Nintendo loves money.

So, I recently received the Wii I purchased from my good buddy Coal(miner), and while I loathe the system and its offerings overall, I can't deny that Super Smash Bros. Brawl is some incredibly great fun in spite of the fact that it's simply an expansion to the prior installment in the franchise. If it ain't broke, then don't fix it, right? Right.

But that's not why I'm writing this post. Seeing a few titles I wanted to pick up on the Virtual Console, I decided to purchase some Wii Points to snag said gems. Things were going well and fine until the final verification screen came up, and I saw that Nintendo has the gall to charge sales tax for their online transactions. Now, let's take this into perspective: Have you ever purchased anything online where sales tax was applied (aside from a situation where you live in a state that requires such taxes to be applied to online purchases, like Washington state)? Neither have I. Never on Amazon, Newegg, Tiger Direct, or even from the Xbox Live service that Nintendo's direct competitor, Microsoft, maintains. The negligible amount of cash I had to fork over in addition to the charge for the Wii Points didn't necessarily bother me so much as the principle behind it. I mean, if I live in Nebraska and Nebraska doesn't say that sales tax has to be applied to merchandise or services sold to one of the state's residents, then what is Nintendo doing with that seven percent they just tacked onto my purchase?

Curious about the situation, I sent an email to Nintendo's online support service. They act like they care about comments they receive, but I guess we'll see if that's true or not when I do/don't receive a reply. I'll keep you folks posted on the situation, and hopefully it'll make for another mundane and utterly insipid post for this incredibly engaging blog.

Until then!