Nintendo Continues Casual Focus At Recent Media Summit

As Nintendo proclaims its successes in luring third parties to its Wii and DS, the company used its Media Summit to also showcase several forthcoming first party releases, including many from the casual games space. Among those games shown during the event were the forthcoming Wii titles Pokémon Battle Revolution and Mario Strikers: Charged, both of which have garnered significant attention as some of the first major Wii titles to take advantage of the console's Wi-Fi Connection for online multiplayer. Interestingly, while Nintendo recently confirmed a late summer debut for Metroid Prime 3: Corruption for the Wii, a report from consumer site Wired notes that this game was not shown, at least to the majority of the attending press, curious given the building anticipation surrounding the game's August release. Other upcoming releases, such as The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Chibi-Robo Park Patrol, both for the Nintendo DS, were also notably absent. What was shown at the event included many games headlining Nintendo's growing presence in the casual space, including Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree, the popular brain training series' initial leap onto the Wii platform, and Brain Age 2: More Training In Minutes A Day for the Nintendo DS. Mario Party 8, shipping next week in North America for the Wii, was on hand as well. Intelligent Systems' Planet Puzzle League, a slight reworking of its SNES puzzle classic Tetris Attack, was also shown during the summit, as was Picross DS, the latest version of Nintendo's classic logic puzzle series, which will be making its second stateside appearance since the Game Boy original Mario's Picross some 12 years ago. These releases shared space at the venue with other third party casual titles, such as the previously announced Wii exclusive Carnival Games, as well as Ubisoft's Jam Sessions for the DS and EA's Wii rhythm game Boogie.