It's no secret that Netflix has been gearing up to stream movies and TV shows via the Nintendo Wii console, but now it appears the launch is near. Netflix today announced that it has shipped instant-streaming discs to some of members for testing. "Their feedback will ensure that we deliver a great experience to everyone when we launch," writes company spokesperson Jessie Becker on The Netflix Blog.

An Aussie bloke has agreed to pay Nintendo $1.5 million in damages after illegally copying and uploading one of its new games to the internet ahead of its release.

James Burt, 24, of Sinnamon Park in Queensland will pay Nintendo $1.5 million after an out-of-court settlement was struck to compensate the company for the loss of sales revenue. Burt made New Super Mario Bros for the Wii gaming console available for illegal download a week ahead of its official Australian release in November last year.

Burt will have to pay Nintendo's legal bill of $100,000.

The induction charger for Wiimotes from Energizer needs no direct connection between the batteries and the charging station, and the charging pad is an attractive piece of hardware. The catch? Luckily, there isn't much of one.

Seems that non-modded consoles are having issues. We have been getting some reports from the Wii faithful that the 4.2 update is causing problems for Wii units. We suspected that these were illegally modified Wii consoles that were causing the grief, but a closer look at the complaints seems to suggest that some Wii consoles that are not modded are being bricked by the update.

Just two weeks ago, Denise Kaigler told gamers that Nintendo would not drop the North American Wii price for the holidays... but evidence to the contrary may have already surfaced. An alleged early versiion of a Wal-Mart ad circular to be distributed later this month promises a "new low price" for the Nintendo Wii. The outlet that obtained (but didn't post) the leaked ad, Kotaku, didn't find out the new Wii price but could say that the price drop would be effective in the first week of October. A newer circular, reportedly from Toys R Us, has also appeared on Kotaku, with a price of $199.

A study by independent warranty provider SquareTrade has found that Nintendo's Wii is the most reliable of the current generation home consoles, followed by Sony's PS3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360.

For its newly released report, titled Game Console Failure Rates, SquareTrade analysed failure rates for over 16,000 new game consoles covered under its warranties.

The company found the Wii to be nine times more reliable than the Xbox 360 and four times more reliable than the PS3.