6WUSQ-LBC4U • Legacy of Kain Series [Steam] ($1.75/each) | Green Man Gaming • Deadpool [Steam] ($32) | Gamefly via Reddit | Use code GFDJUN20 • Far Cry 3 [Physical] ($20) | Amazon • GOG’s no DRM 2013 Summer Sale continues, so get in there. • Pre-order LEGO Marvel for any platform, get $10 Amazon credit. | via Daily Game Deals Mac If you were wondering if the crazy claims about the new Macbook's battery were legit, they are. PS3/PS4 • Tomb Raider ($30) | Amazon • Far Cry 3 ($20) | Amazon • Pre-order LEGO Marvel for any platform, get $10 Amazon credit. | via Daily Game Deals • Remember Me ($52) | Amazon via Daily Game Deals • The Walking Dead ($20) | Amazon via DealNews • Rocksmith ($30) | Best Buy via DealNews • 500GB Playstation 3 Assassin's Creed Bundle ($230) | Newegg via Ebay via Dealnews | Originally $300 360/One • Gears of War: Judgment ($40) | Amazon via Daily Game Deals • Tomb Raider ($30) | Amazon • Far Cry 3 ($20) | Amazon • Pre-order LEGO Marvel for any platform, get $10 Amazon credit. | via Daily Game Deals • Remember Me ($52) | Amazon via Daily Game Deals • The Walking Dead ($20) | Amazon via DealNews • Rocksmith ($30) | Best Buy via DealNews • Mortal Kombat Tournament Fight Stick ($40) | Gamestop via Daily Game Deals Wii U • Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate ($40) | Target via Comments Section • Pre-order LEGO Marvel for any platform, get $10 Amazon credit. Vita • Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 ($15) | TigerDirect via @WizJAB • Pre-order LEGO Marvel for any platform, get $10 Amazon credit. 3DS • Pre-order LEGO Marvel for any platform, get $10 Amazon credit. iOS • FREE Spell Sword | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $1 • FREE Dead Land | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $2 • FREE Star Rover HD | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $2 • FREE Razor: Salvation | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $1 Android • Elemental Knighs Online RED` ($1) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $7 • The Nautilus ($1) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $3 • Flight Control ($1) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $3 • Call of Cthulhu: Wasted Land ($3) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $7 Media • Jurassic Park Trilogy [Blu-ray] ($28) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals • The Magnificent Seven [Blu-ray] ($16) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals • Shawshank Redemption Steelbook [Blu-ray] ($8) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals Tech • Refurb Astro Gaming A40 Wired Headset ($150) | Astro Gaming (eBay) via Dealzon | Normally $250 • Sharp Aquos 50-Inch 1080p LED HDTV ($500) | Best Buy via Deals Kinja | Matches lowest price ever • QKC Gaming Mousepad ($8) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever • Logitech Wireless Keyboard with Built-In Multi-Touchpad ($25) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever • iPhone Charger Bracelet ($11) | Tanga via 9to5Toys • iPhone Digital King Lenses ($30) | Adorama via Dealmac | Originally $40 • Logitech MK320 Cordless Dektop Keyboard/Mouse ($20) | Deals Kinja via Deals Kinja | Originally $40 • Logitech K400 ($25) | Tiger Direct via Buyvia | Originally $40 • $50 iTunes Gift Card ($45) | Best Buy via Fatwallet | Originally $50 • 1TB Seagate Backup Plus ($80) | Newegg via 9to5Toys | Originally $100 • Retail GoPro Hero3 Silver ($233) | Ebay | Originally $300 • Samsung Series 3 Chromebox ($250) | Amazon via Edealinfo | Originally $330 #moneysaver RT @dealzmodo Discounted iTunes money over on Ebay. $50 for $40 http://t.co/fJBLqWWlHF — Shane Roberts (@ShaneOSX) June 24, 2013 Rigged • Newegg has a selection of Haswell K processors bundled with 1150 motherboards. • Samsung 840 SSD 250GB or 500GB ($150 or $300) | eBay • Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 with Games Bundle ($210) | TigerDirect | After $20 rebate • AMD A6-3670K 2.7GHz Quad-Core w AMD Radeon HD 6530D ($60) | NewEgg Inventory • Casio CA53W Databank Calculator Watch ($12.57) | Amazon via Dealzmodo | Normally around $20 • Mini CREE LED Flashlight ($4) | Amazon via Deals Kinja • Gerber Crucial Multi-Tool ($19) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever • FREE Trilobite Fossil | Greggdrilling • Bejeweled Frenzy Board Game ($10) | Amazon via FatWallet | Coupon on page • Vivere Double Hammock ($95) | Amazon via Ben's Bargains | Originally $150 • Ties.com 20% off | via Fat Wallet | Use code TCJULY20 • Free Lipton Natural Iced Tea with 7-eleven app • Pop Chart Lab 15% off | Use code JULY4 Keep up with Shane Roberts on Kinja and Twitter. Check out Dealzmodo for more great tech deals, and Deals.Kinja.com for even more discounts. Join us every weekday at 2:15pm ET for the full Moneysaver roundup, brought to you by the Commerce Team. We're here to bring Kotaku readers the best gaming deals available, and to be clear, we also make money if you buy. We want your feedback.

Are there insane people working at Nintendo HQ? Game & Wario suggests there are. Behold, one of the weirdest pieces of software ever made by the House of Mario, a game that is not a WarioWare game, is not a great game, but is a comedic must-play triumph. If you were a person to have the good taste to purchase a WarioWare game in the past—preferably the original or its sequel Twisted—then you may believe that modern Wario games are supposed to be micro-game collections. They're not supposed to be "mini-game collections." The different prefix is meaningful... micro-games. They're not supposed to be tedious collections of games that couldn't sell on their own. They're meant to be glorious fusillades of three-second games, each tossed at the player with no time to think and only time to get to the next karate-chopping, nose-picking, windshield-wiping one. Game & Wario, new to the Wii U and sold at launch at the warning price of $40, is not a WarioWare game, though it does have a game about a kid who is playing WarioWare. Of course it does. It's called "Gamer." You have to play his game for him while also keeping him from getting caught by his mom. Watch this bit of brilliance: Did you see that? Did you get that? Is that not the greatest thing? The premise of Game & Wario is that Wario, Nintendo's own money-grubbing game-making mascot, has heard about a hot new two-screen gaming system (the Wii U, basically) and has decided to cash in on it. Yeah, see... Sadly, much of what Wario "makes" isn't that good. For example, this side-scroller here, which Game & Wario players get three exciting levels of, is the pits: Some of the 12 mini-games (yes, "games that couldn't sell on their own") are novel. They do show what new things you can get when you have a screen in your controller and one on your TV. There's a paparazzi game, for example, that lets you use the Wii U GamePad like a camera while taking pictures of characters on the TV: And there's this pretty good mini-game about driving a space taxi: These, however, are not the reasons you should care about Game & Wario. These are not the reasons I've broken form for a Kotaku review and even mentioned the price. No, the reason to care about this one is because it's a comedy. Game & Wario is a comedy in the way only a video game—an interactive piece of software, more precisely—can be. That's not something you usually get a chance to pay $40 for and run on a game console. That's not something you might have even considered. But that's what this is. This isn't really a mini-game collection. It's a mini-game comedy, with 12 solo games, a quartet of forgettable multiplayer games and dozens and dozens of unlockable...well...pieces of interactive comedy, I guess. You play solo the games, you earn coins and you unlock stuff like this: That's art, right? This one's even more nuts and only possible in this form: Think about this. What you're about to see is an unlockable, barely-interactive fever dream synopsis of Super Mario Bros., presented as a phone call and a child's drawing. Someone at Nintendo actually made this! That one, above, is actually the least weird of the strange "phone calls" I've unlocked in Game & Wario. It's also positively pedestrian compared this thing, which is innocuously titled "Beans": For all the occasional worry that Nintendo has gone stiff and lost its creative touch, here we have a game in Game & Wario that is nuts and bursting with creativity. In that sense, it's consistent with the WarioWare games before it. It brings back the series' cast, expands it and uses them to stage all sorts of unexpected interactive spectacles. Check out "Bird", the game that's unlockable in most WarioWare game and is back on Wii U here with something I don't think I've ever seen before. You're going to see the same game, played on two screens, but using different art styles on each screen: There are things in Game & Wario that are conventional, like this one of the 12 mini-games: There are things in Game & Wario that refashion old Wii U tech demos for something experimental, though with limited appeal: There are, ultimately, no great mini-games in Game & Wario and nothing with the depth of the best of Wii U launch game Nintendo Land. There are some nice demonstrations of what two-screen gaming can do. In that sense, Game & Wario is a mildly convincing reinforcement of the Wii U's core two-screen concept being a good idea. It's just that none of that matters much compared to the success of Game & Wario as a stunning library of interactive weirdness. Previous WarioWare games have also included lots of bizarre interactive toys. They too have included what are more or less humorous, non-goal-oriented art pieces. Their successor on Wii U follows the tradition untraditionally and indulges its player with a generous helping of the weird and funny. If you want to play a great game on Wii U, pass. If you want to laugh a lot and marvel at the daring creativity and strange sensibilities of some of Nintendo's own developers, get it. I was expecting to loathe this game for what it isn't. Instead, I'm smitten by what it is. To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo

Claymation point-and-clicker Armikrog has until Thursday, June 27 to reach its $900,000 Kickstarter goal, but developer Pencil Test Studios decided it's never too late to add a stretch goal to its funding initative. In this case, the former Neverhood developers added a $950,000 stretch goal to its campaign that would bring the game to Wii U.

An update on the project noted that Nintendo "fast-tracked" Pencil Test Studios to become a licensed Wii U developer, and the studio said Nintendo contacted it recently to see if the developer would be interest in bringing Armikrog to Wii U. Of course, the project still has a few days to reach its initial goal; the project currently sits at $635,887.

Rise and save, Mister Reader. Rise and... save. Not that I... wish to imply you have been sleeping on the job. No one is more deserving of a deal, and all the effort in the world would have gone to waste until... well, let's just say your Moneysaver has... come again. The right promo code in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So, wake up, Mister Reader. Wake up and... smell the savings... We're all indie games and Haswell CPU's today. Grab Fez, Hotline Miami, FTL and more at some of their lowest prices ever (or lowest), as well as Swords and Sorcery on Android. Newegg has some awesome bundles of Haswell K processors with compatible motherboards on sale, so hit up the Rigged section if you're looking to upgrade your machine or build a new one. Want to game with your dealmaster? Send me a request on Steam or Playstation Network, but do say "Moneysaver" or "Kotaku" in the message so I know you're not a random: PC • FEZ ($5) | GOG | Normally $10 • Dyad ($5) | GOG | Normally $15 • Deus Ex 1-2 + Thief 1-3 + Daikatana + Anachronox ($15) | GOG | Normally $62 • 150 more games on sale a GOG • Hotline Miami [Steam] ($2.70) | Gamefly via Reddit | Use code GFDJUN20 • FREE Pinball FX2 Sorcerer's Lair Table | Steam | FX2 platform is free to download • Dungeonland ($5) | Steam • Tomb Raider + FREE Hitman: Absolution [Steam] ($40) | Amazon • Mirror's Edge + DLC ($5) | Amazon #moneysaver FTL: Faster Than Light is $2.50 directly from the devs. Steam and DRM-free, cross-platform. http://t.co/PR3Whuyfkf — Shane Roberts (@ShaneOSX) June 21, 2013 Mac • FTL [Steam] ($2.50) | Official Site • Borderlands 2 ($10) | Mac Game Store via 9to5Toys PS3/PS4 • Jak & Daxter Collection ($13) | Amazon • Playstation 3 120GB ($190) | CowBoom via TechBargains | Use code PS320120 | This is one of the best prices we've seen on a new PS3 Playstation 4 bundles, get your Playstation 4 bundles right here. 360/One • Assassin's Creed 3 ($20) | Amazon • Pre-order Xbox One ($500) | Amazon Wii U • Assassin's Creed 3 ($20) | Amazon Vita • Lumines: Electric Symphony ($11) | Amazon via Daily Game Deals • Assassin's Creed Liberation ($20) | Amazon 3DS You need 3D glasses to see the deals here. iOS • FREE Survivor Z | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $2 • Ascendancy ($1) | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $7 • Rimelands: Hammer of Thor ($1) | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $5 • Sonic the Hedgehog 4 ($1) | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $2 • Badland ($2) | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $4 • FREE Wrestle Jump | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $2 • FREE Tug The Table | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $2 • FREE vJay | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $10 Android • Superbrothers Swords and Sworcery ($2) | Google Play | Originally $5 • Sonic Jump ($1) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $2 • Sonic 4 Episode 1 ($1) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $4 • Sonic CD ($1) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $3 • Sonic The Hedgehog ($1) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $3 • Sonic 4 Episode 2 ($1) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $5 • God of Blades ($1) | Google Play | Originally $3 Media • Armageddon [Blu-ray] ($11) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals | Lowest ever, this is one of the those movies that never goes on sale • Pre-order Star Trek into Darkness standard OR 3D version [Blu-ray/DVD/Digital] or DVD version ($17 or $20 or $25) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals | All 3 versions include a $3 credit toward Star Trek: Countdown to Darkness #1 e-Comic • Warehouse 13 Season 1 or 2 [DVD] ($15) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals • Mad Men Season 5 [DVD] ($20) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals • 30 Rock Season 1 or 2 or 3 [DVD] (~$9) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals Music • FREE "Wouldn't it be Nice" - Beach Boys | Google Play Tech • 16GB Sandisk Crusier Flash Drive ($10) | Amazon | Originally $15 • Elgato USB EyeTV ($80) | Amazon via 9to5Toys | Originally $150 • Logitech Keyboard K400 ($30) | Amazon via 9to5Toys | Originally $40 • $95 Das Blue Mac Keyboard ($95) | NCIX via Hard Forum | Originally $130 • 24" Acer Monitor ($140) | Newegg via Ben's Bargains | Originally $180 • 32GB Google Nexus 7 ($200) | Toys R Us via Comments Section Rigged • Seagate 240GB SSD plus 2TB 7200 RPM Hard Drive Bundle ($210) | Amazon via Deals Kinja • Sapphire 7950 3GB + 4 Games ($260) | Newegg via TechBargains | Normally $310 • Lian Li Mid Tower ATX Case ($50) | Newegg via Hard Forum | Originally $70 | Use coupon code AFNJ0973 • Newegg has a selection of Haswell K processors bundled with 1150 motherboards. | This is one of the more exciting deals we've seen on parts since we started the Rigged section. Which would/will you pick? Inventory • Newegg $10 off $50 | Use code NEWCUSTOMERS06 | New accounts only • Bloody Bath Towel ($9) | Amazon | Lowest price ever • Dippin' Dots Machine ($4) | Toys R Us via FatWallet Keep up with Shane Roberts on Kinja and Twitter. Check out Dealzmodo for more great tech deals, and Deals.Kinja.com for even more discounts. Join us every weekday at 2:15pm ET for the full Moneysaver roundup, brought to you by the Commerce Team. We're here to bring Kotaku readers the best gaming deals available, and to be clear, we also make money if you buy. We want your feedback.

With the Man of Steel movie debuting as a big hit, it’s no surprise that the movie’s version of Superman will be coming to the fighting game featuring the DC Universe’s biggest heroes and villains. And the Man of Steel skin will be joined by a playable General Zod add-on, who we first saw in action in a Conan O’Brien Clueless Gamer segment after months of rumors. Wonder if this new version of Kal-El will be even more vicious against his Kryptonian arch-nemesis in the game? You’ll be able to get the MoS Superman skin for $0.99 and the Zod character DLC will cost $4.99 (80 and 400 Microsoft Points, respectively.) Both additions will be coming to Injustice next month and, as usual, season pass holders will probably get the super-stuff a bit earlier.

The Wii U isn't doing all that well when it comes to third-party support. Many games skipped the console early this year, the latest Rayman got delayed, and the new Call of Duty isn't guaranteed to be on there, either. Now, Nintendo says they need to strengthen their own Wii U lineup to turn this situation around. "Our focus is, first of all, to regain the momentum of the Wii U towards the end of this year," Nintendo Global President Satoru Iwata told IGN. "Then, we'll try to establish successful third-party Wii U software titles. I believe in the importance of third-party support for Nintendo platforms. I’m very willing to change the current situation." Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime agreed, noting that a strong first-party lineup is a significant factor in getting third-party developers aboard. "As we have behind-the-scenes conversations about what’s further in development and what’s coming down, the decisions around the next lineup of development and where they’re going to put their development dollars are starting to shift." With games like Pikmin 3, Zelda: Wind Waker HD and Super Mario 3D World coming out this year, I'd say Nintendo's pretty much on the right track. Nintendo: Third Party Support a (Secondary) Priority [IGN] Questions? Comments? Contact the author of this post at andras-AT-kotaku-DOT-com.

Ubisoft has been bitten by the acting bug it seems, as the company is preparing film adaptations of Watch Dogs, Ghost Recon, Far Cry and its zany mascots, the Rabbids - of course, this won't be the first movie to bear the Far Cry name.

For all these films, Ubisoft will have full creative control, Variety reports. Ubisoft will select screenwriters, directors, actors and other positions necessary to make these movies, and isn't looking to simply repeat the games' existing stories. Last week, Ubisoft announced it was working with Michael Bay to bring Ghost Recon to the big screen at Warner Bros - an announcement we missed during the madness of E3.

"These are not adaptations," Ubisoft Motion Picture CEO Jean-Julien Baronnet told Variety. "We will create a brand new story. Always." The Rabbids film - not to be confused with the TV show announced last week - will be a live-action film where the Rabbids star as CG characters, like The Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks or Bill Murray's only regret, Garfield.

There is currently no timetable for these films, as Ubisoft still needs to secure scriptwriters. Ubisoft has two other films in the works right now: an Assassin's Creed movie starring Michael Fassbender - which has been pushed a month to June 2015 - and a Splinter Cell flick with Tom Hardy as Sam Fisher.

Here's Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag's E3 gameplay demo (which broke on stage) in full functioning form. This version includes Game Director Ashraf Ismail describing the tech and gameplay changes found in this fall's Caribbean adventure.

Shigeru Miyamoto made Donkey Kong, and, in the process, put a woman on top of some girders for Mario to rescue. His Super Mario and Zelda series perpetually involve saving a princess. If we're going to talk about women in games, we should talk to him about it, right? Last week, I did. I need to set this one up and interrupt it here and there with some editorial explanation. To start, I noticed something unusual when I played Nintendo's main Wii U games at the start of the big E3 gaming show last week: almost all of them had playable female characters. Nintendo gamers have been able to play as Princess Peach as far back as 1988's Super Mario Bros. 2 and in the first Mario Kart in 1992 and the entire Metroid series is headlined by gaming's first or second-most famous female protagonist (Lara Croft arguably takes the top spot). But most Nintendo games, by default, have you playing as a guy, and many have you saving a princess. It's simple, more or less co-opting the kind of simple rescue-her plot you'd see in a fairly tale. Nintendo's 2013 E3 games for Wii U were different. In the new Super Mario 3D World, Princess Peach is a playable hero. First time in a Mario game since 1988's SMB2, and that's with Nintendo having passed over Peach as a playable option in two recent multiplayer Mario games. The new Pikmin, third in the series, is the first to make one of its playable explorers female. Her name is Brittany. Nintendo is publishing an ass-kicking action game starring a woman named Bayonetta. The new Mario Kart for Wii U included Peach, Daisy and Toadette in the series' roster of drivers. Even the new Donkey Kong Country brings back female family member Dixie, who was omitted from the previous installment of that series. I therefore went into this topic about women in games during an hour-long E3 interview with two things in mind. I wasn't just thinking about the recent videos about the damsel in distress trope by critic Anita Sarkeesian—"The damsel in distress trope disempowers female characters and robs them of the chance to be heroes in their own right."—but also was curious about what appeared to be a progressive wave of playable female characters from Nintendo. Miyamoto and I had been talking about Pikmin 3, the new Wii U game that Miyamoto is quite proud of, so this was something of a left turn. I mentioned how surprised I was to see so many new Nintendo games with playable female characters and then said... Kotaku: Way back, 25-30 years ago, it was always that you were the guy and you were saving the girl. You were saving Princess Peach, and she was helpless damsel in distress. Is this something you noticed, that you wanted to have people play more female characters? Was that feedback you've gotten? Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo: Well, yeah, back in the days when we made the first Donkey Kong, that was a game we first made for the arcades, the arcades were not places girls went into often. And so we didn't even consider making a character that would be playable for girls. Miyamoto: "The arcades [back then] were not places girls went into often. And so we didn't even consider making a character that would be playable for girls." But typically with the DS era, what we found is, you know, gradually, more and more women began playing games—both young girls and adult women, playing games like Professor Layton and Animal Crossing, so more and more ... and even as far back as Mario Kart, we had females who wanted to be able to play as female characters and we obviously saw the addition of Princess Peach early on in that series. And gradually, over time, we started to see the desire for other-balanced female characters. And so we've added heavier female characters in the Mario Kart series for them to choose from. So I think it's just a natural tendency. OK, I'm going to interrupt the flow of this. I knew, going in, that our exchange would be problematic, and not because he or I would necessarily say something "bad," but that it'd be hard to get very deep into this. And we'd both be prone to making assumptions or simplifications. I've interviewed Miyamoto one or two times a year for the past decade. But we don't chit-chat about much more than the games he's showing or the state of Nintendo. He's a generation older than me and grew up in another culture. I have no idea what his views on gender are, whether he's liberal or conservative. As he answered my questions, I realized how little I knew of his thought process. It seemed like he was saying male characters were default characters. It seemed like he was saying that Nintendo mostly added female characters as a reaction to expanding player demographics. It seemed like the idea of, say, women enjoying Donkey Kong was top-of-mind. But, really, we were on new ground here. On the Mario Kart thing, he's right. The original game's roster only offered one female character, Princess Peach, who was classed to race similarly to Yoshi. There were no heavier-class female racers. By Mario Kart DS, Daisy was added as medium-class. Mario Kart Wii classed Rosalina as large. Back to the interview, where you'll see me engage in some simplification myself, implying that it might take a female gamer to compel a game designer to add a female protagonist, which is obviously not a prerequisite. Again, I was trying to make the most of limited time and lots of worthwhile interview topics... Kotaku: Do you have daughters? Have they asked to be able to play as girls in the game? Miyamoto: Yeah, I have a daughter, but she doesn't really ask me that very much. She loves Zelda and she always plays as Link, but she's actually never asked me why she can't play as Princess Zelda. [laughs] Kotaku: This has come up more, I think, in America, where people are talking about the idea that usually, in games, it's the girl that has to be rescued by the guy. Have you ever considered doing a game where it's the guy getting rescued by the girl? Miyamoto: So, yeah, certainly, I think there are opportunities to do it. One, I think we could do it as a parody of everything else we've done. But I think, certainly, we would want something where it would feel like the natural way for the game to play and in that case we would certainly take that approach. Miyamoto: "If we end up creating a gameplay structure where it makes sense for, whether it's a female to go rescue a male or a gay man to rescue a lesbian woman or a lesbian woman to rescue a gay man, we might take that approach." I guess, for me in particular, the structure of the gameplay always comes before the story. And so we're always looking at, when we're putting that together, what is the most natural story to take place within that structure. Pikmin is a good example of that. In Pikmin, the original structure of the gameplay was centered on all these individual little creatures moving around like ants. As a result of that, the world that you're in is kind of earthy and natural settings and the creatures you're fighting seems sort of like insects, because that's what the gameplay centers on. So, if we end up creating a gameplay structure where it makes sense for, whether it's a female to go rescue a male or a gay man to rescue a lesbian woman or a lesbian woman to rescue a gay man, we might take that approach. For us it's less about the story and more about the structure of the gameplay and what makes sense to be presenting to the consumer. And that was it. Note that both Miyamoto and I, perhaps to our credit, had forgotten the existence of Super Princess Peach, a Nintendo DS game that actually is about Peach rescuing Mario. She does so by using her emotions. She can cry, get angry... Miyamoto wasn't much involved in that one, I don't think! There's certainly more to discuss here about why game creators—from the legendary to the brand-new—create the characters they create and use the scenarios they do. We've now heard from the man who made Princess Peach, and he seems pretty open-minded about adding more female characters to Nintendo's games. Just to placate female gamers? Only if there's a gameplay justification? There are certainly some qualifiers there that will raise some eyebrows, but in the context of Nintendo's E3 2013 games, it certainly looks like female characters are a bit more empowered in the world of Nintendo now then they have been. To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo. Final screenshot via the Super Mario Wiki.

Psycho Mantis: "You like reading Moneysaver don't you? You must be a cautious person, I see that you save a lot." Do you have it in you to fill out a rebate to get Colonial Marines for free? If so, today is your chance. We've got a great deal on a Haswell CPU/Mobo combo, The Sopranos and the Alien films on Blu-ray, and if you somehow don't own FTL yet, get it together man (or woman). Moneysaver.Kinja.Com We have a lot of potentials and hypotheticals under consideration for moneysaver.kinja.com, but for now you can go there to see all of the Moneysaver content so far. Check out past deals, pithy openers, header images, comments, etc. What I'll be doing with it in the immediate future is sharing posts from Dealzmodo/Gizmodo, Deals Kinja, Lifehacker, and io9 that might be relevant to Moneysaver readers to it. I'll also share great Moneysaver comments/great deals found by you the readers to there. Nothing about your regular Moneysaver programming is changing, so no worries there. PC • Tomb Raider + FREE Hitman: Absolution [Steam] ($40) | Amazon • FTL [Steam] ($5) | Amazon • FREE with rebate Aliens: Colonial Marines | Newegg via TechBargains | Use code EMCXPVX237 • Pre-order Rogue Legacy + Soundtrack [DRM Free/Steam] ($10) | Normally $15 • Total War: Shogun 2 Gold ($15) | Newegg via TechBargains | Use code EMCXPVX236 • Might and Magic 1-9 + Crusaders of Might and Magic ($8) | GOG • Mirror's Edge + DLC ($5) | Amazon | Fair warning: DRM is a SecuROM/Origin one-two punch. • Mafia II ($7.50) | Steam | Normally $30 • Far Cry 3 ($20) | Amazon • The rest of the huge list of games on sale at GOG • Project Shield got a price drop ahead of release. Mac • Pre-order Rogue Legacy + Soundtrack [DRM Free/Steam] ($10) | Normally $15 • FTL [Steam] ($5) | Amazon PS3/PS4 • Max Payne 3 ($10) | Newegg via Daily Game Deals | Use code EMCXPVX246 • Metal Gear Solid Legacy Collection ($43) | Newegg via Daily Game Deals | Normally $50 | Use code EMCXPVX239 • Far Cry 3 ($20) | Amazon Playstation 4 bundles, get your Playstation 4 bundles right here. 360/One • Far Cry 3 ($20) | Amazon • Assassin's Creed 3 ($20) | Amazon • Red Dead GOTY ($20) | Amazon via Daily Game Deals • Pre-order Xbox One ($500) | Amazon Wii U Talk amongst yourselves: If you had to kill one Nintendo franchise? Vita • Assassin's Creed Liberation ($20) | Amazon via DealNews | $23+ elsewhere • Playstation Vita Game Case ($2) | Best Buy via DealNews | Easy impulse grab at two bucks • Here's a bunch of other Vita accessories on sale. 3DS • PowerA GlowFX Stylus ($5) | Best Buy via Daily Game Deals | Now this is a stylus • 3DS + $20 Walmart Credit ($170) | Walmart | Not in love with this deal, but it's what's available at the moment. I'll take this opportunity to tell you that if you have a 3DS/Vita and aren't using one of those battery cases that add handles, you're doin' it wrong. iOS • FREE Angry Birds Rio [iPad] • FREE Galaxy at War Online | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $5 • Infinity Blade II ($1) | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $7 • Sonic The Hedgehog 4 ($1) | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $5 • Sonic CD ($1) | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $3 • Sonic the Hedgehog 4 Episode 1 HD ($1) | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $4 • Sonic The Hedgehog ($1) | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $3 • Pocket RPG ($1) | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $5 Android • Broken Sword II Smoking Mirror ($1) | Google Play via Ben's Bargains | Originally $5 • Swiftkey [Tablet] ($2) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $4 • Swiftkey ($2) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $4 Media • Sopranos Complete Series [DVD] ($125) | Amazon | Lowest price ever | Relive the groundbreaking show and some truly incredible acting • Alien 1-4 + Extras [Blu-ray] ($32) | Amazon • Kick-Ass + Crow + Punisher + Spirit + Conan [Blu-ray] ($20) | Amazon Books • 1984 ($3) | Amazon via Deals Kinja Tech • Pioneer Noise Cancelling Earbuds ($35) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever • Griffin iTrip FM Transmitter ($12) | Groupon via TechDealDigger | Originally $20 • 23" Dell Monitor ($140) | Newegg via Hard Forum | Originally $190 | Use coupon code EMCXPVX45 Rigged • Haswell i5-4670K + ASRock Z87 Extreme6 Mobo ($335) | Newegg via Ben's Bargains | Normally $415 | Sweet deal. I'm in the process of choosing a Mobo for my own under-construction Haswell rig. Thoughts? • Shell Shocker MSI 660 2GB + Last Light ($175) | Newegg via TechBargains • Samsung 840 250GB SSD ($160) | Newegg via Edealinfo | Originally $200 Inventory • iLaunch Thunder Missle Launcher ($30) | Groupon via Edealinfo | Originally $60 • Philips Wake-Up Light ($56) | Amazon via Fatwallet | Originally $70 • Cuisinart Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt Maker ($35) | Sears via Deals Kinja | Factory refurbished, excellent reviews • 10-Liter Coca-Cola Cooler ($100) | Groupon via eDealinfo |$130+ elsewhere • $40 Staples Gift Card ($25) | Groupon via Deals Kinja | Save $15 #moneysaver Free medium beverage at Dunkin' Donuts with sign-up, includes a second free medium on your birthday https://t.co/0f4yjXWssu — Shane Roberts (@ShaneOSX) June 20, 2013 Keep up with Shane Roberts on Kinja and Twitter. Check out Dealzmodo for more great tech deals, and Deals.Kinja.com for even more discounts. Join us every weekday at 2:15pm ET for the full Moneysaver roundup, brought to you by the Commerce Team. We're here to bring Kotaku readers the best gaming deals available, and to be clear, we also make money if you buy. We want your feedback.

The Nintendo eShop is positively bursting with content this week. The New Super Luigi U DLC for New Super Mario Bros. U is out, and Nintendo is celebrating with a double coin promotion on Club Nintendo. Until August 1, everyone who registers the game on Club Nintendo and completes the related survey will receive 40 coins instead of the usual 20.

Meanwhile, the 3DS gets Bugs vs Tanks, a new Level 5 collaboration with Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune. We've also got a load of new Virtual Console games. On the Wii U, Mario Bros and Wrecking Crew make their debut. On the 3DS, there's Defenders of Oasis, Mega Man 6, Sonic Blast and Tails Adventure.

Next week marks the launch of a few full retail games on the eShop as well, including Game & Wario on Wii U June 23. The 3DS will get Project X Zone and LEGO Legends of Chima: Laval's Journey on June 25.

Finally, there's a pair of sales. Little Inferno on Wii U is down to $4.99 until June 26 (9am PT), while Super Little Acorns 3D Turbo is discounted to $3.99 until July 8 (9am PT).

Abandon all debt, ye who enter here. Last day to get Torchlight for free. There's a great selection in the PC section including the awesome Mark of the Ninja for under $4, and if you haven't gotten around to acquiring Far Cry 3 yet, do it now. Get $10 bonus credit on your trade-ins to put toward pre-orders. PC • Pre-order PayDay 2 [Steam] ($24) | Gamefly | Normally $30 | Use code GFDJUN20 • Pre-order Skulls of the Shogun ($12) | Steam | Normally $15 • Mark of the Ninja ($3.75) | Steam • D&D: Chronicles of Mystara [Steam] ($15) | Green Man Gaming | Use code GMG20-6WUSQ-LBC4U Square Enix Gamer's Bundle [Steam] ($20) | Amazon via Deals• Deus Ex Human Revolution Augmented Edition• Hitman Absolution Professional Edition• Sleeping Dogs• Just Cause 2 + Some DLC • Far Cry 3 ($20) | Amazon • Civ 5 Gods and Kings Expansion ($10) | Newegg | Normally $30 • Blizzard is having a WoW Summer Sale, which includes Pandaria for $20. • Don't Starve ($10) | GOG | Normally $15 • The Witcher 2 ($6) | GOG | Normally $20 • Humble Bundle with Android #6 • The rest of the huge list of games on sale at GOG #moneysaver Don't forget Torchlight is free until the end of the day @GOGcom http://t.co/EJN0IUpXAq — Shane Roberts (@ShaneOSX) June 19, 2013 Mac • Humble Bundle with Android #6 • Civ 5 Gods and Kings Expansion ($10) | Newegg | Normally $30 • Blizzard is having a WoW Summer Sale, which includes Pandaria for $20. • Don't Starve ($10) | GOG | Normally $15 • The Witcher 2 ($6) | GOG | Normally $20 • FREE Torchlight [DRM free] | GOG PS3/PS4 • Far Cry 3 ($20) | Amazon • Playstation Plus FREE Saints Row: The Third Playstation 4 bundles, get your Playstation 4 bundles right here. 360/One • Far Cry 3 ($20) | Amazon • Assassin's Creed 3 ($20) | Amazon • Pre-order Xbox One ($500) | Amazon Wii U Talk amongst yourselves: best Mario Kart? Vita • Playstation Plus FREE God Eater Burst 3DS Talk amongst yourselves: 3DS or 3DS XL? iOS • FREE Usagi Yojimbo | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $2 • FREE Random Heroes 2 | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $1 • Kemco RPG Darkgate ($1) | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $7 • FREE Star Defender 3 | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $2 Android • Humble Bundle with Android #6 • Chaos Rings ($4.49) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $9 • Chaos Rings Omega ($4.49) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $9 • Final Fantasy III ($8) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $15 • Chaos Rings II ($8) | Google Play via App-sales | Originally $16 Media • Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 1 or 2 (~$18/each) | Amazon • Star Wars Original Trilogy or Prequel Trilogy [Blu-ray] ($30/each) | Amazon Tech • 24-inch Asus IPS Professional Graphics Monitor ($260) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | After $20 rebate • Logitech G700 Gaming Mouse ($55) | Newegg | Use code EMCYTZT3644 • Microsoft Desktop 400 USB Keyboard ($15) | Newegg via Ben's Bargains | Originally $20 | Use coupon code EMCXPWM52 • Bose AE2 Headphones + $50 Gift Card ($150) | Dell via 9to5Toys | Originally $150 Rigged • Buy a Select Intel-Powered PC and Amazon Will Give You a $100 Credit | Amazon via Deals Kinja • Kingston 120GB V300 SSD ($80) | NewEgg via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever Talk amongst yourselves: favorite brand of PC case? Inventory • Orion 10015 StarBlast 4.5 Astro Reflector Telescope ($180) | Amazon via Deals Kinja • FREE Toilet Paper With Ads on It | Star Toilet Paper via Reddit | Originally $Priceless Keep up with Shane Roberts on Kinja and Twitter. Check out Dealzmodo for more great tech deals, and Deals.Kinja.com for even more discounts. Join us every weekday at 2:15pm ET for the full Moneysaver roundup, brought to you by the Commerce Team. We're here to bring Kotaku readers the best gaming deals available, and to be clear, we also make money if you buy. We want your feedback.

Nintendo is again being chastised by activists for not ensuring that minerals mined by slave labor in African conflict areas are not used in the manufacture of their electronics. Nintendo is criticized annually for this, but this time the activists have made a Super Mario game to underscore their point. It's the work of something called Walk Free, which also recorded a podcast featuring Sasha Lezhnev, whose Enough Project is the one constantly rating Nintendo "dead last" among 24 major electronics firms, worldwide, for their efforts in keeping conflict minerals out of their supply chain. Lezhnev also wrote an op-ed on this subject for Kotaku back in 2010. Walk Free is particularly incensed that Nintendo won't respond to what it says are more than 400,000 signatures on a petition asking the company "to take credible steps to ensure slave-mined minerals are not in their gaming consoles." The slave labor in question is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where forced labor—including child labor—mines out resources such as tantalite (or coltan), which is used to make capacitors used in electronics products. Walk Free, The Enough Project and others say using conflict minerals supports the brutal military regime in that county and perpetuates the virtual enslavement of others. Enough Project's latest report [pdf] found only two companies, according to its standards, more than 50 percent toward "responsible sourcing on conflict minerals." Microsoft rated at 40 percent, Sony at 27 percent. Nintendo was the only company on the list with a score of zero. “While this parody allows gamers to demand that Nintendo articulate credible steps to ensure slavery is not in its supply chain, slavery is not a game,” Walk Free's Debra Rosen said in a statement. “We’re not mocking the problem, we’re poking fun at the absurdity of Nintendo’s lack of response. Nintendo—as the world’s largest maker of video game machines—should be leading other consumer electronics companies in showing the public that they are working to have a supply chain free of slavery." Nintendo, in early 2010, responded to another advocacy group, noting that the company itself doesn't purchase any metals as raw materials, and that the company requires its suppliers to comply with Nintendo's procurement guidelines "which stipulate suppliers comply with applicable laws, have respect for human rights and conduct their business in an appropriate and fair manner." Last year, Nintendo said to CNN that it "outsources the manufacture and assembly of all Nintendo products to our production partners and therefore is not directly involved in the sourcing of raw materials that are ultimately used in our products." I reached out to a Nintendo representative to offer the company a chance to respond here. This sort of thing is brought up annually, so Nintendo probably shouldn't expect the matter to go away just because they don't comment on it. Forced labor, conflict minerals and African wars are not issues most folks think about every day, but bootstrapping it to the subject of fun things like gadgets and video games certainly helps raise awareness for it, especially the topic lends itself to flash game interpretations. The game itself, well, it's a rather basic platformer that spoofs Mario and villains found in the series. (Naturally, I died on the first goomba.) Of course, if you want to save your high score, you have to input a name and email address, which gets you on their mailing list. Otherwise to play again, you must reload the page entirely. Slavery is Not a Game [Walk Free] To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Nintendo is currently battling the chicken and the egg of the video game business. The Wii U isn't selling at levels to make it a "rational" risk for third-party developers, but how does a console sell if it doesn't have games? We spoke with Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America's head of corporate communications, last week at E3 about the House of Mario's business and future.

Nintendo's current strategy is to get some high-profile first party games out the door and grow the Wii U's install base that way. Scibetta tells us in the interview, "We're confident that once some of these games come out that we have planned between now and the holiday and into 2014, that it will help drive the install base and when that happens the platforms will look more enticing to third parties."

We also discuss the recent Wii U recall, which Nintendo is calling a "rebalance," as well as the rising scene of independent games and the future of Nintendo Direct.

Remember all the insane games you used to play at slumber parties? Remember how much fun you had? Well the Danish do as well, and they made a video game about it. Enter Spin The Bottle: Bumpie’s Party, an indie game made by KnapNok Games in Copenhagen. It’s kinda like WarioWare, but even more hilariously awkward and played exclusively with a Wii U Gamepad and remotes. In the clip above, watch Lau Karsgaard demonstrate the game and get, well, uncomfortably close to another E3 attendee. It’s a strange sight to behold, but oddly exemplifies the kind of off-beat experiences that the Wii U is perfectly suited for. To contact the author of this post, write to chrisperson@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @papapishu.

After the fall 3DS sequel to the classic Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, after the fall Wii U release of a Wind Waker remake, we will eventually get an original Zelda game on Wii U. It's being made now. Nintendo's barely talking about it. Eiji Aonuma, the man who oversees all Zelda projects at Nintendo, talked to me about those first two Zelda games at E3 last week, and offered just a slight hint at how the Wind Waker remake is influencing the simultaneous development of the unnamed original Wii U Zelda. "Wind Waker HD is kind of a testing ground for us," Aonuma said. "With Wind Waker we were able to accomplish, for the first time, to create a seamless experience. You traveled a great sea… also [we are adding] the Miiverse communication of playing with others virtually. So we’re going to take things like this and add to those so the Wii U [new Zelda] experience should be one that is satisfying to players." I'm sure Zelda fans are all for more of a seamless Zelda in the future. And integration into the Miiverse, to support hints or other communal interaction is intriguing. Aonuma said that the Wind Waker HD team will, upon completion of their project, merge with his Wii U new-Zelda team. Aonuma's translator described the merged team as a "super-team". Aonuma laughed and repeated the term in English: "super-team!" Don't expect that new Wii U Zelda for a while, 2014 at the soonest, but Nintendo isn't even committing to that. To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo.

In a season of new Mario Karts and Donkey Kong Country games Nintendo hears the calls from supporters and critics to make something new. Their answer: we're already doing it. I don't believe in writing things I wouldn't say to the faces of the people I'm writing about, so after writing on Kotaku last week that Nintendo's E3 line-up of Wii U games was fun but felt safe, I said as much to Nintendo's chief game designer Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. My somewhat snappy judgment came from having played Mario Kart 8, Super Mario 3D World, Pikmin 3, and Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze at Nintendo's E3 booth at the start of the week for about five minutes each. All looked and felt like their console or portable predecessors. All looked really good and played well. All had new ideas, some (EAD Tokyo's 3D World) more evidently in abundance than others (Retro's Tropical Freeze). Me and Miyamoto first (his replies were via a translator): Kotaku: One of my senses is that the games [you have at E3] are fun but they feel safe, like this is not a Nintendo taking risks this year. Is this a safe year for you guys? Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo: So I don't look at this as us playing it safe, because, whenever we make a game, we're striving to create new experiences for people. Certainly from outside the company and even internally we have a lot of staff members who are talking about, we should create new [intellectual property, as in characters or series]. To me the question really comes down to: What is new IP and, by definition, what is a new game? And I think there's a lack of understanding about the difference between the two. And so, from my perspective, a lot of people say, 'Oh, you should make new characters and those would be fun games,' but creating a new character doesn't necessarily mean the game is going to be fun. You really need to be focusing on creating a new gameplay experience that's fun and unique. And so even with a game like Pikmin 3 where our focus is on perfecting the Pikmin game design, we've really finally felt like we've created a new gameplay style even within the Pikmin franchise. Miyamoto: "To me the question really comes down to: What is new IP and, by definition, what is a new game? And I think there's a lack of understanding about the difference between the two." Kotaku: Sure. To me, it seems that each of the big franchises that you have is a formula. Super Mario side-scrolling games are a formula. Pikmin is a formula. Luigi's Mansion is a formula. Animal Crossing is a formula. Every time you release a new one, you're perfecting that formula or tweaking that formula. For me, something like Luigi's Mansion or Pikmin feels fresh because I haven't seen it from you—Nintendo—in 10 years, whereas a Mario Kart or a Donkey Kong Country game that Retro is working on, I feel like I just played that formula last year or the year before. And I sense that from our readers as well, that they feel not so much that they're looking for new characters but that some of these formulas...we feel like we're getting them again and again very rapidly. And that's where the sense that maybe you're playing it safe comes from. Do you see that? Miyamoto: So I guess when you explain it that way I could see how maybe some people might see it as a somewhat conservative approach, but we're always focused on creating those new gameplay elements. When it comes to those new franchises, we can look at something like Nintendogs. And, because in Nintendogs the character was a dog, people didn't really view that as new IP from Nintendo, and it was. And with Wii Fit, the same thing, people didn't really look at that as new IP. I think, from my perspective, we're always trying to do new things, so even if we're doing it within the same formula it's still a new experience. And, apart from that, I'm also working on a lot of other projects where I'm experimenting with new things. And some of them may be things like the Louvre museum project that I've worked on. I think perhaps there's a misunderstanding about the difference between of new IP and new experiences. Kotaku: Right. Don't get me wrong. Dillon's Rolling Western was a new character. Pushmo was a new character. I pay attention. I know you guys are actually creating new characters. It's more that—the Donkey Kong game stands out to me—I feel like I just played that. And so, Mario Kart, I feel like I just played that, and I know those series well enough that I can see one difference here and one difference there. I've only played the games for five minutes, so I don't know all the differences, but that's where it feels like to me like, this year, this isn't the Nintendo that was taking huge risks by introducing the Nintendo Wi or the DS or Wii Fit as a piece of software, but instead it feels like, 'Oh, I know all these franchises already, and so I'm seeing small iteration in franchises that I just a year or so ago.' Miyamoto: Yeah, I guess I understand there are some who wish we brought something new or some different ideas to E3, but at the same time, I also feel that people don't tend to recognize what we have done that is new. Because even something like Nintendo Land that I thought was very fresh and offered unique ways to play games, people don't recognize as being a new IP or taking a risk simply, because we didn't build a new story around it or introduce a new character around it. Whereas if we had taken that gameplay and had done it that way, people would have recognized it as a new IP. So I guess to a certain degree that is a little bit of the frustration. As I told Miyamoto, the worst they were doing this year was making fun games. Not bad. And I said the same to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. Here's our exchange: Kotaku: My reaction to the games you guys showed is that they were fun but it felt like you guys were playing it safe. Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of Amerca: I saw that headline. Kotaku: What do you think? Are you playing it safe? Fils-Aime: I don't think we're playing it safe. I hate to say it... Kotaku: [laughing] You don't...you don't hate to say whatever you're about to say... Fils-Aime: You know that I like you a lot. I think that's actually a superficial analysis. And here's why I say that. When you look at the depth that's in Super Mario 3D World, the use of the different characters, the fact that different characters have different capabilities, the fact that it's a multiplayer game in a 3D space that EAD Tokyo does so well... that experience is a phenomenal experience. Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, I think it's superficial to look at that game and say, well, it's just Donkey Kong Country. No it's not. New levels, new enemies, new ways to player underwater, I mean there's a lot more richness in that game. I could literally go through point by point. Fils-Aime: "The Wonderful 101, I think, can be magic in a bottle, and we're continuing to work on other new franchises." Kotaku: You would agree these are existing franchises that, if you know in advance what Mario Kart is like, you sort of know a lot of what Mario Kart 8 will be. It's that plus a new thing or a couple of new things or something like that, as opposed to when a Wii Fit comes out and it feels like it's radically out of left field and it feels like something different. So it's that in aggregation that it felt like familiar, familiar, familiar, familiar... Fils-Aime: I think then what you're getting at is we are launching games within highly successful franchises. Mario Kart is a highly successful franchise. A franchise that on average I think the number is greater than five million units per SKU [version]. Super Mario does on average something like three million units per SKU. So these are big powerful franchises. And that is true that versus, Wii Sports or Wii Fit that were at the time brand new franchises that have also sold exceptionally well. All I can tell you is that, first, we've got some new franchises that we're about to launch. The Wonderful 101, I think, can be magic in a bottle, and we're continuing to work on other new franchises. A fair accounting by both men. Nintendo fans, what's your take? Is Nintendo doing enough that feels new? Is innovation within franchises under-recognized and the creation of new characters perhaps, as Miyamoto suggests, overrated? Coming tomorrow: Miyamoto's damsel in distress. To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo.

Like any Smash Bros. fan, I've taken in the news of a Wii U iteration with great joy. Look at the awesome new characters! No tripping? Hooray! It'll find a sweet spot between casual and hardcore play? Excellent! And yet, there's a tinge of melancholy about it all: the Wii U doesn't have a GameCube controller port. If someone is a hardcore Smash Bros. fan, I'm willing to bet that they likely play Super Smash Bros. Brawl with a GameCube controller. That's because the Wii Remote and Nunchuck don't make the cut when it comes to serious play, nor does the Classic controller. Of course, I don't doubt there are some players who are fiends with those controllers, in the same way there are excellent fighting game fans who don't use a fighting stick, but on the whole, I'd say the Smash community has a preference for the GameCube controller's ergonomic design. In fact, I'm guessing that most sales of GameCube controllers in the last few years are largely coming from Smash fans who refuse to play with anything else. Based on anecdotal experience, Smash, more than any other franchise out there, feels like the last thing keeping the GameCube controller alive. Here's the thing: the GameCube controller came out in 2001. Nearly 12 years ago. (Holy shit...) To expect Nintendo to keep supporting it, especially when they're trying to sell systems on the novelty of the new controllers, is absurd. Their reluctance to include the port is, in a way, a sign to move on—no? And yet I suspect that many of us can't help but anxiously think about what Smash Bros. is like without a GameCube controller. Smash Bros without the GameCube controller seems...wrong, somehow. And playing with the GamePad on the Wii U seems way too cumbersome; I can't see myself enjoying that. I'm guessing that some of you will want to keep the past alive and will rush out to buy GameCube controller adapters with your copies of of Smash Bros. for the Wii U. They exist, and they're pretty affordable. I wouldn't blame you for going that route. As for me...maybe it's just that I feel that I'm in a stage of transition—wanting to move away from pining to sit in my college dorm with my friends, all hoping to not come in fourth in Brawl because that meant giving up the controller—but I think it's time for me to let go of the GameCube controller. I'll still remember it fondly, of course—the awe of using the Wavebird for the first time; playing Smash until the rubber on the control stick wore off; buying and destroying enough GameCube controllers to fill up a closet; becoming a filthy, filthy C-Sticker in Smash. But it's 2013 now—so, hey, Wii U Pro controller. How's it going? I think it's your time to shine. Image via Wikipedia Commons

Nintendo has been having a bit of a tough time communicating just what the Wii U is all about. In particular, the company still seems unable to clearly articulate just why the Wii U's gamepad—a combination game-controller and touchscreen—makes their system worth buying. Perhaps, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata suggests, it's time for some new ideas. In an E3 analyst briefing recently translated and posted to Nintendo's site, Iwata explains the problems they've come across when selling one of the Wii U's most important features: Asymmetric gameplay. Asymmetric gameplay, or the potential for it, is one of the neatest things about the Wii U. You can play local multiplayer games without needing everyone to see the same screen. Therefore, it's possible to play games like some of the minigames included in Nintendo Land, where, say, one player will control a ghost via the controller's screen, invisible on the TV. Meanwhile, four more players will run around on the TV screen trying to find him. But when it comes right down to it, "asymmetric gaming" is a mouthful. It's convoluted and conceptual and requires an explanation like the one I just wrote for anyone to understand it. It's much easier to understand if you just play Lugi's Ghost Mansion, the minigame with the hide-and-seek rules I described above. Iwata says that Nintendo had hoped that Nintendo Land would communicate the benefits of asymmetric gameplay, but that while "we have received a lot of comments from consumers that the gameplay in 'Nintendo Land' is interesting. … we presume that they have not yet come up with the best words to easily explain how interesting it is to other people." "I would say that 'Nintendo Land' has not fulfilled the same role as 'Wii Sports' did when we bundled it with Wii," Iwata continues. Wii Sports, of course, being the game that so effortlessly communicated what made the Wii's motion controls special, and instantly made the case for owning the system. Iwata then discusses Nintendo's plans to right the ship: Of course, we won’t remain silent and do nothing. We are going to release a variety of Wii U software, and with each title, we would like to show how convenient and delightful it is to have the Wii U GamePad controller, and how it changes the gaming experience. In addition, we have also learned that the name “asymmetric gameplay” does not fully explain the GamePad’s value to consumers. As for the software going to be released from now on, we would like to describe the experience that the GamePad provides with a different expression in order to adequately convey its necessity to consumers and increase the number of consumers that think, “Indeed it is good to have a GamePad.” In this sense, starting with “Pikmin 3,” we aim to include functions that make good use of the GamePad that consumers can appreciate. Ha. "Indeed it is good to have a GamePad" is actually something I think fairly regularly, usually when I'm playing something using the system's nifty off-TV play. But I agree that it's not very easy to communicate why asymmetrical gameplay is cool, particularly when you don't quite have that one amazing game—that Wii Sports—to help make the case. I put it to you: If Nintendo drops the term asymmetric gameplay, what term do you think should replace it?

I know that you can't pay full price, it ain't no lie. I wanna see you get these deals baby buy buy buy, BUY BUY. Can't argue with free Torchlight, or deep discounts on Alan Wake and D&D games, or the lowest price on Dishonored so far. We've also got a strong tech section today, and the first real deal on an 1150 motherboard I've come across. Get $10 bonus credit on your trade-ins to put toward pre-orders. PC • FREE Torchlight [DRM free] | GOG • Dishonored [Steam] ($16) | Gamefly | Use code GFDJUN20 • Dungeons and Dragons Definitive Collection [DRM free] ($21) | GOG | Normally $106 • Alan Wake + American Nightmare [DRM free] ($4.50) | GOG • Really Big Sky + Runespell: Overture + Eufloria + Breath of Death VII + Cthulhu Saves the World [Steam] (~$4) | IndieRoyale • Guild Wars 2 ($38) | Green Man Gaming | Normally $50 • Alpha Protocol ($3) | Gamefly via Daily Game Deals | Use code GFDJUN20 • Linux FREE Incredipede Mac • FREE Torchlight [DRM free] | GOG PS3/PS4 • Jak and Daxter Collection ($10) | Gamestop via TechBargains • The Last of Us Survival Edition ($80) | Sony via Daily Game Deals | This is not a discount, but it's sold out everywhere else, so if you want it this is the time. Playstation 4 bundles, get your Playstation 4 bundles right here. 360/One • Max Payne 3 ($10) | Newegg • FREE Spartacus Legends | LIVE • Pre-order Xbox One ($500) | Amazon Wii U • Pandora's Tower [Wii] ($30) | Amazon via Daily Game Deals • Nyko Wiimote with Motion Plus ($7) | Best Buy via Daily Game Deals Vita • Vita Bundle with Madden 13 ($210+shipping) | TigerDirect via 9to5Toys 3DS • Animal Crossing: New Leaf ($32) | Newegg via Reddit | Use code EMCXPWM229 iOS • FREE Feast or Famine | iTunes | Originally $1 • FREE mPass Pro | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $5 • FREE Commando Jack | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $1 Android • Plasma Sky ($1) | AppBrain via TechDealDigger | Normally $2 • World War Z ($1) | Google Play via Apps-aholic | Normally $4 • Hero of Many ($2) | Google Play via Appsales | Originally $4 • Crystal Defenders ($4) | Google Play via Appsales | Originally $7 Media • Blade Runner 30th Anniversary [Blu-ray] ($30) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals • The Shawshank Redemption [Blu-ray] ($8) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals Tech • 3TB Seagate Expansion HD ($110) | Amazon | Originally $130 • Razer Blackwidow Mechanical Keyboard ($115) | Amazon via Edealinfo | Originally $130 • USB Keyboard ($2) | Tiger Direct via Dealzon | Originally $16 | $10 MIR • Fiio E6 Portable Headphone Amp ($22) | Buydig via Buyvia | Originally $29 | Use coupon code DIGAUDIO • Klipsch Image S4i ($50) | Amazon | Originally $70 • 27" Monoprice IPS Monitor ($351) | Monoprice via Techbargains | Originally $450 | Use coupon code E32013 • 1080p Acer 1500 Lumen Hybrid LED Projector ($900) | Newegg via Ben's Bargains | Originally $1000 | Use coupon code HPNMQSV40 • Panasonic TC-L50ET60 50" 3DTV ($1100) | Amazon via Ben's Bargains | Originally $1300 • Razer Sphex Gaming Desktop Skin ($10) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever Rigged • Asus Z87-PLUS Intel LGA1150 ATX Motherboard + 8GB Ballistix RAM ($180) | Newegg via TechBargains Talk amongst yourselves: what's the best looking Haswell-compatible motherboard so far? Inventory • Huge sale at ThinkGeek • Busted Tees 40% off | Use code FOURTEEOFF • iRobot Roomba 581 ($325) | Groupon via Ars Dealsmaster | Originally $450 • Dyson DC24 Animal Vacuum Cleaner ($275) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever • Shun DM0902 8" Chef's Knife ($180) | Woot | Originally $300 • 14-Piece Grill Set from Cuisinart ($25) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever • KitchenArt Adjust-A-Cup Measuring Set ($19) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever • Buy One Get One Free Smoothies | Jamba Juice via Deals Kinja Keep up with Shane Roberts on Kinja and Twitter. Check out Dealzmodo for more great tech deals, and Deals.Kinja.com for even more discounts. Join us every weekday at 2:15pm ET for the full Moneysaver roundup, brought to you by the Commerce Team. We're here to bring Kotaku readers the best gaming deals available, and to be clear, we also make money if you buy. We want your feedback.

Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, is aware of all the Wii U skepticism. He's certainly aware of mine and the fact that there's a $400 PlayStation 4 bearing down on his $350 32GB Wii U this fall. Plus an Xbox. What, him worry? The storyline told throughout the halls of E3 was that the show was about Microsoft going against Sony, about Xbox One vs. PS4. Nintendo had a bunch of fun games in their booth, but they were off to the side. In a meeting room in that Nintendo booth, I sat down with Fils-Aime and asked him as much: Is the narrative wrong to think this is Microsoft vs. Sony this generation and Nintendo is once again this unusual company on the side? Nintendo is going to do their own thing but it's not going to be on the scale of what these other two companies are doing? "It's a very inaccurate narrative," Fils-Aime said. "In fact, that was the narrative in 2006. That was exactly the narrative." He's referring to the eve of the launch of the Nintendo Wii, the relatively weak console that was supposedly going to get slaughtered by the mighty Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 but instead, thanks to its novel controller, surged far into the lead. Fils-Aime: "I think by the end of this holiday... we're going to be in a very good position." Wasn't the Wii, I asked Fils-Aime, far ahead of where the Wii U is right now? It had Wii Sports. It played an ace card right away. "I think it's inaccurate to use the word 'far'," he said. "If you look at it from a U.S. perspective, this point in time vs. where we were with the Wii life stage, there's a difference of about 1 to 1.5 million units. Over a potential lifespan over 40 million-plus units, that's not a lot." Based on Nintendo's public sales stats, the gap is even tighter than that, with 2.37 million Wiis sold by the end of March 31, 2007 in the Americas and 1.52 million Wii Us sold by March 31 of this year, both consoles having launched in the prior November. The Wii, of course, was out of stock everywhere. The Wii U has been struggling through a soon-to-be-ending software drought. "I would say the big difference in the Wii launch vs. the Wii U launch is that, at the [Wii] launch we had a fantastic game in Wii Sports that really helped people understand the magic of the Wii Remote, and we had Zelda. We had Zelda there at the launch to satisfy the more active [read: more hardcore; not more physically-active] player and when you look at what we had at the launch for Wii U, yes we had a Mario game—a fantastic Mario game that has a very strong attach rate to the hardware [meaning: people who bought the system bought the game]—but there wasn't as many opportunities for the more active player to really get behind the system." I wondered when he thought the Wii U would be in a better spot. "You know, I think by the end of this holiday, after we've launched Wind Waker, after we've launched Donkey Kong Country, after we've launched Mario 3D World, I think we're going to be in a very good position." It's easy to dismiss Fils-Aime's comments as marketing puffery, but Nintendo conveniently affords gamers an alternate look at what it's doing by running two platforms at once. The 3DS is older than the Wii U by about a year and a half and is now very much in a groove, with major, polished releases hitting from Nintendo nearly monthly, (Fire Emblem, then Luigi's Mansion, then Animal Crossing, etc.). "Is it possible," Fils Aime said, "to do it for 3DS and Wii U at the same time? Absolutely. And that's what we're focused on. The pace of significant launches behind a platform is absolutely what we need and what we're focused on getting to." Fils-Aime: "My bet is that there are going to be more announcements the closer we get to whatever their launch date is." Ah, but there's that PS4 coming out by year's end for just $400. Xbox One is $500, but that PS4 price is close to the Wii U's. Pressure? "It puts no pressure on us at all," Fils-Aime said. "Sony and Microsoft are going to do what they're going to do. My bet is that there are going to be more announcements the closer we get to whatever their launch date is. "From my perspective, I can't focus on that. I have to focus on: How do we satisfy the needs of all of the consumers out there with Nintendo products? How do we make sure they understand our proposition? How do we make sure they're excited about the software that we offer? And from that standpoint we're going to let our competition do what they're going to do." To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo.

Jump into the ultimate retro-style meta RPG experience this week with The Knights of Pen and Paper +1 Edition...

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I'd heard that Shigeru Miyamoto was really proud of his new game, Pikmin 3. Like, really, really proud. Like, guy-who-made-Donkey-Kong-and-Super-Mario-and-Zelda-thinks-this-game-is-great proud. That good, huh? "How many games have you made?" I asked Miyamoto last week at E3. We've been doing interviews for a decade. We can go outside the conventional chitchat and product hype if need be. How many? "In terms of games I've personally worked directly on and really been involved in development on, probably about 50," he said through a translator. He seldom needs my questions translated but responds in Japanese. "If you then include the games I'm involved in the oversight standpoint, it's well over 100 now." "And this stands out to you as, you think, is one of the best?" I asked. "I think so," he said. "And how do you know that?" I said. He was beginning to answer before my question was even done. "Because after I made it, I played it and it's fun," he said in a moment that reminded me quite clearly who he is and what he's done. "Do you feel like you've ever made a bad game?" "Yeah," he replied (more on that in another story, readers... tomorrow). And then Miyamoto broke down for me what he thinks a really good game is, particularly Pikmin 3, this new Wii U real-time strategy game that gives players control of three explorers and 100 different-colored, different-powered ant-like plant men in order to fight bad guys and discover lost treasure. "You know, obviously video games are designed for the player to play the way the designer has intended them to," he said. "But a good game—and this is really where I think Pikmin 3 stands out—is a game that gives you enough freedom that the player can create their own way of playing and can find ways of playing that the developers didn't envision. I think Pikmin 3 is a game that is very much like that. There are so many options strategically and in terms of the items you're going after. Obviously the stage layout and where they've placed the items have all been done by the designers, but, because you're so free to choose your approach to it and your strategy, I think that people are really going to be able to think through on their own and really come up with creative ways of how to attack these levels." There hasn't been a new Pikmin game since 2004. The first one came out in 2001 and ran on a tight in-game 30-day timer. Before those virtual days ended, a player had to use the little spaceman, Captain Olimar, to marshal up to 100 red, blue and yellow Pikmin to fight big bug-like bad guys and reclaim parts to his spaceship. The Pikmin could only work by day, and the player had to become skilled at tasking their Pikmin with all sorts of activities: from the dragging and pulling of spaceship parts and treasure back to a home base to the building of bridges, the knocking down of walls, the planting and plucking of new Pikmin and a whole lot of combat against large enemies. Red Pikmin were tough and immune to fire; yellow could be thrown higher; blue wouldn't drown. Pikmin was Nintendo's answer to a real-time strategy game like Command & Conquer or StarCraft, but with simplified units and commands, best suited to Nintendo-style gaming and gamepad-based controls. It was also one of the only games Miyamoto publicly closely identified with during the half-decade run of the GameCube console on which it appeared. It takes a team to make a game, of course. Pikmin, it was understood back then, was one of Miyamoto's babies. "In a sense I almost feel sorry for the people who played Pikmin 1," he told me at E3. "What I really feel like is that, in Pikmin 3, we've finally been able to include all of the elements that I wanted to include in Pikmin 1. Often times, when you talk about movies, people say, oh the first one was the best... I feel Pikmin 3 has become sort of the ultimate version of Pikmin 1 if we'd had more power." Pikmin 3 adds a whole lot. The series already had strong purple Pikmin and white ones that can survive poison. The new game adds beefier rock Pikmin and pink ones that can fly. It adds a two-player competitive mode that has opponents racing to use their squads of Pikmin to reclaim treasures and fill out a row or column on a bingo card before the other player does. It introduces lots of little things like, say, a gate that only flying Pikmin can open, leaving the player to decide whether to keep the flying ones assigned to holding the gate open or retrieving them for other tasks. The player now has three space-explorers to lead the Pikmin, letting them divide their squad and multi-task. In fact, the managing of different teams had me thinking that Miyamoto, who manages so many different development teams at Nintendo, might see his game as metaphor. "It's very similar," he laughed. "It's actually similar to cooking. In Japan they often recommend for people to cook a lot to prevent the brain from aging or deteriorating. Cooking, of course, involves doing multiple tasks simultaneously. You're preparing ingredients, boiling the water, doing something else... This time the gameplay is particularly fun, because it's introduced into Pikmin the idea of managing multiple different processes simultaneously." Miyamoto offered to play a round of the game's bingo battle with me. Almost immediately, he was crushing me. His Pikmin army was dividing and conquering, retrieving treasures, attacking my Pikmin. Miyamoto's bingo board was lighting up. My Pikmin were getting chewed. I could tell he was holding back. He was also trash-talking. "I could win at any moment," he said. "I could tell," I replied. "Good luck," he said. I requested a quick death. I didn't want a mercy win. At least I zapped his Pikmin with a lightning power-up a few times. "With Pikmin 1 certainly we had the ideal we were striving for," Miyamoto told me. "With that game, I think we ended up with a basic ruleset of the game that was a little bit too strict and confining, the 30-day time limit in particular... from that sense it was difficult for people to get into that game, particularly if they were novice gamers.. And, I think the other challenge we had with Pikmin 1 was that people would want to go back and replay the game, but partially because of the limits—the time limit—people just felt it was a bit too much to go back and replay that again. "And, with Pikmin 2, we wanted to focus on really trying to ease the gameplay to a certain degree so that it was easier for people to get into and play so we polished the Pikmin idea a bit but really only focused on how to make it easier to play. "Whereas with Pikmin 3 we've really taken it and taken that Pikmin 1 ideal and really tried to bring that to life in a way that encourages replayability all throughout the game." During most of my interview with Miyamoto, a Nintendo employee kept replaying one of Pikmin 3's standalone missions. These are short seven or 10-minute missions that Miyamoto said might initially seem impossible to clear. At the end of the interview, Miyamoto asked the guy if he'd had fun (you can guess the answer) and then pointed out that he could have done better. "We've designed the game in a way so that, as you play it, you get better and better at it and start to understand the depth of the strategy and the best ways to use the Pikmin in it," he said. In time, you'll be playing quite well. Miyamoto told me he plans to have some of his developers create videos to show off optimal strategies. "It's sort of like watching a professional drive on a close-circuit track, where, watching a race like that, what it really comes down to is how perfectly you can hit the lanes and that's where a lot of the strategy is. I don't think there are a lot of other games like that." This is the kind of thing one does with a good real-time strategy game. It's not the kind of game Nintendo's top designer makes all the time, but if he's feeling this good about this one, here's hoping it's that good. Pikmin 3 will be out on the Wii U on August 4. Coming tomorrow: Miyamoto's Bad Game To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo

Frankly MSRP I don't give a damn. With E3 in the rearview mirror we've Need for Speed Rivals for 20% off on the PC first to the finish line of today's post. As has been the case lately, we've got a whole lot of movies on sale, along with a sweet T-shirt sale at Threadless. I'll be giving away a Steam code for Humble Bundle #3 on my Twitter today at 3:15pm ET, so follow me if you wanna go for it. First person to tweet the answer to a gaming trivia question of my choosing wins. Get $10 bonus credit on your trade-ins to put toward pre-orders. PC • Pre-order Need for Speed Rival [Origin] ($40) | Gamefly via Dealzon | Normally $50 | Use code GFDJUN20 • Here's a bunch of Atari-published games on sale at GamersGate. Mac Reloading Fedex tracking on my new Air over and over. PS3/PS4 • Pre-order Deadpool ($37.50) | Toys R Us via Cheap Ass Gamer | Normally $50 • Pre-order Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix Limited Edition ($40) | Amazon via Daily Game Deals | Includes limited edition art book • Mortal Kombat Komplete ($15) | Amazon via Daily Game Deals Playstation 4 bundles, get your Playstation 4 bundles right here. 360/One • 6pm ET Max Payne 3 ($10) | Newegg via Daily Game Deals • Pre-order Deadpool ($37.50) | Toys R Us via Cheap Ass Gamer | Normally $50 • Mortal Kombat Komplete ($15) | Amazon via Daily Game Deals • Ear Force X12 Headset ($33) | Best Buy via Daily Game Deals | Must have free Reward Zone membership • Pre-order Xbox One ($500) | Amazon Wii U 'Cause it's U and me and all of the peopleWith nothing to play and money to loseAnd it's U and me and all of the peopleAnd I don't know why there aren't any games for you. Vita • Vita Lego Batman 2 Bundle ($200) | Target 3DS • Etrian Odyssey IV ($30) | Amazon via Daily Game Deals • Paper Mario: Sticker Star ($30) | Amazon via Daily Game Deals iOS • FREE Irrupt | iTunes via Reddit • FREE Amazing Breaker | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $1 • FREE LetterLasso | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $1 • Dream of Pixels ($1) | iTunes via Appshopper | Originally $3 Android • FREE Fighting Fantasy: Blood of the Zombies | Amazon via apps-aholic | Normally $6 • Yesterday ($3) | Google Play via apps-aholic | Normally $6 • Kainy ($1) | Google Play via Appsales | Originally $3 • Wordsmith ($1) | Google Play via Appsales | Originally $3 • Word Crack ($1) | Google Play via Appsales | Originally $3 Media • Superman The Complete Animated Series ($19) | Amazon via TechDealDigger | $39+ elsewhere • Super 1/2/3/4/Returns/Extras [DVD] ($20) | Groupon via Daily DVD Deals • 10pm EDT Goldbox Arrested Development Seasons 1-3 [DVD] ($25) | Amazon via FatWallet • Firefly Complete Series [DVD] ($13) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals • Men in Black Trilogy Giftset ($39) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals | Includes Limited Edition Worm figurine • Jumper + Independence Day + I, Robot ($21) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals Blu-ray Steelbooks ($10) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals• 300• The Book of Eli• Wrath of the Titans• Fellowship of the Ring• Return of the King• Gran Torino• Braveheart • Muppet Christmas Carol 20th Anniversary [Blu-ray] ($15) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals• The Muppets 2011 [Blu-ray] ($15) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals• The Muppet Show Season 1 or 2 or 3 [DVD] (~$16) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals • True Blood Season 5 [Blu-ray] ($35) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals • Spawn: The Animated Collection [DVD] ($11) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals • Digimon Season 1 ($27) | Amazon via Daily DVD Deals Books • Star Wars: Vader's Little Princess Hardcover Book ($8) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | Almost 50% off Moneysaver: RT @dealzmodo: Today's $2 Kindle deal is a pretty great read. Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policeman's Union http://t.co/cO8qyyb290 — Shane Roberts (@ShaneOSX) June 17, 2013 Tech • Durcaell Instant USB Charger ($18) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever. Gizmodo Bestmodo winner. Clip $1 off coupon on product page. • 24 Duracell AAA Batteries ($9) | Amazon via Tech Deal Digger | Originally $13 • Energy RC-Micro 5.1 Surround Speaker System ($300) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever, Bestmodo Winner • Azio Levetron Mech 4 USB Keyboard ($73) | mwave via Dealmac | Originally $90 • 42" Panasonic Plasma HDTV ($500) | Sears via Deals Kinja | Originally $700 • Sharp 50-Inch LED HDTV and a $200 Dell Gift Card ($548) | Dell via Deals Kinja • 20" HP IPS Led Monitor ($100) | Newegg via BuyVia | Originally $130 • LG 23" Widescreen LED IPS Monitor ($140) | NewEgg via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever after promo code HPNMQSV50 • WD Elements 2TB Desktop External Hard Drive ($70) | NewEgg via Deals Kinja | Lowest price ever by $10 Here's a 4K TV for $966. Rigged Talk amongst yourselves: liquid cooling or plain-old fans? Inventory • Rio Beach Portable Sun Shade ($20) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | $15 less than similar shades • Bonavita BV1800 8-Cup Coffee Maker ($140) | Amazon via Deals Kinja | Near lowest price ever, Gizmodo Bestmodo runner-up Here's an awesome sale at Threadless. 22 pages of t-shirts at $10/pop. Post your favorite in the comments. Keep up with Shane Roberts on Kinja and Twitter. Check out Dealzmodo for more great tech deals, and Deals.Kinja.com for even more discounts. Join us every weekday at 2:15pm ET for the full Moneysaver roundup, brought to you by the Commerce Team. We're here to bring Kotaku readers the best gaming deals available, and to be clear, we also make money if you buy. We want your feedback.

You don't even need to be a fan of Nintendo's Smash Bros. series to enjoy the colorful mayhem of one of these games in action. Below, if you can take it, are 108 screenshots and art from 2014's Wii U Super Smash Bros., with a healthy amount of images of the lady trainer from Wii Fit kicking a whole lot of ass.