This spring, the Wii U will get its own version of the Virtual Console—you'll be able to purchase and download Nintendo and Super Nintendo games to play on the Wii U and separately on your GamePad.

We already knew that a Virtual Console was coming to Wii U, but Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata announced further details—and a spring release window—during a Nintendo Direct this morning.

The service will start off with a limited selection of Nintendo and Super Nintendo games, with more to come, including games from the Game Boy Advance. There will be "special pricing" if you already own Wii versions of each Virtual Console game: $1 for NES games; $1.50 for SNES games. (You'll have to transfer those Wii VC games over to the Wii U in order to get the discount.)

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Nintendo Entertainment System, there will also be a discounted program that starts today: you can download Balloon Fight for NES as soon as the Nintendo Direct is over. You can buy it right now for 30 cents.

Here's what the rest of the lineup looks like for U.S. Wii U owners:

Japanese Wii U owners will be able to get Mother 2. No word on whether U.S. Wii U owners will get their hands on the North American version, Earthbound.

In this morning's Nintendo Direct broadcast, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that the company is aware of complaints of long load times. Iwata said that two system updates—one in spring and the other in summer—will improve load times and add new features to the system.

Slipping quietly onto Google Play over the weekend, Kotaku game of the year contender Super Hexagon performs its seductive dance on Android owners, spinning it's way into this week's top charts.

The spiraling shape will make you go insane, but that hasn't deterred Android gamers from getting a taste of the game that's drove iOS and PC players batty last year. I'm tempted to buy it again just to have it on my new phone, and the $.99 introductory sale price isn't helping matters. Oh screw it—bought.

Along with Terry Cavanagh's sublime creation, Temple Run: Brave makes an appearance in the paid charts as players gear up for this week's Android release of the free Temple Run 2. Which spot do you reckon that one will debut in next week?

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Top Paid Android Games — 1/23/2013

Rank	Game	Last Week	Change
1.	Ruzzle	1	0
2.	Minecraft Pocket Edition	2	0
3.	Where's My Water?	3	0
4.	Temple Run: Brave	N/A	N/A
5.	Grand Theft Auto III	5	0
6.	Need for Speed: Most Wanted	4	-2
7.	Super Hexagon	N/A	N/A
8.	Scramble with Friends	9	+1
9.	Draw Something	8	-1
10.	Where's My Perry?	7	-3

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Top Free Android Games — 1/23/2013

Rank	Game	Last Week	Change
1.	Ruzzle Free	1	0
2.	Subway Surfers	2	0
3.	Candy Crush Saga	5	+2
4.	Temple Run	4	0
5.	Fun Run — Multiplayer Race	3	-2
6.	Trial Xtreme 3	10	+3
7.	Angry Birds Star Wars	6	-1
8.	Flow Free	7	-1
9.	Hill Climb Racing	8	-1
10.	Fruit Ninja Free	N/A	N/A

Capcom announced a substantial expansion to their sprawling action RPG last September, but left fans wanting as to what exactly was coming with the Dark Arisen add-on. Today, we finally get a look at what's coming to Dragon's Dogma's fantasy universe with the add-on launches in April. Two trailers debuted today, with a bigger glimpse at enemies and environments coming via the longer Japanese teaser below.

Dark Arisen will be available both digitally and on disc and it introduces a new subterranean area with new enemies. From the press release:

• A massive new underground realm to explore featuring over 25 terrifying new enemies

• More skills/equipment/augments:
• Level 3 Skills
• DD: DA provides each character class with a new tier of skills, giving players new devastating abilities and skills to master
• Over 100 pieces of new equipment
• All new high level weapons and armor sets for players venturing into the underground caverns
• 14 new character/Pawn augments
• New tiers of equipment enhancement

• And there's more:
• Increased character customization options
• Item appraisal
• Option to select Japanese voice over

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Capcom also notes that some of the changes coming with Dark Arisen will be based off of feedback from fans:

Players will be able to take their characters to new heights with brand new high-level skills and augments as well as all new weapons and armor sets. Furthermore, owners of the original Dragon's Dogma will receive 100,000 Rift Crystals, unlimited Ferrystones and the Gransys Armour Pack consisting of six brand new costumes for free, upon purchasing Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen.

For those that missed Dragon's Dogma the first time around, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen provides the opportunity to start their journey from the very beginning before tackling the all-new content.

Based on player feedback, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen will make the Dragon's Dogma gameplay experience even more satisfying with improvements such as easier travel and a more intuitive menu system. For those who already own Dragon's Dogma and then purchase Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, these improvements will be automatically retrofitted to their original game save data.

Dark Arisen will come out for PS3 and Xbox 360 on April 23 in North America and on April 26 in Europe.

While North Korea has the propaganda of military parades down pat, it needs to work on how it uses computer games to indoctrinate. Actually, it just needs to work on computer games. And once it has that down, the country can focus on brain washing.

Uriminzokkiri is a web portal that pushes North Korean propaganda from the country's central news agency. It's based in China, but according to Reuters, it's controlled from Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.

On Uriminzokkiri, there are a handful of flash games you can play on your computer, reports NK News. Let's have a look at five of them.

Links are included so you can play them; however, many of them are offensive and unsettling. They also suck.

A Treasure Key

This isn't as stomach churning as some of the other ones. It's a maze type game, in which you destroy evil foreign foes, like Japanese politicians who are monkeys and George W. Bush, who is a giant rat. Okay, I lied. It is stomach churning and features some truly janky controls. If you complete all the mazes, you can unify Korea, unlocking flowers and a rainbow.

Play it here.

Path Taken By a Traitor

In this game, players try to hang Lee Hoi-chang, a conservative politician, with a noose. Lee can duck, which is supposed to make this challenging. I guess.

You can play it here.

Beating Up Rat LMB

The goal is to pummel Lee Myung-bak to death, apparently. Lee, of course, is currently the president of South Korea. In the game, the politician doesn't fight back as he gets bloodied up.

You can play it here. If you want.

Fly Swatting

President George W. Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe are turned into flies, and you can splat them. This game was surprisingly hard and not surprisingly stupid.

Play it here.

Hitting South Korean Politicians

It's whack-a-mole with South Korean politicians. *sigh*

Play it here.

There's another game in which you fend off Japanese troops. You can read more about that on NK News in the link below.

6 North Korean Video Games Full Of Crude Cartoon Violence [NK News]

This sign was apparently spotted in Japanese retail chain Momotaro, and it does an interesting job of explaining why the store doesn't have many Xbox 360 games.

The poster reads, "Teacher! Why are there so few new Xbox items at Momotaro? Is Xbox not popular?"

Below that in green, it reads, "That's not the case! We often sell new items! But the number of shoppers is small..."

"Teacher, why don't you stock a lot?" reads the new question in blue. The answer is a series of green dots below that. Then, the shop explains that it cannot order large numbers of items because the number Xbox 360 owners is low.

However—and this part is pretty neat—the shop explains that it's recommended to purchase by reserving titles, and the shop will even search through its branches across the country to find the Xbox 360 game you want. That's pretty cool!

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While people online in Japan seem to think this poster is pretty cruel, I don't. The whole ad, which looks to be a humorous parody of Great Teacher Onizuka, does a playful job of explaining why it doesn't carry lots of Xbox 360 titles.

なんでXbox360の新作はちょっとしか入荷しないの？桃太郎『売れないからです』 [へちま]

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This is not a real Japanese house. It looks like one. It is, well, a dollhouse—a dollhouse that looks like it's straight out of the Japanese manga and anime YuruYuri. But it's not. Someone made this.

That's a small, 100mm figurine of middle schooler Akari, a character from YuruYuri. In the manga and anime, she participates in the "amusement club" with her friends. The dollhouse depicts the group's clubhouse, which is where the tea club used to meet.

And this dollhouse is not just a single room, but the entire house. The sliding doors open and close, and it's even possible to remove the walls to take photos of the insides. Even if you don't care about anime, just look at the modeling and woodworking skills on display here.

【ゆるゆり】自作した"ごらく部"の部室凄すぎワロタ [オタク]

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You know when people see Jesus in potato chips? Or in toast? This is kind of like that, but less delicious and not religious. That is, unless you think watching anime is some sort of holy experience.

A recent thread on 2ch, Japan's largest bulletin board, was pouring over this image by Johannes Schedler at the Panther Observatory. The image, which dates from 2008 (so old!), shows NGC 6357, a nebula complex located approximately 8,000 light years away.

This post has anime spoilers!

Folks on 2ch didn't see stars and molecular gas. They saw "Ultimate Madoka" from the popular anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica. If you don't follow that show, Ultimate Madoka is the ultimate magical girl form character Madoka Kaname takes at the end of the series.

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Which is perhaps why people are seeing this (digital manipulation to make Ultimate Madoka easier to see.)

Is Ultimate Madoka really hidden, deep in space? Is that Jesus on food? Is there really a hidden message in these Phantom Pain screenshots? Eh... it's a big stretch, but...

I want to believe!

『魔法少女まどか☆マギカ』 8000光年先でアルティメットまどか発見！ 「ぷりそく]

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Released this past December, the NeoGeo X apparently won't be produced anymore. According to Japanese site Gamer, production for the system is ending as of this month.

Even though the machine carried the SNK and NeoGeo brands, the console was not designed and manufactured by SNK. Instead, it was the work of tech company Tommo.

Gamer does not give a specific reason as to why production is ending so quickly, but, as the box says, it was a limited edition console. That could be why. Back in December, it was announced on Game Watch Impress that production for the machine would be ending, with a TBA for the next time the system would be imported into Japan.

No word on how this impacts regions outside Japan. Kotaku did reach out to SNK for clarification, but did not hear back before this story was published.

It sounds like the NeoGeo X will continue to be supported as there are still plans to release more SNK games for it, as well as a screen protector for the NeoGeo X handheld and an AC adapter.

「NEOGEO X GOLD SYSTEM」1月22日の製造分をもって生産終了―追加のゲームカードは予定通り発売 [Gamer via Siliconera]

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While in a Reddit AMA, game designer American McGee said that EA wanted to "trick" gamers into thinking Alice: Madness Returns was as dark as its marketing and called this tactic part of a "race to the bottom."

Today, Shanghai-based McGee offered a correction or an apology of sorts. "Allow me to expand on my original post while at the same time making a correction (call it a retraction if you like)," blogged McGee. "'Tricked' is the wrong word. I take that back. Apologies to EA and anyone else whose feelings were hurt. Electronic Arts doesn't trick customers into buying things. They carefully apply proven marketing techniques to achieve the desired customer response. If they were bad at this sort of thing they'd have been crushed by their competitors long ago and you'd be playing Madden Football from Activision or Atari or something."

McGee goes on to discuss how the game was marketed and the apparent disconnect between how he saw the game and how EA saw the game.

"At the end of the day," added McGee, "I've got (well, had) a good relationship with EA. They helped put my name on the map. They funded two of my favorite creations. And they helped me bring strikingly original content to a gaming world that often seems dominated by bullets and boobs. I can't and don't fully fault them or their marketing for whatever the "Alice" games might or might not have done sales-wise. As a developer, do I grumble into my beer about how it could have been different if only… ? Sure do! But I also recognize my own faults, and actions which are to blame for things not being 100%… or for inadvertently igniting firestorms."

You can read the full post in the link below.

You Can't Escape [American McGee]