Nintendo announces three new titles

Further to earlier reports on Nintendo's news conference in Japan, it appears that president Satoru Iwata has also confirmed three previously unannounced titles: a GameCube version of the critically acclaimed Wario Ware, Inc., a Namco-developed Donkey Kong game and a new Zelda adventure to be released before the end of 2004.

Namco is already working on a version of Star Fox for Nintendo, and now they have another former Rare property to contend with. Nintendo's newfound love of farming out development of major franchises is proving very successful thus far, with various the Game Boy Zelda titles undertaken by Capcom massively popular and Metroid Prime unquestionably one of the best Cube titles to date.

Sega's Amusement Vision studio has also just finished work on F-Zero GX, a Cube and arcade update of the classic futuristic racer.

Reports also state that the reward scheme Iwata-san revealed would be akin to air miles for Nintendo fans, would be called "Club Nintendo" and would launch in the US and Japan by the end of this year. "We aim to have 300,000-500,000 users sign up for the program in the first year," he said. However it seems that the Stars scheme here in Europe is all US and Japanese gamers can expect, with iron-on T-shirt transfers and electronic toys like desktop wallpaper amongst the loyalty bonuses on offer.

The biggest news at the conference though was the previously reported announcement that Nintendo will announce a "new game product" in spring 2005.