Nintendo of America’s Cammie Dunaway made it pretty clear that we’ll be seeing the New Zelda Wii game by the end of this year.

We all benefit if we can keep a pretty steady pace, so the development teams have worked hard to make sure that we’ve got a full lineup this year. If you compare the first half of 2010 with the first half of 2009, it’s night and day.

From some of the things that Mr. Iwata has talked about, and that we will talk about at E3, like Zelda, you know that we’re going to have a good back half of the year, as well.

[Read Wired's full interview with Cammie]

What do you guys think? Are we reading too much into this?

Later this month, Nintendo will be having multiple Media Summits in multiple countries. On February 24th, Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Australia will be holding Media Summits. Then, on February 25th, Nintendo of Europe will be holding one as well. Obviously, something is going down if there are three (and possibly more) Media Summits going on around the same time. But what could it be? Let’s take a look…

Normally, there is a Japanese conference to go along with these. We get all the major announcements at the Japanese conference, and then the ones in the US, Europe, and other countries is just for the media to get the release dates and details specific to those countries. As of right now, there is no Japanese Media Summit confirmed. One could then assume that means we won’t be getting any major news, however the fact that three countries are having Media Summits seems to indicate to me that we have to be getting something. You don’t hold conferences simultaneously worldwide just to show nothing new. So then let’s delve into the details.

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is this March and then a few months afterwards is E3. They’re having a Media Summit despite GDC being very near and E3 only a few months away, so they have to be revealing something. The big game on everyone’s mind for 2010 is Zelda Wii. We will be getting a trailer for the game at E3 and they are pushing for a playable version of the game there as well. Zelda Wii is big news and I have a feeling they will save that as their big game for E3 this year. What else do we know? Well, the Vitality Sensor as well as its software (very likely called Wii Relax, based on multiple trademarks) are confirmed to be at E3. So again, why would they spoil their big E3 reveal by showing it at the Media Summit? I think it’s safe to say that we won’t be seeing either the Vitality Sensor or Zelda Wii this month.

Then we have Super Mario Galaxy 2. With a 2010 release date, it’s guaranteed to be at E3 in some way, shape, or form. Having said that, there have been interviews with various members of the development team who have said that the game is far in development and could have released earlier if New Super Mario Bros. Wii wasn’t releasing during the holidays. So, there’s always a chance we could get a new trailer, new screenshots, or even a tentative release period for the game at the Media Summit. Is it guaranteed? No, but it’s not impossible.

And then there’s Metroid: Other M, recently confirmed for a summer 2010 release in Japan. If they’re aiming for a worldwide release, then E3 is way too late. If that is indeed the case, one would think that it’s pretty much guaranteed that we will get more information at the Media Summit this month. However, the Metroid creator will have a panel at GDC this year and the description of the panel mentions his work on Metroid: Other M. GDC is only a few weeks after the Media Summit, so there is always a chance that they will wait until then to show off more from the game. Either way, I think it’s safe to say that we will get new information and possibly a new trailer soon.

So what else is left? There have been multiple titles that have not been announced for localization in the US, like Trace Memory R or even the recently released mature Japanese title Zangeki no Reginleiv. Is Nintendo of America or even Nintendo of Europe or Australia going to bring over Zangeki no Reginleiv? I don’t think so, but these Media Summits are the perfect time for localization announcements. And speaking of bringing things over from Japan, there’s still the DSi XL. Europe has a release date of March 5th, 2010… but America and Australia still have nothing. It’s almost 100% guaranteed that we will get release dates for the DSi XL at the Media Summits. We know it’s launching soon, so they have to tell us when for obvious reasons.

So that’s what we can conclude based on what we know already. Now for the fun stuff… speculation. The invites for the event included the phrases “something very special lined up” and “Please join us for a full day of presentations, demos and hands-on gameplay”. New trailers for Metroid: Other M and Super Mario Galaxy 2 as well as a DSi XL release date just doesn’t scream “very special” to me. According to one source, the event will be the revelation of the DSi XL’s release date as well as “other stuff”. There is no conference announced for Japan, so once could wonder if the DSi XL will be the focus of the event… but come on, that’s not “very special” and are they really going to do a “full day of presentations, demos, and hands-on gameplay” for a revision of the DSi (especially one that has been out in Japan for a while)? I’m not expecting a huge megaton, but we have to get something new. We just have to. How big or small it is, I don’t know… but we have to get something… right?

So if we get something new, what could it be? Some people are hoping for the announcement of a new online infrastructure. While I think that could be possible, I think that’s more suited for something like GDC, especially since they have released new details on their online services through GDC before (when they announced DLC under the name of Pay & Play). Others have speculated that the mysterious Kirby Wii title that has been on release lists for a long time now will be finally revealed. Or maybe a new firmware update? We’re due for one of those for Wii and/or DSi (and I mean with new features, not bug fixes or blocking homebrew). And then there’s the crowd that expects Star Fox Wii, Kid Icarus Wii, Pikmin 3, or some other major thing… which I highly doubt, to be honest.

So, to sum things up… we can expect a few new details but nothing major. There’s a chance of new trailers for Metroid: Other M, or less likely, Super Mario Galaxy 2. We’re guaranteed the DSi XL release date since that’s coming soon. There will probably be some localization announcements and then hopefully at least one new game announced. If there is indeed a Japanese Media Summit, then I will change my predictions to include one or two big announcements, since that’s where the big stuff is usually announced. Having said that, GDC is soon after and E3 is not too far away. We’re bound to get new details on the titles coming this year pretty soon. I’m looking forward to the Media Summit, though I’m not riding the hype train just yet. Less than two weeks until my predictions will be put to the test and hopefully Nintendo will make us fans proud.

[UPDATE]:
NGamer’s twitter says that this Media Summit “threatens to be better than their last two E3s glued together.” Keep in mind that NGamer is also the ones that said Sonic was going to be in Super Mario Galaxy 2, so I would take this with extreme skepticism. However, as [Nintex] on NeoGAF points out, Nintendo of American and Nintendo of Europe have never had an event on the same day. Endless Ocean 2 is already out, Sin and Punishment 2 was at E3, etc. Iwata also said that The Last Story and Xenoblade were just a “few” announcements. Normally, Nintendo sort of downplays the events, but this time around they seem to be saying that it’s going to be good.

Maybe they’ll demo Netflix for Wii? Or how about the Connection Ambassador Program in the US? Those sound more likely to me. I’m not going to hype myself up and I suggest the same to all of you. It’s in less than two weeks though, so not much more of a wait.

Video game legend Shigeru Miyamoto made a passing mention about “new Nintendo hardware in development and multiple Motion Plus game projects” at the 13th Annual Japan Media Arts Festival.

The rumor mill is already running (as if it ever stopped), with many speculating that the mentioned “hardware” is the Wii’s successor.

I personally don’t think this is anything to get too excited over. We all know that Nintendo has been hard at work on “N6” from the moment the Wii was launched, if not earlier. It would not surprise me in the least if there are several working prototypes, and a number of amazing demo applications. What would surprise me would be to see hide or hair of it within the next year. I just don’t think it is going to happen.

In all likelihood, this “hardware” is just another peripheral. And who really cares? I have yet to milk all that I can out of the Wii itself, and I still don’t have all of the games that are on my wishlist. I think I can wait a bit longer for the next iteration.

Via The Wiire, AndriaSang.

In an interview with Famitsu this week, Nintendo producer Eiji Aonuma said that he hopes to have the game in a playable state with all its core elements in place in time for E3.

“I’d like to show something playable,” said Aonuma when pressed on the possibility of a playable showing at the June trade show.

Aonuma also hinted that the game could reach the masses before the end of the year. He claimed that, due to fan anticipation, he’s been pushing the staff towards a release. When pressed again by Famitsu, however, he would only say “We’ll work hard in order to get you playing it as soon as possible.”

Development appears to be progressing smoothly on the game. “We’ve progressed in development since last year,” said Aonuma. “At present, the core areas have come into clear view.”

[Andriasaang]

2Chan (Japan’s “4chan”), has leaked some new Zelda Wii info! 2Chan is responsible for a number of accurate “leaks” or rumors, so with that being said take everything with a grain of salt:

* The game will be vary from the dungeon field dungeon method we are accustomed too (nothing new, Eiji Aonuma confirmed that last year).
* You will be able to select right or left handed at the start, and Link will be left or right handed based on your selection
* The gameplay and basic mechanics are complete.
* They are currently polishing up the story and Characters.
* One of the characters they are working on is a innkeeper in Link’s home village who has a son that looks up to Link.
* The girl in the art is not the Master Sword, and it appears the Master Sword will not be in the game.
* The girls name from the painting could possibly be Adelle, Adella, or Aderu.
* She is not with you throughout the game like Ezlo and Midna.
* The face in the painting of her is not her real face. It’s not fully elaborated on much, but it does say that it was a place holder concept art piece.(assuming the entire art itself was just concept work)
* Link’s sword is highly unique in this game, and will have several unlockable abilities. Adelle (or whatever her final name becomes) communicates with you through this sword.
* There will be horseback combat. Epona will avoid obstacles automatically.
* The models for 3 significant characters in the game have been touched up, but no they are not Zelda or Ganondorf. (google translate gives rough names of Link, Gorons, and Epona, but our translator said it’s not specifically mentioned)
* The idea of this version of Link also being The Hero of Time has been highly considered, and may already be implemented.
* Time travel plays a roll in the game.
* The game takes place in more then just Hyrule, and may possibly not be Hyrule at all.

[Zelda Informer]

The director of Madworld has told ONM that he’d be interested in making a sequel to his violent Wii game.

Platinum’s Shigenori Nishikawa said:

“I think MadWorld was very well received and was acknowledged for its innovative graphical style and gameplay. We would definitely be interested in making a sequel in the future.”

Nishikawa clearly doesn’t see a problem with making another mature game on Wii, a console he describes as “a very well-balanced piece of hardware.”

Miyamoto said this to ONM:

“I think it sold lower than our expectations but on the other hand it was a really unique game, I have to say. And also, even today, we are receiving several different offers from people in the field of music education, so as far as Wii Music is concerned, I think it still has great potential. And in the future there might be some developments.

We may want to think about the possibility of making some improvements, based upon the original Wii Music.

Unfortunately we don’t have any news we can talk about at the moment. But like Wii Fit Plus, it’s not really a sequel to the original Wii Fit – but we have added some features to improve the overall experience. It’s a kind of an enhanced version of the original Wii Fit…”

[ONM]

We’ve posted a couple stories on this Netflix-Wii idea lately, but there might be something you did not catch.  Of course, we still have rumors of Netflix being ready to come to Wii by the end of the year, but Nintendo wants to wait until the HD version of Wii, which (get this) is coming in early 2010.

“What I’m hearing is that Nintendo originally planned to bring the Netflix service to the Wii before the end of this year, which still might take place, but that Nintendo is also considering holding off on the Netflix service until they release their next generation Wii HD unit in early 2010.” – Dan Rayburn

[Streaming Media]

According to Streaming Media and Engadget, it has been confirmed Netflix will soon come to the Wii.  Apparently, it is currently in the testing phase.

Last week I received some images that showed Netflix streaming on a Wii console. I didn’t run with the story at the time as I didn’t know if the images were legit and it’s taken me until today to confirm they are in fact real. I’m not disclosing who confirmed it for me but someone involved in the project has confirmed that Nintendo is currently in testing stages with Netflix to bring their streaming service to the Wii very soon.

What I’m hearing is that Nintendo originally planned to bring the Netflix service to the Wii before the end of this year, which still might take place, but that Nintendo is also considering holding off on the Netflix service until they release their next generation Wii HD unit in early 2010.

While this has not been “officially” confirmed by either Nintendo or Netflix via an announcement, this looks legit.  For now, we will keep it in the rumor section, though.

Wow, this month has been full of big rumors, especially for systems. We had that whole Nvidia rumor for the next-gen DS, and now we have a rumor for Wii 2. MaxConsole has a rumor on the successor to Wii that claims was leaked from an “internal source of the marketing Nintendo France Service”. Here is what they claim Wii 2 will include…

- Blu-Ray drive for games and movies, as well as piracy protection
- 1080p and lower resolution support
- Worldwide, same day release in Q3 2010
- Trade-in program available to trade in original Wii for a cheaper price on Wii 2.
- Announcement will be made one month before release date, with huge publicity and viral marketing

First things first, I don’t believe it. 2010 is too soon, I think, and I don’t really believe the whole trade-in program stuff. Having said that, this source does have some credibility. A couple months before Wii was released, MaxConsole did leak some specs for Wii and if you look at it now… it seems they were right, despite the great numbers of people who thought it was fake. And so, I’d say to take this rumor with a grain of salt. It’s not very believable to me, but then again, I didn’t believe they would release a DSi with just a bigger screen so soon… so who knows what’s up with this. What do you think, true or false?

[Via NeoGAF]

Source: The Who lead singer Roger Daltry told Massachusetts paper The Republican that The Who will be getting its own Rock Band. When an interviewer brought up the recently released The Beatles: Rock Band, Daltry said, “The game, yeah, yeah, they’re going to be doing a Who one next year. There is one planned.”

[More at Gamespot]

The CV of an ex-Eurocom animator has outed a possible N64 remake for Wii, “GoldenEye 2010″

The CV, which belongs to one Craig Peck, says the ex-Eurocom man worked as an animator “on Activision’s James Bond series for the Nintendo Wii”, before joining L.A. Noire developer Team Bondi.

Peck’s job on the mysterious GoldenEye game apparently involved “key frame animation, the preparation and clean-up of motion capture data, prop animation, in-game cut-scene animation, scene layout, and camera animation.”

[CVG]

photo by afrokid

Animator on Activision’s James Bond series for the Nintendo Wii
http://peckanimation.com/PDF/CraigPeck_Resume.pdf (If you look at the resume, it states that he worked on Goldeneye on the Wii between July and September of this year.)

First off, I should probably note that Eurocom did porting work on Treyarch’s Quantum of Solace game from last year.

So if the Bizarre Creations’ 2010 Bond game is another Goldeneye, does this mean that the racing game rumors are unfounded?

Also, Bond interactive license-holders, can’t be we get over this improper canonization of the massively overrated Goldeneye and focus on the actual best Bond game ever, Everything or Nothing? (Activision, your new SF studio has some integral dudes from that game, just saying.)

[superannuation]

UPDATE: The support page has since been changed, so either it was a mistake or someone let something out they weren’t supposed to. For now, I’ll go with the mistake, but it’s exciting to speculate.

I’ll let this one speak (no pun intended) for itself.  This is copied directly from the Nintendo Support Page:

Error Code: 206602

Nintendo DSi Shop – Nintendo Points Card or Nintendo DSi Download Ticket Error

There appears to be a problem using the Nintendo Points Card or a Nintendo DSi Shop Download Ticket.

• Make sure you entering the number in the correct field in the Nintendo DSi Shop.
  • For Nintendo Points Card redemption, enter the number off the Nintendo Points Card in the “Add Nintendo DSi Points” section off of the main Nintendo DSi Shop page, and select “Redeem Nintendo Points Card.”
  • To redeem a Nintendo DSi Download Ticket number, such as for the Nintendo DSi Speak Channel, enter the number off the Nintendo DSi Download Ticket in “Settings and Features” off of the main Nintendo DSi Shop page, then select “Nintendo DSi Download Ticket.”
• After verifying you are entering the number in the correct location, retry the number again and make sure it is being entered correctly.

If that does not work, please call 1-800-255-3700 so that we can assist you further.

[Nintendo Support]

This seems to confirm a DSi Speak Channel, but until there is 100% confirmation, I will keep this as a rumor.

Well, this is quite a big rumor. I’ll just post highlights from the article…

Launched in 2004, the Nintendo DS and its two latter redesigns [DS Lite and DSi] sold in massive 111.49 million units. With almost 40 million handheld consoles sold in United States alone, Nintendo DS owns 68.3% of worldwide market share.

As the time passed by, Nintendo started to work on the successor of its handheld console with a debut planned for late 2010 [Tokyo Game Show?]. According to our confidential sources, Nintendo is going to use Tegra System-on-Chip processor for the successor of DS/DSi handheld console. Unlike the current design, nVidia offered a single-chip proposal to Nintendo, a company famous for keeping the hardware platform absolutely simple.

Given the fact that Nintendo DS hardware is based upon 16-bit and 32-bit ARM cores, it looks like Next-Gen DS could be backwards compatible with the DS application library. According to our sources, all of the apps that came for old DS could run on a single ARM11 core, yet alone the next-gen CorTex-A9-based Tegra, leaving graphics subsystem to do “something smarter”.

Do I believe this? I’m leaning towards no, but it’s not a complete no. Depending on which chips they choose (and the full article speculates about this), this could be a huge graphical upgrade from the DS. Nintendo has never really focused on graphics, except maybe with the N64. Not only that but, the DSi just released earlier this year and DSi-exclusive retail titles are slowly being announced now. Having said that, 2010 would mean the DS had a 6 year run and this next-gen DS will still be able to play DS games. What do you think? Could there be any truth to this rumor?

Note: The image above is completely un-related concept art.

[Via BSN and NeoGAF]

Last Tuesday was the start of WiiNintendo’s new, interactive podcast known as Nintendo Fuse. Every Tuesday at 9 pm eastern time we will do the podcast, and today is Tuesday so it’s time for round two! The best part about Nintendo Fuse is that YOU can join in! But how? There are three ways…

1) Chat in the chatroom by going to the Nintendo Fuse TalkShoe page once the podcast begins at 9 pm est.

2) Call in with your phone by dialing (724) 444-7444 and when prompted for the Call ID, dial 59264#. You can then press 1 to join in as a guest, or you can create a free account on TalkShoe and enter your PIN number on the phone.

3) Call in with your microphone on your computer by downloading TalkShoe Live for free from here. Once installed, go to the Nintendo Fuse TalkShoe page and then select the option to connect through TalkShoe Live Pro.

Tonight, we will be discussing some great stuff. On the agenda is the Nintendo Conference on Thursday (will we get anything of significance?), New Super Mario Bros. Wii (we discuss the Super Guide and what we think about it), Epic Mickey (we have the details on this newly confirmed Wii exclusive), and more! Be here at 9 pm eastern time tonight to listen and/or join in on the fun!

Want to listen to old episodes? Go to the Nintendo Fuse TalkShoe page. You can also subscribe on iTunes by searching for Nintendo Fuse or by clicking this link.