At one time or another we have all wondered what Nintendo’s next step in the industry will be. Whether it be unrevealed games, ideas, or possible hardware revisions it’s always exciting. Using all of my combined Nintendo knowledge and examining past patterns, I’ve constructed a small list of predictions that I believe the company will make. This list covers major games, new peripherals, hardware, etc… Here we go!

(Note: In case you skipped the paragraph above, the list below are complete speculations, predictions, and guesses. They could be completely wrong, but I do believe I’m not far off.)

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According to an unnamed Japanese gaming mag the highly anticipated Street Fighter IV for the Arcade is in development for the Wii. Capcom’s fighter has been rumored to be capable of running fine on the Wii since December when the new simplistic (Okami-like) art style was revealed to the press. Street Fighter IV contains both 3D and 2D elements that don’t require a beefy platform.

Old comments from Producer, Yoshinori Ono suggest that it’s a possibility…

“We could go, potentially, to the Wii. We could make it on Game Boy, for all we know right now.”

Is this a juicy secret revealed or are Japanese gaming publications pulling our leg again? I smell a E3 keynote announcement…

Consider this sort of a rebuttal to Jake’s post from earlier today. While I don’t believe that Nintendo will announce DS 2 or DS Lite++, I think we’ll see something new for the hottest handheld in the world. I think we’ll see Nintendo bust out a legalized version of the R4 or other such storage device. It’ll allow the DS to reap the same benefits the Wii has for downloading and storing games. The DS will get it’s own WiiWare-like titles as well as downloads of classic Game Boy and GBA games. It might even allow you to use a DS like an MP3 or video player.  This could help lend some truth to the original rumor without needing a whole new DS to accomplish it.

What do you think, will Nintendo try something like this?

[pic from gbatemp.net]

Over the past few weeks rumors have been circling of a “new” DS model to be shown at E3. It all began with a in-depth prediction by Hirokazu Hamamura of Enterbrain (Japanese Famitsu publisher) that Nintendo will be showing a revised model with “larger screens, “faster hardware”, and “onboard storage”. However, soon after the internet exploded over this “rumor”, Nintendo of Japan quickly shot it down with their normal default press answer

“We cannot comment on the specifics of what will be announced at E3, but at the very least there won’t be anything like what Mr. Hamamura suggested, so would like to clearly deny this. We’re having a hard time understanding what kind of evidence [Mr. Hamamura] had for saying this.”

This statement coming from a company who denied a rumor of the DS Lite, only to announce the model a week later. I’m still thinking along the lines of Mr. Hamamura. All the signs are present. Nintendo has virtually dropped first party game support for the platform, lack of true Wii-DS support, and it’s been 4 years since the DS was launched.

Nintendo will never drop support for “grandma’s” DS games (+65 million sales), so a dramatic revision that keeps the touch screen format is not out of the question at all.

Do you think we will see a “new” DS this E3?

[Bloomberg Japan]

Infendo tipster Will dropped an interesting little rumor on us this evening: F-Zero is making a triumphant return, and is making it on the Wii.

If you read German, then have a ball with this:

Ein offizieller Nachfolger zu F-Zero GX erscheint auf dem Nintendo Wii. F-Zero Z, so der Titel des Future-Racers wird voraussichtlich alle Strecken des Gamecube Vorgängers beinhalten und über einen Onlinemodus verfügen. Ein Waffensystem wurde auch bestätigt. Auf der diesjährigen E3 soll der Titel von Big N vorgestellt werden…

That’s good enough for me! Looks like F-Zero might be one of the many announcements being made at E3 in July, no?

Infendo reader Kevin informs us this morning that Project HAMMER, which was reportedly killed off by Nintendo last year to the chagrin of many, could be coming back from the dead.

Granted, all we have is a GameStop placeholder listing the game as back on with a January 2, 2009 release date for $49.99, but why on earth would it suddenly re-appear in the first place?

Mistake by GameStop or did the community backlash against Nintendo, such as it was, make them think twice about axing this decidedly un-Nintendo styled title? Or maybe Malstrom had a point in his latest article: Nintendo has set up the tier one pins over the past year and a half, and now they’re ready to start pushing some varsity games on the tens of millions they’ve hooked with the Wii. Hey, it worked perfectly for the DS, is all I’m saying.

[Thanks, Kevin!]

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With EA holding onto the NFL exclusivity rights like an old miser, gamers are increasingly looking to other venues to offer alternatives for their football fix. How about an updated Tecmo Bowl for DS and Wii?

EGM’s Quarterman said this week that a classic version of the classic NES game is going to arrive soon for the DS, while a modern remake is inbound for the Wii. Not much moreon that, be he promises more info in the next issue of EGM (naturally).

So how about it? Is Tecmo Bowl worthy of such treatment? Which do you prefer: remake or purist?

Guitar playing canines around the world went silent today as news from Nintendo President Satoru Iwata all but confirmed the company had no plans to pursue MMO games for the Wii.

However, Iwata also said Nintendo would pursue MMO development only if the title could appeal to people of all ages, from “5 to 95,” just like a Christmas song. I’ll chalk his comments up in the “maybe sorta but not really” column.

A “game” like Second Life might spring to mind at this point, but the Nintendo chief dismissed a similar venture on a Nintendo platform out of hand. Basically, Iwata believes that “MMOs aren’t accessible to people without a fair degree of computer literacy, and that Nintendo would want to successfully cross that bridge before considering going the MMO route (Joystiq).”

I’m inclined to agree, but then again that’s probably due to the fact that I consider MMO and their vile MMORPG cousins massive wastes of time, life and money. You guys out there may feel differently. Leave your thoughts on Nintendo’s anti-MMO stance in the comments.

We’ve touched upon the new and improved Wii-ified version of Mario Kart here at Infendo in the past, and today I’m going to start touching things again. All while doing wheelies and various Mountain Dew fueled extreme to the max X-Games tricks.

First, some things have changed in Mario Kart Wii. Now it’s 12-player online, which is four less than what we knew a few months ago. Still, 12 is more than enough for a free system, even if it does mean we’ll be entering a gabazillion numbers to play against 12 friends.

Second, there’s a nice little rumor going around today that this title drops in Japan sometime in the rainy month of April. But wait, there’s more: The game will also feature personalized Mii racers.  GET? (more…)

Real or fake? Regardless, if it is real, that extra bulk isn’t going to sit well with big box chains like Target or even with GameStop. They hate having to stock strangely sized SKU’s because it means less space for DVD cases, etc. Plus, if it turns out to be a popular game that means shortages — not good for Joe Consumer.

“A new Kid Icarus game.”

Without doubt or rival, it has become the long-sought Holy Grail of Nintendo gaming. Even the slightest possibility of its eventual existence - and, as the stubborn would argue, inevitable brilliance - has fueled the unswerving, seemingly hopeless desires of fans for almost 20 years.

It may have been an entire era ago, but fans never forget. And finally, it seems the relentless pleas of the dedicated faithful have amounted to more than just arbitrary post-E3 speculation from Shigeru Miyamoto.

Take it as you will, but Kombo dropped this bomb earlier today:

“Kombo has learned from a credible source that said Wii game is in fact a new installment in Nintendo’s cherished Kid Icarus franchise. According to sources, Factor 5’s Kid Icarus title is being developed ground-up for Wii. It will not use one of the developer’s previous GameCube graphics engines. Unfortunately, at this time, no other details have been provided to us for publish.”

It is worth noting that this potentially Earth-shattering information should be considered a rumor until confirmation is offered.

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Breaking news straight from Nikkei (An official Japanese business news source) confirmed through Nintendo that Wii Fit has hit the one million sales mark as of January 6th, 2008. Having only launched a little over a month ago, (Dec. 1st) this stands as quite an accomplishment. Who knew the Japanese were so into gaming fitness. This number is even more impressive when compared to Wii Sports (sold separate from Wii in Japan) which took a whole year to sell two million copies). These figures really show the evolving Japanese gaming market which has shifted farther away from “hard core” titles in favor of puzzlers, and fitness games.

This also gives hope to the upcoming Wii Fit launch for North America and Europe which should be a hit. Speaking of the NA launch, 1up.com has sneaked a bit of news into their Wii Fit article that only spells out an exciting summer.

“…Wii Fit is expected to be one of the year’s biggest sellers both in Japan and abroad. North Americans can expect to see the game on May 20th…”

Nintendo still has Wii Fit listed as TBA, but we’ll keep a close eye on this rumor. Meanwhile, lets sit back and behold another revolution in the way we game.

OK, so how about an evening rumor or two for those of you not watching the World Series right now (or those of you without a laptop on your couch, a la me)?

Animal Crossing might eventually be MMORPG some day, and Game Boy games could be coming to the DS in downloadable Virtual Console form. Remember these are just rumors, supplied in a single article by EDGE magazine, but that sounds pretty cool to me. Well, the Game Boy games do anyway, as I’m not really a fan of anything that involves MMORPG in its elevator pitch. I had a bad experience once. A friend actually got sucked into his PC because he forgot what the Sun looked like. Sad.

Game Boy games? Happy.

Nintendo may be preparing the release of a new Wii bundle and/or color if an anonymous Codename Revolution contact is to be believed. According to the report, the new bundle has a UPC code of 045496880088, and it’s owned by Nintendo of America.

Without citing details, this “new pack” is believed to be either a new game bundle, Wii Zapper bundle, or possibly a new color. This is, of course, all speculative — but what better time to release a Wii remix than on the console’s one-year birthday? A black Wii would be nice…

Here’s a wild one: BioShock could be headed to the DS or the Wii sometime in the near future. It’s not definite by any means, but it makes sense to at least one person:

One of Take-Two’s big hopes for the future is the continued growth of the BioShock ’series’, says analyst Mike Hickey of Janco Partners, who believes that fiscal 2009 could see the game land on the Wii, PS3 and possibly handhelds.

A Wii-ified BioShock version would lack the graphical punch of the Xbox360 version, obviously, but could incorporate what’s been shown in Metroid Prime 3 (and improve upon it). BioShock Wii, worth it?