10 October 2007
Ferry

New Wii games announced: Super Mario Stadium Baseball, Monster Hunter 3, TimeSplitters 4. WiiWare gets: Doctor Mario Wii, Pokemon Farm, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Young King and the Promised Land, Joysound (Karaoke), Bomberman and more

Nintendo held a secret press conference in Japan to reveal lots of new Wii and WiiWare games, as well as a DS Demo download channel on Wii, and one DS title.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that the company is now “entering the third phase of its strategy, aimed at expanding the game player population. With the release of the Nintendo DS portable game console and Wii stand-alone game machine, we managed to lure those who have never played games or those who have stopped playing games to play them.”

He continued: “I understand that some experts argue that our success is short-lived and temporary. So, we now need to make efforts to constantly expand the player base by offering services and titles that can appeal not only to those who have never played games but also to those who play them hard.” And that my friends, is you hardcore gamers.

New Wii games announced:

* Monster Hunter 3 was previously announced for PS3, but is now on Wii. Nintendo made an exclusive deal with Capcom. It’s a Hack ‘n Slash game with role-playing elements. The aim of Monster Hunter is to achieve the highest Hunter Rank by completing missions.

* Super Mario Stadium Baseball is the sequel to the Nintendo GameCube’s Mario Superstar Baseball and will be the second Mario sport title on the Wii. I probably don’t need to mention that it’s main feature will be the Wii Remote.

* TimeSplitters 4 will be on the Wii announced Free Fadical Design. The FPS game parodies of other games will be a large part of the game. The current logo is homage to God of War and Free Radical have shown concept art of a monkey in Master Chief’s (from Halo) armor.

New WiiWare games announced (coming in March 2008):

* Pokemon Farm allows you to grad Pokemon from the DS games Pokemon Diamond and Pearl and raise them in a farm-like environment on the Wii.

* Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Young King and the Promised Land from Square Enix was the biggest WiiWare game. It will be available for 1500 Wii Points and is a fully 3D game and lets you build your own country.


* Other titles only confirmed by title are: Doctor Mario Wii (4-player with Miis) and Maruboushikaku by Nintendo, Joysound (Karaoke) and Bomberman and Star Soldier R Wii by Hudson Soft, Puzzloop for Everyone (multiplayer Zuma) by Mitchell, Plattchen Twist ‘n’ Paint by Bplus, Gravitronix by Medaverse Studios, and Eternity’s Child by Luc Bernard.

* A game that might not find its way outside of Japan is Mojipittan Wii by Bandai-Namco. It’s a Japanese word puzzle video game designed by Hiroyuki Goto and produced by Namco. It is similar in play to the word game of Scrabble. In turn-based form, you use tiles with hiragana to build words, and then build on the other players words with words of your own. It is a highly successful game that used to be an arcade game but since then has been made available for the Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2), the Nintendo Game Boy Advance (GBA), the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP), and the Nintendo DS. On December 14, 2004, Namco shipped 150,000 copies of Kotoba no Puzzle Mojipittan Daijiten as a first day release for the PSP.

New Wii Channels announced:
* DS Demo Channel is a brand new channel, which turns your Wii into a DS download station.
* Check Mii Out Channel will be available for Mii-comparing in Japan this November. The Everybody Votes Channel will soon be updated and will allow Wii owners to rate their games.

Random Wii announcements:

* Mario Kart Wii will include motorcycles and not just karts. The Wii Steering Wheel will be thrown in for free.
* Wii Music and Wii Fit are on the way, with the latter costing 8,800 Yen (about $75) including the Wii Balance Board (picture shown at the top of this page).
* And of course Sonic the Hedgehog is in Super Smash Bros Brawl.
* The Wii has also received system update version 3.1 today, which enables USB keyboard support for the Wii.
* Nintendo has said they “will put more emphasis on the Wii Vote channel in the future. You’ll be able to put rankings for games that you’ve played and search for games that fit your liking.”
* The Virtual Console has reached 7.8 million downloads.
* Hudson has commented on how they’ll get their CD-based games (via Virtual Console downloads to Wii) from the TurboGrafx-CD to fit on Wii’s built-in memory. To quote: “Yes, we are using some compression technology since CDs can hold several hundred megs of memory, far bigger than the traditional Hucards could hold. For instance, the sound has been compressed, however gamers should not really notice any audible difference.”

New DS game announced:

* Fire Emblem DS was announced by Nintendo, another installment in Nintendo’s turn-based RPG/Strategy games. Not much information was released on the title, but it is a remake of Fire Emblem 1.

* There was also a rumor Kirby Super Star DS remake will show up in the future.

From Gemaga, translation from Neurope, pictures via Neogaf.

4 February 2008 18:39
Chimcharlover13

I don’t have a wii so I won’t be able to get Pokemon Farm! How about we try and raise some money for me so that I can get one?

8 June 2008 02:05
Oceanfloor

Monster hunter 3 better not be a 16+ because im not allowed them lol! I just think it looks graphically amazing and it’s online too!

17 July 2008 14:10
Mikumi

what happend to pokemon crystal? I loved that game when i was a teeneger but now when i try to play it the graphics and slowness just bugs me. I s there any ideas for an updated version? kind of like leafgreen and firered idea only for jhoto. I really dont want one of my favorite games to die out!

17 July 2008 15:07
turtwig#1

The pokemon farm thing sounds cool how much wii points is it?

17 July 2008 15:42
supadupagama

It’s now called My Pokemon Ranch and is being sold via WiiWare for 1,000 Wii Points.

3 July 2009 10:42
Ann Bryant

Where can I get Pokemon Ranch? My son seen it online and I have checked every place I can think of including Ebay and can not find it anywhere.

3 July 2009 10:44
Ann Bryant

Looking for the pokemon ranch. I have checked all sites I can think of including Ebay and can’t find it. Anyone able to tell me why or if there is a specific site to go to.

Thankyou

3 July 2009 10:55
Ferry

Ann: Do you know how to take the Wii online? If you’ve got wireless internet or a Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, then you can go online on the Wii by selecting the Wii Shop channel. From there under WiiWare you will be able to find Pokemon Ranch to download onto your son’s Wii for direct play (no disc needed).