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Mario’s Hat Get! Found a box from Nintendo today. Inside was Mario’s hat, a gift for platinum Club Nintendo members. It’s really nice and fits most noggins. Gonna have to make room between the Blood Berry beam katana and the Dead Space helmet.

Did anyone else get a hat or the Gold gift of the Animal Crossing Calendar?

North American Club Nintendo awards were just announced. I got the hat.
Special credit to Chas4 for the story tip-off.

If you got platinum status then you should have gotten an email like this sent to you by Nintendo. Obviously they still haven't said what the special reward is for going gold or platinum yet.

It's no secret that fans of classic GameBoy Advance titles were largely disappointed with Nintendo's decision to remove GBA compatibility from the upcoming Nintendo DSi. Luckily, an easy solution seemed obvious for fans: make retro titles available for purchase/download via the DSi Shop Channel. To the dismay of many fans, Nintendo never announced such a system, though rumors of licensing deals have been popping up since the DSi was announced. Now, just two weeks before the DSi's American launch, we have some major fuel to add to the fire.

If you're not aware, Nintendo recently held events for Gold and Platinum Club Nintendo members in certain cities. Invitees were allowed to get their first experience with the DSi, and ask a Nintendo rep any questions they might have had. Kombo reporter Matthew Green was lucky enough to be in attendance, and brought back some juicy details. Firstly, Green confirmed the free 1000 points deal we told you about earlier. He also brought back some exciting news regarding a potential "Virtual Handheld."

Green claims that a staffer at the event informed the attendees that GameBoy and GameBoy Advance titles would be available for download through DSiWare. He claims that these games can be saved to and run from SD cards and that they will be region-locked, like all DSiWare. Furthermore, Green goes on to say that only select first-party GB/GBA titles will be available at launch.

We have no details on date information or pricing, but be sure to stay tuned to N+ for future developments (by the way, isn't GDC this week? ).

In a recent interview with Club Nintendo, Reggie Fils-Aime and Shigeru Miyamoto addressed the increasingly annoying issue of Wii storage space. Miyamoto confirms that Nintendo is exploring all possible options to solve the problem, and Fils-Aime adds that Nintendo will not resort to a "traditional hard drive", but will create a solution that is "better than what we have now". Why does Nintendo have to over-complicate things? Wii owners have been asking for a hard drive for ages, just GIVE US ONE ALREADY. Ahem.

Miyamoto was also asked about Wii MotionPlus, and its possible incorporation into a new Zelda game. Miyamoto again confirmed that Nintendo is working on new Zelda and Pikmin titles, but declined to comment on Wii MotionPlus use.

Miyamoto went on to say that Wii owners shouldn't expect new peripherals any time soon, as he feels there are more than enough available for the Wii at the present time.