I had no idea Yoshi was so musical, although I'd imagine that only being able to say "Yoshi" would limit his karaoke skills. Mario is using the GamePad to choose the next song on the playlist while his dinosaur pal mangles some greatest overplayed hit, no doubt.

It seems like such a natural, common sense move for Nintendo to use its famous stable of characters to promote the struggling Wii U, but the company has only now started to use Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and others to show off what the console can do. New original artwork showing the characters using the Wii U's unique features has been uncovered by Kotaku and NeoGAF via Nintendo's Japanese website and for those of us who like new Nintendo art done in the old 2D style, these images are a total treasure. Check these out!

Bowser and Kamek are trying to stream some video, but based on their puzzled and frustrated expressions, they can't quite get it working. Is this a knock on the villains being too dense to figure out how to stream content? It almost inadvertently plays as the Wii U being difficult to use for video. That can't be the intention, but that's how I read it at first. The other interpretation is that Bowser is laughing at title screens which not only looks strange, but makes no sense.

Here are Princess Peach and Toad using the GamePad to look up the recipe for the famous royal cake used to entice heroes to visit her castle in times of trouble. Peach sure dresses in fancier clothes to do her baking.

Here's one of those famous Nintendo lifestyle photos of a whole family having fun with technology, but no actual game can be seen. Presumeably Luigi is playing a Wii U game on the GamePad while the others enjoy a television show. It seems so unusual to see these characters in their rest and leisure time. When have you ever seen Mario reclined in a comfy chair? I think that's what makes these images so charming. It's like peeking in on heroes on their day off. Great job on these, Nintendo artists. Keep 'em coming!