Image from IGN.com

Gonintendo is reporting various details from the upcoming Mario Kart Wii. We don't *actually* have a U.S. release date yet that is firm, but we know it is coming out in Japan in April. This is also to come with another infamous Nintendo controller shell: the plastic steering wheel thingie. However, unlike the Zapper, people generally seem to like using the wheel shells (Ubisoft included shells with some of their early driving games during the Wii's launch, plus third party wheel shells are pretty common).

Here's the basics (emphasis mine):

Mario Kart Wii - April 10th, 2008 (Japan)
* Bikes in cup mode
* Bikes have special actions like "wheelie"
* 16 remakes and new courses
* Wi-fi 12 players
* Play as Miis

Here's some info on the online aspect:

- online league and a global world ranking- local rankings
- channel for online aspect (Note: This is clearly a funky translation issue here- but I think they mean a channel in your Wii's menu seperate from the game)
- send and receive time attack scores online, online ranking for time attack as well
- upload/download Ghosts

As usual nice job to Gonintendo for being all over this.

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