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.