Big Nintendo News From GDC

Wii, DS

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata took the stage today to announce a few things we'd been waiting to hear for a long time. Some we knew about, and some we didn't, but it's good news all around.

First, there is finally a storage solution for the Wii. You can now save Virtual Console games, WiiWare and Wii Channels to an SD or SDHC card and then play them off of the card. Hooray. No more cleaning out the fridge every time you want to download something or even just save a new game. There's a SD Menu icon on the new Wii Menu, which you can get right now by performing a system update. The high capacity SD format currently tops out at 32GB, but as that is roughly sixty-four times the in-built system memory, it should be enough for now.

Next, on the eve of the DSi's international release, it was revealed that everyone who buys the system and connects it online before October 5th, 2009 will get 1000 DSi points for free. These can be spent in the DSiWare store for games or applications.

Also coming to DS is The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, the sequel to the well-received Phantom Hourglass. This time around, Link will be piloting a steam locomotive, switching with Phantom to explore the dungeons, and solving puzzles with brand new items.

On a disappointing note, there were no new first-party Wii games revealed at the show. Punch-Out!! made an appearance (and was dated for May in the US), while a rock-climbing WiiWare game called Rock N' Roll Climber that uses the Balance Board unveiled. No word on Mario Galaxy 2, though. Still, a good day.

Reader Comments:

Posted by admeister 26/03/2009 8:38pm

I'll be very surprised if we see another main Mario title on the Wii, the quota has been one game per console since the N64.

Posted by moodycj 26/03/2009 9:27pm

I'll be very surprised if we see another main Mario title on the Wii, the quota has been one game per console since the N64.

Yeah but to be fair that is only 2 consoles.

Posted by RJG 26/03/2009 9:33pm

I'll be very surprised if we see another main Mario title on the Wii, the quota has been one game per console since the N64.

Yeah but to be fair that is only 2 consoles.

There was only one of the Super Nintendo as well, since Yoshi's Island is a Yoshi game and not a Mario game.

Also, Punch Out looks fucking awesome, and the new Zelda looks great too.

Posted by nshady 26/03/2009 9:48pm

They've said they're working on another one.

Posted by insanopointless 26/03/2009 10:04pm

New Zelda looks good, got a tip off they were announcing one but I was hoping it was for Wii... Oh well.

Posted by admeister 26/03/2009 10:46pm

I was hoping it was for Wii... Oh well.

Same here, I didn't care much for PH, but I enjoyed Twilight Princess. I really hope we see another Zelda game on the Wii.