Nintendo actually wants you to see their products
Nintendo is a secretive company, so secretive, in fact, that they tend not to tell the press or even their customers anything about their products until immediately before launch. That means they avoid piling up hype that eventually leads to disappointment, and it also means no one knows anything about their products, or has any interest in buying them. Luckily, the company has had a little lapse in their secretiveness, and held a press summit this morning. They showed off a great deal of highly anticipated games, and even gave out release dates for those games.
Big news announced at the conference:
DSi XL will launch March 28 for $189.99 in US
Super Mario Galaxy 2 launches May 23
Metroid: Other M launches June 27
Nintendo will publish Dragon Quest IX in the US, the game will be released summer 2010
Monster Hunter Tri will come out April 20 with free online and Wii Speak support
Sin and Punishment: Star Successor launches June 7
That’s a seriously powerful list of upcoming games and other products, also note that the release dates all fall within the first half of the year! That means Nintendo is (or better be) planning plenty more for the rest of the year. E3 should be interesting to watch. It’s almost a certainty that that’s where we’ll finally see the new Zelda
Other news to come out of the event includes this note from IGN’s Matt Casamassina: “Nintendo of America staff just tracked me down and told me not to worry — that orchestrated music is being implemented into the final version of Galaxy 2. Very good news indeed!” [source]. And, Nintendo has bragged that Metroid: Other M will be quite a unique experience: “While much of the game is reminiscent of 2-D side-scrollers, players can switch the perspective into 3-D at any time… players use the Wii Remote controller held sideways to battle enemies and navigate the expansive, gorgeous environments in classic Metroid fashion, then aim at the screen with the Wii Remote pointer to blast foes in first-person.”
All together, I would consider this a very successful conference! The hype I had built up over the last couple weeks was only slightly overboard. Nintendo finally showed off some games and gave out some release dates. Mario Galaxy 2, in particular, looks absolutely amazing.
Hit the jump for a list of links to media on all the new stuff coming out from Nintendo!
Compiled multimedia:
Super Mario Galaxy 2 screenshots
[...] we brought you some seriously arousing Nintendo news, including plenty of Mario Galaxy 2 media, but a little more footage has surfaced, and I [...]