Now here's a bit of speculation to chew on. There have been no official announcements, but Go Nintendo has put up an image of a flyer which states that High Voltage's highly-anticipated Wii FPS The Conduit will be at this year's Penny Arcade Expo... as part of the Nintendo booth. That is, it will be displayed at PAX alongside Nintendo's own first-party games.
At E3, High Voltage had to make off-site appointments to show off the game because they didn't have a publisher, and so didn't have a booth. Why is Nintendo suddenly playing host to them at PAX? Did High Voltage cut some kind of deal with Nintendo to get floor space? Possible, but... does Nintendo intend to publish the Conduit themselves?
The only hard source on this is a tiny paragraph in this month's new Game Informer, so take it with a grain of salt. It's long been established that Nintendo didn't bother to tell any third parties about the Wii MotionPlus peripheral until their E3 press conference this year, which means that basically nothing hitting in Q4 this year or even early 2009 is likely to support it.
The word is that LucasArts is hopping mad with Nintendo about this, since one of their Q4 titles for this year - Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels - is the sort of title that would benefit tremendously from 1:1 motion input. Instead, the "ultimate lightsaber combat game" is very likely to ship with swordfighting controls inferior to those found in Wii Sports Resort (on top of being beaten to lightsaber combat by No More Heroes).
If Nintendo had shared the tech with them earlier in the development process, then Lightsaber Duels could've shipped as one of the first titles with full Wii MotionPlus support. Instead, it's looking more likely that LucasArts and possibly other third-party publishers are simply not going to support the peripheral at all.
Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels
So, you can now pre-order Wii Music at Amazon.com for the expected price of $49.99. What's unexpected is that Amazon appears to be telling you that you'll get your copy of the game on November 3rd. It's a plausible enough date, but Nintendo hasn't announced anything official yet. Did Amazon leak the date, or is it just a placeholder?
Wii Music
Here's a weird story that may very well be true. The Times UK newspaper reports a rumor that game designer extraordinaire Shigeru Miyamoto isn't allowed to discuss his hobbies with the press, based on information given them by an anonymous inside Nintendo source. The logic is that since he bases all of his games on his pastimes, information about what he's doing could give the competition a heads-up regarding what Nintendo's next big game - or console - is going to be.
... According to sources at Nintendo, the games designer has been banned by the company from speaking publicly about his hobbies.
It's not that they are naughty, illegal or even nerdish, it's just that any glimpse inside his head could be worth billions. Particularly so now: the Wii still sells strongly around the world, but its successor is the talking point. Unfortunately, the only place where the discussion has any grounding is inside Mr Miyamoto's head.
It's been rumored for awhile that the Metallic Silver DS Lite model that's already available in Europe and Japan would be heading to the US this year. Kotaku offered the first evidence of this with a screenshot of an SKU search from GameStop, leading to rumors of the Metallic Silver being an exclusive. GoNintendo upped the ante with a screenshot of the Metallic Silver being offered at online store AccessIngram.com, whose information claims that the Metallic Silver is going to replace the Polar White DS Lite model. So while we can't say exactly what the terms of sale for the Metallic Silver DS Lite in the US will be, it's looking pretty likely we'll be seeing it going onsale sometime in September.
Kotaku's big readership means they snap up some tasty exclusive tips, like this one from an anonymous GameStop employee. Looks like the much-hated but ubiquitous specialty retail chain is going to sell a North American version of the once Japan-only Palkia & Dialgya Pokemon-branded black Nintendo DS Lite sometime later this year. The DS is going to be bundled with some exclusive Pokeswag like some sort of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon DVD, a t-shirt, and a poster for $129.99. No word on whether or not it'll come bundled with a game, or which game it might be, but at the $129 price it seems unlikely.
See the survey pictures above, originally hosted by the great guys at GoNintendo? That's an image of a survey a cagey fan was taking online, sent out by Capcom through the GamersInstinct network. It clearly depicts questions talking about a Wii version of Resident Evil 5, currently slated to be a 360/PS3 title. Exactly how likely such a release is will probably be determined by how well, or poorly, Dead Rising: Chop 'Til You Drop performs. If Capcom moves a lot of Dead Rising on Wii, then I bet we see the Resident Evil 4 Wii engine come back to play host to a watered-down version of its own sequel. Which is, honestly, kind of weird, but probably better than no RE5 at all for Nintendo fans.
Resident Evil 5
Here's another good tidbit I found while doing the rounds at the distinguished competition today, though it's apparently been all over the internet already.
A snippet of a Japanese Toys R Us flier promoting the upcoming Pokemon Platinum release - the inevitable 'chaser' to the Diamond/Pearl generation, ala Pokemon Crystal and Pokemon Yellow - has gone online. The flier depicts five unusual silhouettes that fans can't seem to identify as any of the hundreds of pre-existing Pokemon.
Could Pokemon Platinum be getting an assortment of exclusive monsters? Usually the "chaser" game does get a slightly different monster assortment than the first two, but exclusive monsters - let alone five - are fairly unusual as these releases go.
I'm filing this under "Speculation" because I wasn't personally at the Q&A session where it's alleged to have happened. A friend of mine was present and is currently working on a guest post summarizing it, taken from his notes.
At a behind-closed-doors session for select journalists and Nintendo higher-ups that just finished less than an hour ago, someone asked Shigeru Miyamoto if Pikmin 3 was under development. After some digressing, Miyamoto allegedly blurted out "Yes."
More on this when I have time to follow-up on it properly, but if it is 100% true then it's pretty big news.
The answer to that would appear to be "why, yes!", but I'm going to try to play along with Nintendo and look surprised at the press conference. UK gaming mag N-Gamer's latest issue freely confirms the existence of the long-suspected Animal Crossing Wii, and confirms the Nintendo return of a far more surprising IP, the long-absent Punch-Out!!. Of course, N-Europe got this news online as quick as possible, and here we are.
The article goes on to say that Animal Crossing Wii has been finished for a while, and though it isn't an MMO as suggested by rumours earlier this year, it features heavy use of Wi-Fi sharing (and presumably multiplayer, as in Wild World).
As for Punch-Out!! Wii, NGamer claim that Balance Board implementation is on the cards for dodging and weaving, in addition to Wii Remote and Nunchuk controlled punching (which goes without saying) in the style of Wii Sports Boxing and Rhythm Boxing, which was included as a minigame in Wii Fit.
Why, that's... exactly what I said I wanted to play. Carry on then, Nintendo. It seems your 2009 is going to please me.
Dack (5)
Dave Rudden (1)
KouAidou (9)
Sardius (97)