
The folks at Nintendo have been rather busy recently so I thought it would be nice to accumulate all this information into one place so you lovely people don’t have to go anywhere else. To start off we were told recently about a new Pokémon project in the works and we were given Pokken, a cross between Pokémon and Tekken (naturally), however this seems to only be available in Japanese arcades next year. I must admit I felt foolish for getting my hopes up for a home console Pokémon game, oh well I can still dream.

The first pack contains Tanooki Mario, Cat Peach as well as Link from the Legend of Zelda series (not sure if clarification was needed), four of courses will be based around worlds from the Legend of Zelda series while the other will include classics such Wario’s Gold Mine from the Wii version of Mario Kart, the Blue Falcon kart from the F-Zero series will also be included… Why Captain Falcon isn’t a playable character is beyond me. The second pack allows players to choose from the Villager, Isabelle and Dry Bowser, again with four vehicles and eight courses. I’m assuming that four of the courses will be based around the Animal Crossing world; let’s hope the Villager won’t have to scrape a flattened Tom Nook off the roads after a day of karting. The first pack is set for release in November 2014 with the second pack being a May 2015 release, however you can pre-purchase them now (which I’ve already done) either separately for £7.00 or together for £11.00, which is worth the money considering you get 50% extra courses, more characters and vehicles. Even if you pre-purchase, don’t fear because you’ll be given content to use straight away. Eight different coloured Yoshis and Shy Guys are immediately available, so now there’s no need to fight over who gets to be Yoshi. I will say though, the fact that the characters remain on the roster even after purchase is rather annoying. It’s like being teased and I can’t quite express how much I want to play as Link drifting round corners and driving up walls.
There’s also been some word of the upcoming Zelda U title from Eiji Aonuma with focus on the concept of the “open-world” that is being created. Aonuma told Zelda Informer that, "Since we’re talking about open worlds, let’s state upfront that we don’t plan to have an open world in the same way other companies have been doing in recent years.”

Like my food I’ve saved the most interesting section for last. Nintendo have announced a new 3DS for release in Japan on the 11th October 2014 with them likely to be released overseas next year. Now while for all intents and purposes Nintendo’s newly announced 3DS is still a 3DS, it kind of isn’t.

In conjunction with the release of the new 3DS Xenoblade Chronicles (a game I’ve been unable to get my hands on for a while, and the main character of which also features in the new Smash Bros game) is being ported and will only work on the new systems. Quite frankly this is a dick move. What I think Nintendo have announced is essentially a new handheld console which is fine in its own right but because that these are still classified as a 3DS it makes no sense. If I can’t play this game on my 3DS system then my system is out of date, ergo I must buy the new system to do so (which I probably will) making my other 3DS redundant. While it’s a rumour I can see it being one that’s true, given that the CPU has been improved, the addition of double the RAM from 128mb to 256mb with 4mb of VRAM being added it could be possible the new 3DS is a complete overhaul. This just irritates me even more if I’m being honest as this gives justification to Nintendo needing to address the fact that this is a new console.
Nintendo or Nintendon't?

Does the idea of Miyamoto guiding young developers to create new franchises excite you?
What are your thoughts on the new 3DS system?