Nintendo is kind of on the ropes lately. It’s last quarterly earnings report was pretty bleak and while sales of the handheld Nintendo 3DS are moving along, the company had to slash the price on the thing to the point where the 3DS is not making as much money as originally intended. The white knight for Nintendo is the Wii U, the much anticipated replacement for the Wii. Nintendo now says the Wii U will arrive by Christmas in the United States, Europe, and Japan. It’s actually the first new console from any of the big three (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft) to land in several years and could be a big Christmas hit. People were still buying family-friendly Wiis this past Christmas. The Wii U is kind of a hybrid device in that the controller has a touchpad screen so the game could be played on your TV with the controller OR you can take the game with you and play it on the controller screen. Also, Wii U is a new way to spell the sound a fire engine makes.