New Wii Fit, Mario rumors surface

Even before E3 kicks off next week, more speculation and rumors are circulating about what Nintendo has planned for us later this year and beyond. Two rumors making the rounds - thanks to a report on Nikkei - are that Nintendo is working on two new games: a new Mario title and a sequel to Wii Fit. The Japanese paper reports that Nintendo plans to release the new Mario game in Japan in the second half of 2009, as part of its attempt to bolster sales of its Wii console in Japan. Details on the Mario game were not available.

Another rumor is that a brand new Wii Fit game is on the way for Japan, expanding on the popular fitness game - no details on this game either beyond the fact that it will add online features, the ability to compete against other players as you try to lose weight and get fit, and enhanced motion sensitivity.
While these rumors seem tangible, we’ll wait and see if Nintendo’s E3 press conference proves them to be true..

Kanye West: Game Designer?

Just when I finally thought the “Anything you can do, I can do better” rivalry between hip-hop artists 50 Cent and Kanye West had finally faded away, it moves to a new battleground … video games. We all know that Fiddy has already broken into the industry with 2005’s 50 Cent: Bulletproof on the PS2 and Xbox. Plus, in a move that left many gamers asking simply “Why?”, 50 Cent is returning to the current generation of consoles with the upcoming release of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. While Fiddy is making his mark starring in video games, Kanye West claims that he’s done one better by designing and programming his own video game … all at the tender age of 12.

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Sonic and Mario’s Frosty Face-Off

We all knew that Sonic and Mario would square off again because the first collaboration between Nintendo and Sega did so well at retail - in fact it was one of the company’s top grossing games in 2008, selling 10 million copies worldwide. So news that Sonic and Mario will attend the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Canada is no big shock. Sega says that the new game will be ready in late 2009 for the Wii and DS.

The game, which will be developed by Sega of Japan under the whip of taskmaster Shigeru Miyamoto, will pit Sonic, Mario and all their friends in various Winter Olympic sports including Alpine Skiing and Speed Skating using each system’s specific controls. Sega says that each platform will also have exclusive modes and gameplay features, which will be announced at a later date, no doubt.

More details when we have them.

Nintendo Plans Pre-TGS Press Conference

While every other Japanese company attends the Tokyo Game Show next month, Nintendo will forgo (as usual) the annual event to hold its own press conference to make a few choice announcements, according to a news story in Nihon Securities Journal. While details on just what Nintendo will announce are not disclosed, Nintendo has confirmed that it does plan such an event and that announcements will be made. Yeah, we kind of picked that vibe up..

Will the company rehash what it plans to release later this year or make some new announcements about franchises that were conspicuously absent during E3 in July? Let the wild speculation begin, but I suspect it will be rolling out some announcements about sequels to a number of its core franchises.

Source: Nihon Securities Journal by way of a translation from Kotaku.

Mario Super Sluggers Runs To Home

Mario Super Sluggers is in stores today, giving gamers something besides Wii Fit and Mario Kart to play. Offering baseball fun using 40+ characters from the Mario universe, Mario Super Sluggers puts arcade action gameplay and special power-ups familiar to Mario fans front and center. Playing the game is much like Wii Play’s version of baseball using Wii Remote: swing the Wii Remote like a bat or make a pitching motion to throw a pitch. Finally, the game allows you to import your Mii’s to customize things a little.

The single-player game sends you on a tour of Baseball Kingdom, where you’ll encounter characters with different baseball skills that you must defeat in order to get them to join your team. These characters serve as team captains, who have special abilities on the field (like Mario being able to pitch a fireball, as an example). Just like real world baseball - and life in general - , some players play better together than others: different character combinations result in good chemistry for a team. In the world of Mario Super Sluggers, this could result in amazing catches in the outfield or the ability to interfere with fielders.