Well, IGN Cube’s broadcast came and went and the boys revealed a scoop that caught us completely off guard—yet smiling all the same. Although Left Field aren’t making a new Excitebike yet (we hope they will sometime in the future) they will be taking care of development duties on a snowboarding title that IGN Cube believes to be the highly-anticipated sequel to 1080 Snowboarding, a game that was perhaps one of the earliest rumored NGC projects.

Fans of the original game may be disappointed that EAD aren’t handling the sequel, as was once believed though should take heart that Left Field are doing the development duties. Along with the excellent NBA Courtside games, Left Field have more than proved their ability in updating classics with Excitebike 64. While we don’t know what EAD are doing (other than Mario & Zelda) with 1080 & Waverace sequels off their hands, we can bet that they’re working on a variety of new franchises for NGC—a prospect quite exciting in itself.

While there are no specifics on the title, Left Field’s Snowboarding game will be on display and fully playable at this year’s E3 and is scheduled to be a launch title for the GameCube (though the NGC NBA Courtside game will not be a launch title). This should make for an interesting launch, especially if EA are preparing a Special Edition of SSX for release of NGC too. Talk about a snowboardin' showdown! Kudos to IGNCube for discovering the great news & making me lose my mind for several hours. (Actually, I think the Metroid stuff, or lack thereof is what’s really driving me batty!)