Nintendo has released an image of its new Wii controller, dubbed Classic Pro.

The image above, released onto Nintendo’s own website, shows what essentially looks like a bulky classic controller with additional prongs, together resembling the GameCube controller layout or even Microsoft’s own Controller S.

Eagle-eyed observers will have noticed the shoulder-button layout has changed, omitting the two inner-lane circler buttons and replacing them with a classic DualShock shoulder setup. The layout alteration ends any initial idea that Nintendo is releasing additional plastic padding for the already-available Classic Controller; this is a new model.

Beyond what can be seen, however, details of the unit remain scarce. The unit is coming sometime this Summer in Japan, though nothing has been confirmed beyond. Expect the unit attach to a Wii Remote much like the original Classic Controller, but any type of sixaxis-esque motion detection seems unlikely.

What’s more interesting is Nintendo’s own purpose for releasing the controller; whether this upgrade means more 3D titles will come to the virtual console (perhaps beyond N64 games), and whether it means Nintendo is set to release more traditionally-controlled games for the Wii itself.

According to official court documents obtained by GameCyte, a new class-action lawsuit has challenged Nintendo’s Wiimote straps once more — and a prior 2006 case may hold the key to how it will all play out.

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gamecyte.com

Many of the following ten games are great. A few came close to being on my top ten list (to be posted tomorrow). I would call a couple of them works of genius. But I think they’re the most overrated games of the year for the simple fact that I’m surprised at how well received they were. I wouldn’t recommend any of these without a few important caveats.

Read the 10 most overrated game of 2008 after the jump.

10) Civilization IV: Colonization
I’ve never won a single game of Colonization. But I’ve loved every game I’ve played. I don’t imagine many people would feel the same.

9) Left 4 Dead
It’s a great showcase for zombies that can run and co-op gameplay, but it’s as fast, slick, fun in groups, and gratifying as chasing a greased pig (take that however you will). Serious Sam and Robotron were pretty cool, too, while the thrill lasted.

Burnout: Paradise
A racing game largely devoid of meaningful physics or convenience, also known as Burnout: Drive All the Way Back to the Starting Line Because There’s No “Re-Try Race” Option, Suckers!.

7) Spore
The developers have explained that Spore was essentially three products: a content creator, a game-ish sort of thing, and a way to share stuff. Unless you’re interested in at least two of those three things, and if you’re willing for at least one of them to be rather anemic, Spore will be a head-scratcher.

6) Wii Fit
Wii fad.

5) Mass Effect
The long-in-the-tooth Bioware RPG formula applied to a generic sci-fi universe, with bouncing buggy driving/shooting sequences standing in for the exploration of alien worlds

4) Metal Gear Solid 4
For fans only. For everyone else, this is Kojima’s long slow wank and you have to get to watch.

3) Braid
This is not a game that moves and it’s not very accessible. You need to have a stomach for old-school platformers and mental brick walls. Which is a shame, because the place Braid eventually goes is sublime.

2) Little Big Planet
Awesome graphics! And those little sack people are so cute I could just eat them up! Now where’s the game?

1) Grand Theft Auto IV
One of the most amazing realizations of a real-world-ish place and one of my favorite games this year. Also the setting for a poorly told story and uninspired gameplay, and the subject of a system-shattering PC port.

It is said that none other than Harry Potter will be the next in the LEGO gaming franchise. Not much has been said as to what the game will be like or release dates yet, but id say it will be like any other LEGO game with destructable objects, heaps of characters, and heaps of levels. Warner Bros. would most likely be the publisher, duh and EA being mentioned in the making.
I will keep you updated if there is any new info about it.

MyWii.com

Our friends at ModSupplier have informed us of a new Wii drive revision in the wild that has rendered all current modchips useless The drive controller chip has been completely removed!

What they have done is combine the old D1A and drive controller chip in to one which is now called the GC2-D3, as you can see from the photo there is a big blank space on the PCB where the controller chip used to be.

One of these drives will be on its way to the WiiKey team next week and they will of course do their best to work it out, but from what we can tell it could possibly be a few months or longer before it could be figured out as it’s a totally new way of handling drive function, that’s just our guess and maybe they will work it out faster. This is all speculation of course for now, but we can see the first generation of chips for these drives being a high wire count such as the D2CKey when they were first released. When we know more from the WiiKey team after they have received the drive and had time to access it, we will make a post in this thread to update everyone on the situation.

There is one good bit of news that we were able to confirm, the console that had this new D3 drive was able to have a D2B drive connected to it and functioned as normal, so they did not make changes to the cable system or anything else. This means that even though there will be no chips for these consoles for a little while, it will still be possible to buy a replacement drive or even a replacement drive board and do something with these consoles.

So far we have not heard any other reports of these drives found anywhere else in the world, what was also interesting is it was found in an Australian console with the serial LAH1098xxxxx, there are already consoles out here that are LAH11xxxxxx and are still epoxy D2E, so from what we can gather they have not started rolling these new drives out in the masses yet and maybe these few just slipped out early. I guess we will know for sure in the coming weeks, if we don’t start to see them in the masses it might still be a little while before the rest of the world sees them.