Like I told Flames over AIM that big game is going to be the rumored Wii Fit Plus.

Think about it, this will be Nintendo's big game at E3. It will be announced that it will see a fall 2009 release. People already ate up the first title so it makes sense to make "shelf space" for it.

Mario could also generate hype, but I doubt its going to be that.

I feel like the days of Nintendo's big Christmas console games being Mario/Zelda are over.  It's going to be stuff like Wii Music, Animal Crossing, and Wii Fit from here on out.  I think they'll be tossing out their "core" titles during the year, like they did with Brawl and Mario Kart Wii.

I think this year will be a little different. Even if we don't see a big core release in the fall we will see far more core releases from both Nintendo and third parties, and there will be a better balance between core and casual.

I'm just being realistic because if the Wii Fit Plus rumors are true that's a title Nintendo will hype.

Dumb question... and I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but...

Why is everyone assuming that "clear some shelf space" means *one* game?

We know the Mario and Zelda teams are worrking on stuff. We know about Pikmin 3. We've got the Wii FIt Plus rumors. We know about the new DS Zelda.  We're being teased about E3 this year.

I'm just being careful because fans, Nintendo and the media hyped E3 2008 as a big event in which a lot of Fall titles would finally be unveiled, and we all know what happened and the backlash that ensued.

You are right, though. Like I said, I do believe this year will be better. But I am not setting my expectations too high.

Yeah, i didn't mean that against *you* - ever since this story hit the weblogosphere, everyone has their assumptions of what the "one" game  could be.

While I don't expect Nintendo to abondon the new-market customers, the fact is, they already have them. How ironic that they now could be considering how to expand into the "hard core" market.

But I digress - I wouldn't be too surprised if Nintendo took this Christmas season to take those big vaults of money and the two+ year's time they've got and drop the Megaton on us this Christmas.

Yes, how ironic that they would continue to follow the disruption strategy to the next logical step.

Just as planned.

I hope Wii Fit Plus (whenever it comes out) doesn't involve a re-jiggered Balance Board, just Motion Plus.  But I do hope they add support for multiple boards so you can finally have multiplayer.  It would likely require a firmware update, but that should be no problem.

Regarding a price cut, I expect one in 2010 after the Wii Sports Resort calamity has passed.

Here's what I suspect...

E3 takes place in June. Motion Plus will be released a month after. I think Nintendo might hype up Motion Plus as well as core titles from both Nintendo and third parties that use the peripheral. I think these big titles will use Motion Plus in one way or another, so we could see both core and casual titles with heavy emphasis on Motion Plus and that's why Nintendo expects stores to clear shelf space.

We'll see...

I'm expecting E3 to be HUGE for Nintendo this year. They took last year off because they weree still working on the BIG guns.
Expect to see WSR w/ M+, Punch Out, EA Sports/Active & Pikmin 3 get hyped for the Summer releases, MH3, FFCC, RE:DC & Silent Hill for the fall releases,  then Zelda Wii & WiiFit+ get hyped for Holiday releases.
I also expect Nintendo to finally drop some NEW COLORS for the Wii, which would mean "clear off some shelf space" cause Wii is taking over all your available space.. hardware & software.

Casuals already have a game this year. It's "Wii Sports Resort" why in the world would Nintendo cannibalize its own sales by releasing another big game. That will sell millions of copies this year.

The big game gamestop mentioned will be hardcore game. Super Mario Galaxy 2 or Zelda for Wii something that hardcore will enjoy. We already got Punch-Out and getting Sin and Punishment 2 so a third big Nintendo game is going to pop up.

I seriously doubt Nintendo will reduce the cost of Wii. More than likely new colors and a demo disk will be packaged, maybe points card, than a price cut.

Why do you assume that? It was only this year where they did that, the previous year we had Mario Galaxy.

You mean last year.

I think it is still a little too early for there to be a new Mario platformer on Wii. Super Mario Galaxy was released only a year and a half ago and is still selling fine, so that's not enough time. Zelda is definitely possible, as not only was the last one on Wii released 2.5 years ago, the game was actually completed about a year before that.

At this point though, there are too many possibilities as to what Nintendo could release so I don't even want to speculate. I don't want to risk getting my mind set on something which isn't going to happen.

This is a safe train of thought. Nintendo just loves doing their thing. You expect them to jump when they barrel roll. You say blue, they say purple.

You ask for DVD, they give you Purple Lunchbox.

You ask for HD, they give you FRIEND CODES?

I say that because I think that the Nintendo that launched the Wii with Twilight Princess and developed Super Mario Galaxy is very different from the one that exists right now.  That Nintendo wasn't 100% sure that their strategy was going to work (they did by the time SMG was released, but SMG had already been in development for years).  The rules have changed.  Nintendo now knows that the core market will be there all year, and that they'll buy core titles all-year round.  They aren't entirely "Christmas-driven", so to speak.  The non-gamer market, on the other hand, is almost entirely Christmas-driven.  I'll grant that we might get one "core" franchise game (and thank goodness it won't be Animal Crossing) along with an uber-casual game, though.

I'd be happy with Fatal Frame 4.

I'm hoping it's a console Zelda built for Wii from the ground-up.

What's wrong with Animal Crossing: City Folk? I consider myself a hardcore gamer and I love the game. I've had it for about 4 1/2 months and still play it every day.

It's not Fatal Frame IV. Nintendo has the publishing rights to it but the game is a Tecmo property, but it's just that GameStop executive thinking it will be a Nintendo property and not Nintendo saying that.

As much as everyone wants this, I think that Nintendo's Zelda offering this time around is just Spirit tracks for DS. A new Zelda with a reworked gameplay structure and WiiMotion Plus would be nice

There's nothing wrong with it.  But it's sure as heck not the game I'm looking for these days when Nintendo says "hey, I have a core game for you Jon".  It's a good game but I'd never buy it, mainly because it's not changing up the Animal Crossing experience nearly enough to interest me enough to do so.