Customizable vehicles and maps, WiFi, microphone and touch screen all promised.
RareWare's official website (http://www.rareware.com) is reporting that DKR is being developed internally, and will have a host of new features.
E3 '06 is also the debut stage for our latest collaboration with Nintendo: we've possibly hinted at it in the past, but then again we've also hinted at a lot of other things, because we're like that. Yes, Diddy Kong Racing is our first official DS project, and Nintendo are busily promoting it as part of their next wave of big DS offerings for late 2006. Based on the N64 classic but improved and expanded in ways that only the DS allows, you can see the first shot and movie snippet over on NCL's website if you haven't already.
A few tantalising DKR DS info-bites to keep you going: eight-player single-card and multi-card WiFi play, touch-screen and microphone compatibility, some familiar faces in newly playable form, remodelled and retextured tracks, customisable vehicles, new modes, weapons and challenges, a little something called TT's Wish Races where you can create your very own tracks... and it doesn't end there.
Although the statement "multi-card WiFi" appears to be a typo, online gameplay over Nintendo's WiFi connection seems extremely likely. The news of Rare developing the title comes in straight contradiction to previous assumptions that it was a straight port with no added features. The game could conceivably feature Conker and Banjo still, though that decision is probably up to Microsoft.