Pokémon DS dates, details

Nintendo DS duo Pokémon Diamond and Pearl will be released simultaneously in Japan next year, according to reports, while a third game named Pokémon Ranger is also expected to appear.

Reports of a fourth game, "Pokémon Until They Give Us More Money", are thought to be rubbish jokes made by lame hacks at about 7:45 in the morning.

Nintendo has yet to respond to our request for comment (and probably won't now we've done that "Poke Them On" gag for the 400th time), but the news of Diamond and Pearl's release plans were broken by Comic Korokoro in Japan, GameSpot reports.

Pokémon Ranger, it adds, should have some sort of connection to a new Pokémon movie and TV anime series - although obviously there's no word on whether we'll see any of that over here.

The same report also shed some light on details of Diamond and Pearl, which is the product of developers at Pokémon Company and series veterans Game Freaks.

Apparently the games head off into a new land, but will feature familiar Pokémon. New Pokémon are currently being considered, but not new types, and Pokémon from the movies will also make an appearance.

We're also told to expect some degree of connectivity for GBA and GameCube titles, allowing for previous Pokémon to be ported over - presumably by whacking Game Boy carts in at the same time as the DS card.

Finally, Diamond and Pearl will take advantage of the touch screen during play, and will support up to 16-player Wi-Fi in some sense or other.