Donkey Kong Country Returns! How much have U.S. Wii owners reported playing? Official U.S. Nintendo Channel data report.

Coffee Beans
Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong have been platforming buddies since the 90s. Sometimes they work together, other times they work to help the other out. It just depends which adventure you play.

Donkey Kong Country Returns was one of Nintendo's surprise Wii games at E3 2010, and the game released on November 21, 2010 that same year with a MSRP of $49.99. It was developed by Retro Games (known for developing the Metroid Prime games), and of course published by Nintendo.

Donkey Kong Country Returns is now available for the Nintendo 3DS system with a MSRP of $34.99, and like the Wii version, it also received an ESRB rating of "EVERYONE" with "Mild Cartoon Violence" listed as content for parents and gamers to be aware of.

If you own a Wii or Wii U, or now even a Nintendo 3DS, and are interested in Donkey Kong Country Returns (3D), how many hours can you expect from it? Brew yourself some coffee, and let's take a look at the official U.S. Wii Nintendo Channel data and the average hours reported!

The Brew
Donkey Kong Country Returns now has approximately 406,053 U.S. Wii owners with nearly 10 million Total Hours of game-play data reported, with about 911 days reported. This is an increase of almost 400,000 more U.S. Wii owners that have had game-play data for the game reported, than when it first debuted in December 2010.

The game's average reported play time of 22 Hours 54 Minutes "Per person", seen in the image below, averages out to be about 1 Hours 47 Minutes played per time reported.

For comparison to other Nintendo Wii platforming games, Donkey Kong's reported hours "Per person" are lower than New Super Mario Bros. Wii's, but slightly higher than Kirby's Epic Yarn's.

What about critic and customer reviews for the game? The last time we looked at the reported data, DKCR had a "professional" critic review score average of 87.79%, based on 53 reviews on GameRankings. Now, the game has a critic review score average of 87.87%, based on 55 reviews on GameRankings.com.

Its customer review score average was 89.86%, based on 306 reviews from Amazon.com. Donkey Kong Country Returns now has a customer review score average of 89.69%, now based on 427 reviews on Amazon.com.

Caffeinated Thoughts
It's been a while since I last played Donkey Kong's platforming Wii adventure, but as I have stated before, I really did enjoy my time with the game. I have done several Nintendo Channel data reports on the game over the last few years, and you can take a look at the different times reported for the game over the years: HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.

While I haven't played through the game just by myself, Mrs. Coffee and I play through the entire game together, just like we did with New Super Mario Bros. Wii. If you haven't seen anything on Donkey Kong Country Returns, here's a video of Mrs. Coffee and I playing through one of the levels in the Wii version:

I believe that Monster Games (probably best known for Excite Truck, ExciteBots, and PilotWings Resort to Nintendo fans) is the company Nintendo hired to port Donkey Kong Country Returns from the Wii to the 3DS. While I'm really glad to see Monster Games continuing to work with Nintendo, I do hope that they have been working on another, newer, game for either the Wii U or 3DS.

I think it would be interesting to see what Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D's average hours "Per person" end up being, and specifically what the average hours reported per time would be. Unfortunately though the 3DS, like the Wii U, doesn't have a Nintendo Channel where all the game-play data is reported. I think it would be interesting because of the portability of the game on the 3DS now, if it would end up having a higher or lower average overall.

Do you want a chance to win Psychonauts, Costume Quest, and Stacking? Simply make sure you're following me on Twitter, HERE, and tweet out this post using the Twitter button beneath this post (it's in the image below if you're not sure). Include the hashtag #DonkeyKongCoffee in it, and tweet it to @NintendoAmerica. The winner has been announced, HERE.

Questions
Have any of you played through Donkey Kong Country Returns on the Wii in the last year, and if so, what did you think about the game? If you own a Nintendo 3DS, have you already purchased Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D for the system, and if you have had a chance to play it, what do you think about it?

If you have played both the Wii and 3DS versions, do you prefer one more than the other; assuming you have had the chance to play the 3DS version a decent amount already?

You can see Donkey Kong related games and items below!