Nintendo Power’s 2009 award winners have been revealed and Spirit Tracks was able to take home two prizes. Spirit Tracks won the award for DS Game of the Year and also won the award for Best Adventure Game. Additionally, Nintendo Power put together their Best of the Decade list.

1. Super Mario Galaxy
2. Resident Evil 4 (GCN)
3. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)
4. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
5. Super Smash Bros Brawl
6. Metroid Prime
7. Elite Beat Agents
8. Metroid: Zero Mission
9. Mario Kart Wii
10. The World Ends With You

In terms of primarily single player Zelda titles, we’ve gotten 8 Zelda titles this decade. While I don’t think that the top two were Twilight Princess and the Wind Waker, it was nice to see two Zelda titles make the list.

Check out GoNintendo for some more awards. (more…)

The October 2nd convention in Tokyo took place today and after rumors of a new Nintendo DS being releases, today these rumors came to be reality. The new Nintendo DS is known as the Nintendo DSi. The new model will be slightly smaller in size than the Nintendo DS Lite and it will have slightly larger screens. The new model has a ton of new features including an SD Card slot for digital downloads, a built in MP3 player, and a .3 megapixel camera, which can take pictures at resolutions of 640×480.

The new DS will not have Gameboy Advanced support as the SD Card slot has replace where the Gameboy Advanced slot had been. The system is scheduled to release on November 1st in Japan at a price of 18,900 yen (approximately $180). No release date for any other regions has been mentioned at this time. Click the link below for more information and even a new video displaying some of the new titles and features that are going to be made available for the DSi.

IGN: New DS Model Announced

10:14 – And that is it… Nothing from Zelda. What a shocker and a disappointment.

10:09 – Wii Music really doesn’t look good. However, now 6 of them are on stage at once and attempting to play the classic Super Mario Bros song. It looks alright. I really hope that Miyamoto hasn’t been spending ALL his time on this one game.

10:02 – Finally, Shigeru Miyamoto takes the stage along with some crazy guy playing the drums with the Wiimote. Apparently this is what the newest gimick of Nintendo is, Wii Music. Shiggy seems very excited about it, but to me, it looks rather gimicky. I’m sure a lot of people will enjoy it though.

9:56 – Reggie is back on stage and talks about Wii MotionPlus. Wii Sports Resort is announced and is displayed. Wii MotionPlus will be packaged with Wii Sports Resort. The games that come with Wii Sports Resort looks kind of gimicky. I’d much prefer a full blown Wii Tennis or Wii Golf. The Wii MotionPlus actually seems to be working extremely well. The sword game actually looks decent.

9:47 – More talk about how female gamers are leading the way in higher gaming sales. Guitar Hero On Tour Decades is revealed for the Nintendo DS. Able to connect and exchange songs with the first Guitar Hero On Tour. Spore Creatures is shown for the Nintendo DS. The game looks alright, I’d have to take a closer look before giving a more formal opinion on the title. Pokemon Ranger is also given a release date.

A huge announcement. Grand Theft Auto: China Wars is announced for the Nintendo DS. Wow. Seems really intriguing.

9:42 – Three new games are shown. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is the first being shown. Doesn’t look like anything too exciting. Two guys are shown swinging the Wii-motes.

Rayman Raving Rabbids is next on the list. It takes advantage of the wii balance board. Looks okay, but kinda gimicky, like the previous titles.

Call of Duty: World at War is next on the list. While I can’t see off first glimpse, I’m certain there is a noticeable graphic downgrade from the PS3 and 360 counterparts. They gamers playing are shown using Wii Zappers.

9:38 – Reggie Fils-Aime takes the stage and talks about the Nintendo DS. He continues to boast about the sales of the Nintendo DS and the Wii. Fils-Aime is doing job of being honest about making comparisons between casual and hardcore gamers.

9:32 – Animal Crossing Wii continues and it reveals Wii Speak. This allows users to speak to each other over the internet via Wi-Fi. It is not a headset, but a community speaker that is placed near the sensor bar.

9:27 – Iwata continues about his vision of how to continue the bridge the gap between gamers and non-gamers. Kastuya Eguchi, the creator of Animal Crossing, is shown in an interview. He reveals Animal Crossing for Wii, to be released in 2008. The game looks alright. I personally am not much of a fan of the Animal Cross series.

9:23 – Satoru Iwata takes the stage and talks about Nintendo in the past few years. Talks about how our common sense views have changed. Iwata boasts about Wii Sports and Wii Play.

9:13 – Shaun White snowboarding (exclusive for Wii). Looks gimicky and fun at the same time. The game utilizes the Wii balance board. Shaun actually seems happy to be here.

9:10 – We are underway. A gimicky video is shown watching a bunch of women and old people alike playing the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS. Hopefully this is not an indication of what’s to come.

8:59 – The stream is now up and running. It has the Nintendo logo, indicating we are about ready to go.

8:40 – About 20 until the start of the conference. The excitement builds…

I will be updating the index page of the site as the Nintendo press conference occurs. I’ll be briefly mentioning some of the non-Zelda news that has been announced as it occurs. I don’t expect any Zelda information to be released until near the end of the Nintendo conference though, since they usually save their big name titles until the end. The time lists above are all in PST. The conference is scheduled to begin at 9am, so that is 12pm for those of you who live in the eastern timezone of the US. It’s coming soon as it is stated to start in about 20 minutes. If you are interested in watching the conference, check out the live stream of the press conference courtesy of IGN.

Nintendo E3 Press Conference

The Nintendo Wii has now officially surpassed the Microsoft 360 in terms of console sales. Even with the one year head start that Microsoft had, they still were not able to hold the console market for even a full year. Perhaps the lack of fan support in Japan is catching up to Microsoft? Nonetheless, this information shouldn’t be taken too seriously, as once next months much anticipated Halo 3 is released for the 360, a flip should surely take place with the 360 most likely to surpass the Wii. Although by years end with Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Galaxy, I can see Nintendo once again claiming the top spot.

One thing is clear from all of this… and that is that Sony is the big loser of the three.

Source: Kotaku

In a recent interview Aonuma pretty much confirmed that Sheik and Ganondof will make an appearance in the upcoming Smash title. Like Link and Zelda, Ganondorf has been re-worked to match his look from Twilight Princess. Sheik on the other hand is quite a surprise since well, she hasn’t been in a game in nearly a decade. It looks like Sheik will be a stand alone character as well and not just be a transformation of Princess Zelda. Nonetheless, it’s nice to see the roster consistently expanding.

Confirmed new characters include Pit from Kid Icarus, Wario, a version of Samus without her suit, and Ike from Fire Emblem. Snake from Metal Gear has also been confirmed but has yet to appear on the official Smash Bros. website. Time will bring us some more new faces to game. Personally, I’m hoping they bring over Sonic and maybe a few more Sega characters. The more the marrier.