Nintendo Report

Nintendo’s “Brain Age” has earned Edge Magazine’s EIEF06 “Innovation in Gaming” award. Quoth magazine editor Margaret Johnson:

We’re delighted that Brain Training won – it’s a great ambassador for gaming and proves that the instincts for making rewarding and entertaining software that Nintendo has honed for decades can be applied in entirely unexpected ways.

Other contenders for the award included “Amped 3″ for XBOX 360, “Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King” for PS2, “Electroplankton” for DS, “Fahrenheit” for PC, PS2, and XBOX, “Guitar Hero” for PS2, and “Killer 7″ for GameCube and PS2.

Shigeru Miyamoto has announced that Nintendo is considering remaking GameCube games for the Wii, should the dual console release of Twilight Princess prove to be a success, and modifying them to make use of the Wii’s unique controller. To quote Miyamoto:

We’ll be upgrading the development tools, but GameCube code can be used for the most part as is. In that sense, I believe that it would be good to remake GameCube games for Wii, and that some titles would become better with the change to the Wii remote controller.

Because porting games from the GameCube to the Wii is such a simple process, Miyamoto says that any rereleased titles will likely debut for less than standard full retail price.

In a recent issue of Nintendo Dream, Shigeru Miyamoto revealed that players of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on the Wii will be able to swing the Wii controller to slash with Link’s sword. The sword had previously been assigned to the B button, which will now be used for the firing of arrows. More information is available at IGN.

Namco Bandai has confirmed that Tamagotchi no Puchi Puchi Omisetchi Gohiikini will be released in the United States as Tamagotchi Connection: Corner Shop 2 for the Nintendo DS this Christmas. It has performed reasonably well in Japan, with 334,875 units sold in the 3 weeks since its release. You can see screenshots of the upcoming Tamagotchi Connection at GameSpy.

The video game magazine Tips & Tricks reports that Sega’s blue hedgehog could be yet another newcomer to the upcoming installment of the Super Smash Bros. series, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which will be released for the Wii.

Nintendo hopes that Snake’s appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl will encourage other publishers to allow their characters to join the Smash Bros. line-up, and is already actively negotiating for the rights to include at least one other non-Nintendo character. Both Sakurai and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto have stated that Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog is the character that Smash Bros. fans have requested the most and… well, it’s hard to type these words with our fingers crossed!

For pictures of the original article, see the post on the official Nintendo forums from user ZACMUN41653.

The Yankee Group predicts that despite competition and a higher price for its own console, PlayStation 3 will still lead sales in North America, even if only by a narrow margin. Yankee Group predicts that market share for Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony will be 16%, 40%, and 44%, respectively, by 2011. The study also predicts that fewer consoles will be sold overall due to higher prices; what might the outcome be if the Wii launches for $170, far less than either Microsoft or Sony’s consoles?

The commercial for the upcoming Nintendo DS game starring Tingle, the green map salesman from the Legend of Zelda series, has been posted on the Nintendo of Japan website. Mogitate Tingle no Barairo Rupee Land (Tingle’s Freshly-Picked Rose-Colored Rupee Land) is scheduled for release in Japan on September 2nd. See the commercial.

A new rumor indicates that the Wii may contain voice recognition technology that Nintendo has been developing for years. The technology would be capable not only of interpreting spoken words, but also the tone and volume of them, when recognizing speech. As text recognition software is always complex and flawed, it will be interesting to see if Nintendo can pull it off to further revolutionize the way we play video games.

Nikko Citigroup has predicted that the Wii will cost 19,800 yen at launch in Japan, which is the equivalent of $170 USD at current exchange rates. This is down from Nikko Citigroup’s original prediction of 25,000, which was based on the expectation of higher CPU costs. The official word from Nintendo is that the Wii will cost under $250 in the United States. For more information, see IGN’s report.