Between January 31st and today Super Smash Bros Brawl has sold 1.08 million copies in Japan. That’s the fastest-selling Wii game ever in Japan. Over 5 weeks faster than Wii Fit, sold separately from the console there, made it to the platinum sales mark.

We can hardly wait until March 9th, and it doesn’t seem like anyone else can either. Despite console shortages meaning less gamers to be shopping, I’ll bet when the game drops here it won’t take nearly 11 days for sales to hit the million mark.

[via Reuters]

The incredible eight-minute video is after the jump, or hop over to Joystiq to read descriptions (and cheesy power & “coolness” ratings) about every Final Smash.

The site reviews video games for all systems (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, PC, & older consoles) and gives each a rating. None of these ratings are on a 9-out-of-10 scale either. What They Play uses ESRB ratings to pronounce games “safe” for various ages. I’ll lay odds that the site is affiliated with Jack Thompson given that the game ratings are fairly harsh and put almost every popular game on the market in the “Teen” (13 or older) category and anything remotely like a shooter in the “Mature” (17 and older) category.

Some examples:

• Halo 3 is rated “Mature” – as in only for ages 17 and over
• It takes a lightweight like Lego Star Wars to pull in an “Everyone 10+” (like they need two levels of Everyone ratings…)
• Major games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero II & III, and Super Smash Bros Brawl are rated “Teen” – only for ages 13 and over

If you still live at home and rely on your parents’ green (or at least a credit card or ride to the store) to buy games you’d better add whattheyplay.com to the Hosts file on all household PCs.

Get ready to brawl. The best game ever drops March 9th.

Looks ready for release to me. If it’s really not ready then maybe those developers could be nice to all of us and get back to fixing the problems instead of making preview videos.

Queue yet another PR disaster buy-off from a big corporation, to the tune of $10 per cheated customer. Walmart priced preorders for Super Smash Bros Brawl at $19.82 last week. Not long after the pricing error was all over the internet and Walmart canceled all the low-priced orders.

Today Walmart announced a $10 gift card is headed out to every buyer who had an order canceled … after all they’ve already got your addresses. If you’re one of the preorder buyers you can take the cookie and pick up Super Smash Bros Brawl for just $39.82 out of pocket.

It feels a bit better to get a real apology from Nintendo:

Due to delays in the completion of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, we�ve had to change the release date of the game to Sunday, March 9th.

I deeply apologize to the people who have looked forward to playing the game for so long and ask that you hold on just a little longer. Thank you for your patience.

Sadly SSBB has been delayed only one week in Japan. The delay in the US, from February 10 to March 9, makes me wonder what the extra time is for.

This certainly isn’t the first time a big retailer hasn’t honored its online prices. It won’t be the last. We all know how this works too. Someone is sure to file a class action lawsuit. That probably won’t go anywhere because of some cop-out disclaimer on Walmart’s website.

All I really want to know is what Walmart is doing about any $70 orders for Apollo Justice. You may know better but what about that poor grandmother who bought a birthday gift when it was priced too high.

[via Kotaku]

image: Urban Semiotic

UPDATE: Price is back to normal. Pulling the link to Walmart.

Walmart has knocked the pre-order price for Super Smash Bros Brawl down to $19.82. That’s an incredible $30 off the retail price – for a game that’s WAY better than the river of sludge that qualifies as Wii games lately. Get on over there because this price is sure not to stay around for long.

It’s too bad that Walmart doesn’t have any Wii consoles in-stock too. The only place with consoles right now is NewEgg (sigh, yes it’s a bundle).

[... Price back up, link removed ...]