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As part of the Famicon's (Nintendo Entertainment System's) 30th anniversary in Japan, Nintendo has been releasing various retro titles on the Wii U for the insanely low price of 30 yen ($0.32).


The first title released this way was the NES classic Balloon Fighter. The following game was Fire Emblem: Monsho no Nazo, the first Fire Emblem game on the SNES. But starting last Wednesday Nintendo moved on to its third title, Mother 2, or as it's known in the West, Earthbound.


But this super low price for the virtual console title isn't the only Earthbound-related thing that's come out on the Japanese Wii U. There is now a Mother 2 MiiVerse community (which is accessible on Western systems as well as on Japanese ones) and a special 30-minute Earthbound-centric episode of GameCenter CX (Retro Game Master) that was released on the Japanese Nintendo eStore for free as well.

And in addition to all this, last Friday night, Nintendo President and CEO Satoru Iwata sat down with Earthbound writer/director Shigesato Itoi to play through the first three and a half hours of the game on the Wii. And by far the highlight of this playthrough was seeing Iwata's custom-made Earthbound jacket—guaranteed to make Earthbound fans the world over jealous as hell.


Mother 2 (Earthbound) was released on the Japanese Wii U virtual console on March 20, 2013. There is currently no word on an international virtual console release. Earthbound was originally released on the SNES in 1994 in Japan and the United States in 1995.


Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.