In an open letter posted on Kotaku as part of their series of "Welcome to the Family" letters, Cammie Dunaway gave one of the lengthiest statements we've seen from the recently-hired executive vice president of sales and marketing. The letter is directed at all the new Wii owners who have joined the fold since the holidays, and lays out the attractive features of the Wii in a manner appropriate for a new gamer. Although fundamentally, we're not sure how many expanded audience members are reading gaming blogs.It's quite interesting to see what Nintendo is pitching to new gamers these days -- downloadable games are given a big push (World of Goo is now enough of a genuine hit to be the face of WiiWare, apparently!), as is Mario Kart Wii. Dunaway classifies the massively popular Mario Kart Wii as a "bridge game" that "really leads in two directions: not just from simple-to-more-involving, but also acting like a link between new gamers and veteran ones."

Time is running out. Through the mist, Dracula's castle begins to emerge. You have precious little time if you're to arm yourself against the forces of darkness with our copy of Castlevania Judgment. Before you take on the castle, see our original contest post to arm up with whips and stakes and hearts and maybe, just maybe, a free game.

If you're unfamiliar with the story of 2D Boy, they left the corporate juggernaut EA, founded their own company and pretty much made one of the best games EVAR, World of Goo. Then Peter Moore saw it on some list and really didn't know what it was. Tunes change, however.Peter recently gave the game's demo a whirl and came away impressed. He found "a ton to admire" and said it was "full of impressive physics that make for an elegant and somewhat addictive experience." He promises more on his experience with the game later, so that's all he said for now.If you're interested in more from EA, like NASCAR Kart Racing, he goes on about it later in his blog post. Check out the full post here.

Nintendo is looking to cash in with their line of GameCube-enhanced-for-Wii games, Play on Wii. Of course, in the UK and North America it's called New Play Control!, as we've already reported. So how much will these games fetch?Well, Pikmin is set for a February 6th release, with Mario Power Tennis releasing on March 6th, and each title has a suggested price of £39.99, according to retailers. Nintendo has stepped in to say that their recommended price is £29.99, but it would seem that retailers aren't following that guideline. Should these games go for full price, even if they've got reworked controls taking advantage of the Wii's unique capabilities?