DigitalBattle.com

So let’s see, it’s year one of the Wii life cycle. What major franchisees can we expect to see. Zelda, Well already done. Metroid, check for August 20th. Super Smash Bros, well they say it’s on target and the website just relaunched, so that seems stable. Mario Galaxy? Well something has to give, but no, Iwata and Reggie insists, nay promises that the title will come out as well. So we’ve really got to ask ourselves, what comes next after all this?

Jeux-France has the answer to some of those burning questions. Granted it’s purely rumors, but you could probably claim them and be pretty on the money. Specifically they are making some bold claims (although rumor territory) about E3. Super Smash Bro’s and Mario Galaxy will both be receiving release dates (which makes sense if they are still on target for this year) and the next Mario Kart iteration will be released. That also makes a lot of sense, seeing as it’s really the only huge franchise that can compare to the big four we’ve already seen, and 2008 needs something huge until we get some sequels rolling. Finally the big hardware revelation will take place. Depends on your definition of big, I am going to be a pessimist for lack of getting hope up and say it’s just the microphone attachment. Optimistically a hard-drive attachment would make more sense. Anything is possible, but it’s highly unlikely that they’d cannibalize the Wii and make any serious changes (apart from new colours) when the thing is already sold out everywhere as it is.

My personal predictions call for Mario Kart, Pikman and maybe another huge 3rd party title containing Nintendo characters. (ie. Kingdom Hearts) The last one being I’d wet myself if true, but probably not going to happen. Finally, I’d much rather prefer a big firmware revalation than hardware. We really need to see them get in gear with the original download channel, DS integration or maybe just a few more channels to keep us busy. Or maybe they’ll think we’ll be so shocked that we actually get Mario, Metroid and SSMB that we won’t want anything more.

Read (Jeux-France)