At Comic-Con in San Diego we got the opportunity to take a closer look at the latest additions to Skylanders with Skylanders Trap Team. While we had already gotten a peek at the title, there were still some awesome announcements behind the game along with some great insight from the designers as well.

First came the announcement of the Skylanders Trap Team Dark Edition Starter Pack. Like last year’s SWAP Force Dark Edition, the set will come with some special dark paint variants of characters. Unlike last year’s though, there will be only three new Trap Team members without any sprinkling of classic characters.

It will also come with a new Portal of Power which will have a new feature in addition to a new look, the ability to use Traps to capture villains in game and use them while playing. The Dark Edition will come with a limited edition over sized trap allowing players to capture Chaos.

Only a few weeks after Disney decided it was time to shoot a volley in the smart toy war by introducing the Avengers to Disney Infinity, Activision has fired back with a premiere for the latest Skylanders sequel. Again, focusing on innovation with gameplay implications, Skylanders Trap Team is coming to systems in October.

As you’ll see in the trailer below, Skylanders Trap Team introduces a new element to the series. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out this means traps. But it isn’t just a matter of trapping defeated foes. This game encourages players to take those villains and use them for good. Boasting 60 new Skylanders and 40 trappable villains, this could be the largest release of Skylanders to date.

It’ll be interesting to see how the traps work but it the trailer hints that specific traps work on specific enemies which means to catch them all, you have to buy them all too. How they are packaged will be interesting though. Skylanders may come paired with a trap or maybe a trap pack will be created with four or five traps sold together. Regardless, Activision has just renewed their license to print money.

Though they haven’t given us the release date yet, the big day keeps looming closer for Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U. It may end up being what makes me care about my Wii U once again but like I said, the release date wasn’t announced. What was announced though was the addition to the Super Smash Bros. roster of Little Mac.

This is one for the nostalgia freaks out there as Little Mac was the main character in the classic Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! (or as Nintendo now just calls it Punch-Out!! after all of the… unpleasentness). Kids today don’t understand the torturous boss battles we had to endure back in the day with pattern memorization and Punch-Out!! was the king of memorized sequences.

Another big hitter was focused on yesterday at the first Nintendo Direct of 2014 was Mario Kart 8. Rather than worry about silly gimmicks like two person go karts, Nintendo has stuck to their roots with the successful franchise and is expanding its roster.

In possibly the biggest single day roster expansion announcement ever since the franchise’s beginning, Mario Kart 8 adds seven new playable characters with the Koopalings. Iggy, Larry, Lemmy, Ludwig, Morton, Roy and Wendy will not only be playable in Mario Kart 8 but it will be the first time the lot of them has ever been playable on any game on any platform.

In what could be considered a pretty unpopular and controversial statement founder of Atari Nolan Bushnell says that he thinks Nintendo may be shoot themselves in the foot. Freshly behind Nintendo’s recent Nintendo 2DS announcement, Bushnell spoke to the BBC during the Campus Party developer event and gave his thoughts on Nintendo’s place in the market.

Bushnell stated, “”I don’t think handheld game-only devices make sense anymore. Not when you have an iPod or an Android microtablet.

“When it comes to the console market, I think the market is truncating. Nintendo always had a soft spot for young people–they sort of did the 12-and-under pretty well, and the other guys did the 12-and-over.”

As much as we love Disney and a lot of the things they do like Wreck-It Ralph, even we notice that they don’t always come up with all their own concepts. Usually it is something that has been successful in the past and they put a Disney twist on it to turn it into an even bigger success. Cinderella, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast and tons more are all examples of this. So, it’s no surprise that Disney and Avalanche Software would be following the success of the toys to video game combo of Skylanders with the announcement of Disney Infinity.

Using a special hardware base accessory, players will be able to unlock new in game content and characters for Disney Infinity. Sounds familiar right? Disney Infinity will be following a model similar to that of Activision’s Skylanders franchise. Players will be able to take purchased toys and put them on a base that will read the figure and unlock characters and items in the game.

In the trailer below, you’ll see characters from Pirates of the Caribbean, The Incredibles, Monsters University, Cars, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Toy Story and more that will most likely be on the list of playable characters and toys coming out for Disney Infinity.

At the Nintendo press conference two weeks ago, tons of new details were given about the Wii U including the bundles the system would be packaged in and the games being put into the launch window. Yesterday, even more details were given to the launch lineup with 23 titles being confirmed for day one. This looks to be one of the largest launch lineups of any system in recent memory with lots of big name games in it.

Aside from bundling the Deluxe system with Nintendo Land to show off the Wii U’s unique capabilities, Nintendo made sure to back the system with the support of major well known franchises for both the casual and hardcore gamer.

For the Nintendo gamer, the system will launch with New Super Mario Bros. U which is the first time since the Nintendo 64 where a Mario game was made available day one for a home console.

Thursday morning, Nintendo had a press conference in New York City where they revealed the important details that everyone has been waiting for about the Wii U. Let’s cut to the chase and talk about the most important details.

The Wii U will launch in the US on November 18th.

There will be two SKU’s on launch.

The Wii U Basic Set will launch at $299.99 and contain a white Wii U, 8 GB of internal storage, one white GamePad controller, AC adapters for both the console and controller, a sensor bar and an HDMI cable.

The Wii U Deluxe Set will retail for $349.99 and contain a black Wii U, all the components of the Basic Set, a copy of Nintendo Land, an increased 32 GB of internal storage, a console stand, GamePad charging cradle and a vertical GamePad stand. They will also be enrolled in the Deluxe Digital Promotion.

The online community will be called the Miiverse.

Using the Nintendo TVii application, players can use the GamePad controller to control subscription services like cable and satellite channels, Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube and their recorded TiVo files.

The launch window which goes from November 18th, 2012 to March 31st, 2013 will the 51 games listed below (sorted by developer).

So while the Wii U most likely isn’t going to be the most epic or groundbreaking piece of hardware ever released, one thing you can almost certainly count on is it being sold out in stores day one. Especially after the massive shortages of the Wii, gamers and non-gamers alike are going to be ready to go and get the Wii U either for themselves or as that early Christmas purchase that is going to be so coveted come December 25th. But how do you make sure you get one of these on the very first day? The answer my fellow geeks is the midnight launch.

Now for those of you who have never attempted a midnight launch or overnight sale, here are some important pieces of advice that will help you survive (and hopefully enjoy) this risky endeavor. First is to figure out where you are going to get your system. Some stores like Gamestop will most likely be opening doors at midnight but they also do a preorder system. Make sure as soon as the Wii U goes up on preorder, you get one otherwise nothing else will matter if you show up to Gamestop and every one of their fifty systems already has a claim on it.

At Comic Con, The Flickcast team got to finally get our hands on the Wii U and Nintendo’s minigame packed NintendoLand. Like we talked about in our E3 coverage, NintendoLand will feature a collection of mini games inspired by Nintendo franchises, past and present. In total, NintendoLand will contain 12 mini games with half of them already announced and five were playable for us in the Nintendo lounge at SDCC.

First we got to try out Animal Crossing: Sweet Day. Inspired by the stuffed animal-like art design of Animal Crossing, this mini game puts three players on a map where they must collect candies that are placed in various locations, sometimes requiring multiple players to stand on a location together to release the candies. The more candies the players collect, the fatter their heads get and the slower they move. At the same time, they are being pursued by a fourth player who is controlling two guards using the Wii U controller, independently controlling each guard with the different analog sticks and using the controller’s screen.

Communication is key between the players in their hunt for the candy as they need to warn each other about oncoming threats and gather at certain locations to unleash the larger stashes of candy. The player using the Wii U controller gets to really have the most fun though as they get to chase and troll the other players by using pincher style attacks to corner them.

The much anticipated (at least by some) new Nintendo Wii U has had some more press at this week’s E3 show in Los Angeles. This thime around during Nintendo’s press confrence the company announced that its next-generation Wii U video game console will launch ahead of the holidays this year.

While the company didn’t provide a specific date for the launch it’s likely the device will be out before the traditional “Black Friday” in the U.S. That is, if they want to be sure and sell as any of the consoles as possible.

Pricing for the console has also not been announced. However, the company was able to confirm that the console will ship with the multiplayer game “NintendoLand” in addition to a GamePad controller.

As someone who rarely breaks out the Wii as it is now I don’t anticipate getting one of these when they do finally arrive. However, that shouldn’t stop any of you from getting one. Or, maybe you don’t care that much either?

It toppled Atari. It went head to head with SEGA for years to come out the victor. Even during the slow times, it was still in the black. Then Nintendo took control of the home console market again with record sales from the Wii. But eventually being on top means you have to fall. March 31st, 2012 marked the end of Nintendo’s fiscal year where they were forced to announce something that seemed impossible to imagine. They were at a loss.

While many factors contributed to Nintendo losing $ 458 ,000,000 during the past year while sales were in the $7,990,000,000 range, the main two being looked upon are the lack of software and the gigantic price drop from the 3DS.

With a library of over 1200 games, one would think the Wii would have carried enough momentum to continue high sales. Unfortunately, 2011 marked a lackluster year for new Wii releases. With only The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword to be both a commercial and critical success releasing in late 2011, owners of the system didn’t flock to other critical darlings such as Xenoblade or The Last Story like Nintendo would have hoped.

This could speak strongly to the hardcore gaming audience already having written off Nintendo for forgetting them with a lack of big core titles when the system initially launched. With the Wii U on its way, there is a drastic drop off in titles being promoted for the Wii.