Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Whoever's been leaking Nintendo's information, stop it. You know who you are. All ten of you. Now just 'fess up and take your punishment.

That's apparently what Nintendo of America is hoping for, though in somewhat harsher terms. They've filed a lawsuit in Washington State against ten John Does for "misappropriation of trade secrets." The suit claims that these ten cloak-and-dagger types "obtained proprietary and confidential trade secrets and disclosed them to the public."

By filing this lawsuit, Nintendo can now subpoena the individuals "named" and legally compel them to come forward, as well as receive statements from other nearby parties. We think.

We have no idea what information Nintendo is so worried about. We certainly haven't seen any particularly juicy rumors about the company in a while. Plenty of stuff about third parties, but nothing about Nintendo, much less anything worth suing over.

[Update: the Seattle Stranger "Slog" has posted a suggestion that the Super Smash Bros. Brawl manual leak is what Nintendo's so upset about. Is that all? Thanks to stinkbug for alerting us to the update!]

Remember that uncut version of Manhunt 2 that hit the 'net last month? Looks like it wasn't hackers -- named or unnamed -- after all, but rather, an employee at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. It seems all of the people who were whispering that it might be an inside job weren't too far off ... they were just pointing fingers at the wrong people.

The name of the culprit has not been released, though it has been confirmed that, unsurprisingly, leaking a playtest copy of a game online means you lose your job. Who knew, eh?

In what has to be the least surprising leak ever, it seems an early version of the PS2's unedited Manhunt 2 surfaced on the internet late last week. Early suspicions pointed to a source inside Rockstar for the leak, but parent company Take-Two has moved quickly to squash video and other media from the title, and now "unnamed hackers" (who have possibly been named as 'Team Slonik') are being blamed for the game's release into the wild.

While we certainly do not condone piracy in any form, we can't help but harbor a hope that someone keeps a copy of this alleged leak around for comparison in the fall, when the official, cut version of Manhunt 2 hits retail outlets. Of course, what's out there may not be the actual unedited cut -- and if it's exactly the same as what gets released, we're sure that will be the precise reason given -- but since the ESRB will not speak to the changes, perhaps this build will.

[Via Digg]

Some nice folks over at GoNintendo have submitted some scans and a rough translation for the upcoming Fire Emblem: Goddess of Dawn for the Wii. Though we follow the FE story about as well as we can save a dying victim using pretend surgical skills (damn you, Trauma Center!), some details might interest those masochists among us:

• Sothe is Mikaya's younger brother, though they aren't blood-related.
• The nations of Gallia and Begnion are at war. Lots and lots of war.
  
• The game will be divided into discrete portions, and the first will focus on the "Dawn Group".

An additional story synopsis can be found after the break. Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance was one of the unheralded masterpieces on the Cube (we didn't mention it, we know!), and we greatly look forward to the sequel.