Speaking at the Game Monetization USA Summit in San Francisco this week, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said that Nintendo president Satoru Iwata should be fired for his handling of the Wii U and the company in general.

"I don't know why Iwata is still employed," Pachter said during his presentation, according to a GamesIndustry International report, adding that the Wii U’s commercial performance has been "underwhelming” and that he believed it was “possible but unlikely” that new titles could help the system to recover.

Rakuten, owner of the UK-based games retailer Play.com, claims that Nintendo’s Wii U has seen a 75 percent sales spike in October. The company predicts that Wii U and iPad will be more popular than Xbox One and PS4 amongst children during the holiday season. The company also cites a Twitter analysis that comes to the conclusion that its Wii U and iPad range are "the most talked about presents for children this Christmas."

Microsoft fared considerably better than Sony on Black Friday, according to data analysts InfoScout. The firm claims that Xbox One was the highest selling console during the period, comprising 31 percent of total hardware sales. The Xbox 360 also fared pretty well, grabbing a 30 percent share resulting in a joint Microsoft lead of 60 percent. Joint sales of the PS3 and PS4 amounted to 30 percent share in sales total, while sales of the Wii U and Wii combined was 7 percent.

Research firm IHS forecasts is suggesting that 34 percent of the money consumers spend on software for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will be done in the digital space by 2017.

"A key driver for this digital transition will be publisher ambition to release most games digitally at the same time as boxed versions at retail outlets," said the report prepared by Piers Harding-Rolls, head of games.

Last week we asked our readers how they thought the Wii U would fare this holiday season. Around 355 total votes were cast, with a slight majority of participants saying that the Wii U will be ignored more so now that the PS4 and Xbox One are out.

A day late and a dollar short would be the best way to describe Episode 76. It was recorded a few days after Extra Life (which admittedly messed with our scheduling and mental stability in the early part of the week). Add to that some technical difficulties with editing the show and you have an episode that is a week late. Nevertheless the topics we talk about on the show are timeless enough that you'll still enjoy it.

Sit down and buckle in, friends, as I deliver the Understatement of the Week.  Are you ready?  Okay, here goes...

The Wii U ain't doin' so hot.

Nintendo's newest video game console launched just under a year ago, selling through its entire allotment in its first week on the shelf.  By the end of the year,  it had sold just over three million units.  Not record breaking, not a sell-out like the Wii before it but respectable nonetheless.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata says that new consoles coming to market near the end of this month could signal greater consumer interest in games overall, which in turn will help Nintendo.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata admitted in a briefing for investors and analysts this week that the Wii U has - so far - failed as a worthy successor to the Wii. The Wii is currently outselling the Wii U, which has only managed to sell 3.9 million units to-date worldwide. Speaking during a briefing about its second quarter financial results, Iwata noted that the Wii U has only done one thing right - backwards compatibility with the Wii.

Nintendo says that it sold 460,000 Wii U units worldwide in the six month period that ended on September 30. The figure was revealed as part of the company's financial results for the last three months. In this quarter the company only sold 300,000, despite knocking $50 off the price tag of the system a few months ago. The company also had a number of high profile releases to go alongside that price cut including Pikmin 3 and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD.

As part of its release of financial results for the second fiscal quarter, Electronic Arts revealed that the Wii and Wii U account for a little over one percent of the company's total sales, while PC game sales are its top segment. EA said that Wii and Wii U games accounted for 1.3 percent of EA's software revenues in the last fiscal quarter. Of the $695 million in revenue earned from combined sales of console, mobile and PC software, about $9 million came from Wii and Wii U software.

The newest title in EA's long running action racing series will not be on Wii U or PS Vita, according to the game's Creative Director, Craig Sullivan. Speaking recently to Sixth Axis, Sullivan said that Need for Speed: Rivals will skip Vita and Wii U due to poor sales from the previous game, Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

In a recent conversation with Benzinga IHS senior games analyst Christine Arrington said that Nintendo's Wii U console continues to suffer from a general messaging problem about its brand and continues to confuse consumers. Arrington says that the system still suffers from the same messaging problem it did when it launched nearly a year ago.

Nintendo has announced three new Wii U bundles for Europe, to be released in November. The first Wii U console bundle will come with a 32GB Wii U and a disc featuring New Super Mario Bros. U and the expansion New Super Luigi U. The Wii U Super Mario Bros. U bundle will be released November 8.

On November 15 a Wii Party U Basic Pack will be released, and on November 22 a Just Dance 2014 Basic Pack will hit retail in Europe. Both of these bundles will include an 8GB Wii U, a Wii Remote Plus controller, a Wii Sensor Bar, and Nintendo Land.

The Change.org petition urging Rockstar Games to port Grand Theft Auto V to the PC has around 72,000 more supporters than it had the last time we checked. As of this writing, the petition has 572,777 supporters - up from the 500,000 it had on Sept. 26.

Reuters does not usually check the pulse of Americans when it comes to video games, but a new Reuters/Ipsos poll does just that and the results (if you believe them to be showing a trend) are not good for Microsoft. The poll asked respondents to indicated their interest in dedicated gaming devices. Around 26 percent of the 1,297 people surveyed through an online poll last week indicated that they are likely to purchase a PlayStation 4 when it launches on November 15, compared to 15 percent who said they would buy an Xbox One on November 22.

The petition on Change.org urging Rockstar Games to port Grand Theft Auto V to the PC has seen another major surge this week, jumping from over 450,000 signatures to over 500,000. The petition had a little over 450,000 signatures a few days, ago - up from just over 365,000 signatures a little after the game's retail release. It had 200,000 signatures in July and has seen its support balloon since the release of the game last week.

The petition on Change.org urging Rockstar Games to port Grand Theft Auto V to the PC has seen a major surge in the last three days, jumping from over 365,000 signatures to over 450,000. Apparently these numbers make it the tenth largest global gaming petition ever too. The petition sat at just over 365,000 signatures a little over three days ago - up from a little over 200,000 signatures in July. Change.org also says it was the most viewed petition on Change.org in the past week.

The original Wii fit sold over 22.67 million copies and Wii Fit Plus sold 20.86 million copies, so it comes as a bit of a shock that Nintendo will give Wii Fit U for free on November 1 as a digital download. There are a few catches, of course.

While the petition to bring Grand Theft Auto to the PC has gotten plenty of media attention and a fair share of signatures (over 365,000 so far as of this morning) another petition on Change.org isn't getting as much love. As Andrew Eisen pointed out this morning, the petition to bring Grand Theft Auto V to the Wii U has only managed to garner 4,313 signatures of the 20,000 it needs to be sent off to Rockstar Games. The petition has been online since 2012.

From the appeal on the petition to Rockstar Games / Take-Two Interactive:

According to Nintendo's manager of business development Dan Adelman, over one-thousand indie developers have expressed interest in developing for the Wii U. During the Game Developers Conference in March of this year, Nintendo launched a new Wii U developer website (wiiu-developers.nintendo.com) that allowed smaller, independent studios to register their interest in making games for Wii U. Adelman revealed the numbers during a recent interview with GameSpot.

Last week we asked our readers which console system would sell the best this holiday season. Around 423 votes were cast and the majority of you believe that the PlayStation 4 will rise to the occasion, beating out Microsoft's Xbox One and Nintendo's Wii U.

Are you ready for another round of console wars?  Boy howdy, I am!  So let's do the fanboy/armchair analyst thing and predict which console will sell the most units this holiday.

Let's see, Sony's Playstation 4 launches on Friday, Nov. 15 and Microsoft's Xbox One launches the following Friday on Nov. 22.  Will the extra week give Sony a leg up?  Both consoles are out before the all-important Black Friday.

Peter Hines, Bethesda's vice-president of public relations and marketing, is making news today for some comments he made about why the Elder Scrolls and Fallout makers are not supporting the Wii U. Speaking to GameTrailer's Bonus Round, Hines said that Nintendo needs to do a better job of communicating with third-party developers about platforms like Microsoft and Sony have.

This week Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight are joined by Jeremy Powers (who you may know better here on GamePolitics as 'Zen'), who talks about the feel-good story of this past week: finally being able to play video games with his daughter. Using the second screen of the Wii U, Jeremy's daughter Jennifer (who has a vision impairment) was finally able to play New Super Luigi U with her family using the GamePad as her own personal screen.

This week Nintendo of America announced that it plans on knocking $50 off the retail price of its Wii U console in September and that it would launch a special Wind Waker HD Limited Edition Wii U Bundle that includes the game, the Wii U console, a specially branded Zelda gamepad, and a digital copy of the Hyrule Historia book.

While America is getting all of this, apparently Australia is getting a big fat goose egg.

To the surprise of... well, probably not too many, Nintendo announced that it will drop the price of its Deluxe Wii U console from $349.99 to $299.99 on Sept. 20th.

The Basic set, which has less memory and no game packed in, will stay at $299.99 but any retailer who still has some (we hear Nintendo stopped manufacturing them a while ago) will probably drop its price too.

Nintendo announced that beginning on Sept. 20 it will sell its Wii U console for $299.99. The Deluxe edition of the console will sell for the aforementioned price and will include a black Wii U console, 32GB of storage space, the tablet-style controller, and a copy of Nintendo Land. The price cut is a few months before Sony launches its PS4 and Microsoft launches the Xbox One. The Basic system will no longer be manufactured. The price cut amounts to right around $50.

Picture this:

Your young child wants nothing more than to play video games with you and the rest of the family but she's nearly blind and can't focus on anything more than a few inches from her face.  She can't see the game unless she puts her nose to the screen and you can't see the game when her head is blocking the TV.  What do you do?

In a recent interview with IGN, Ubisoft Executive director Alain Corre said that the company is not giving up on Nintendo's Wii U or Sony's PS Vita, and that he believes both platforms still have the potential to succeed with the right execution.