Mario Kart motorcycles and other quick newsbits from the Nintendo press conference

29 Comments by Ross Miller Oct 10th 2007 2:33AM
Filed under: Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, Action, Sports, Business

Nintendo's press conference came as somewhat of a surprise. Even for IGN, who did not know of it and instead translated the live blog of Japanese site Ge-maga. The big news of the event, of course, was Sonic's unveiling as a Smash Bros. Brawl character. Here's what else came out of the event:

Mario Kart coming Spring 2008, with motorcycles!
Super Mario Stadium Baseball was unceremoniously revealed in a collection of clips for previously-announced games.
Nintendo will soon "begin a service similar to the DS Station retail service. You'll be able to download demos from your home."
Virtual Console has reached 7.8 million downloads. Even if all those sales were NES titles (and we know they're not), that's at least US $39 million in almost pure profit.
"Nintendo will put more emphasis on the Wii Vote channel in the future. You'll be able to put rankings for games that you've played and search for games that fit your liking."

The rest of the news:

Tags: ds, mario-baseball, nintendo, super-mario-stadium-baseball, virtual-console

(Page 1) Reader Comments

Santo: Oct 10th 2007; 3:05AM

Today in "Out of Left Field"...

Adv2k1: Oct 10th 2007; 3:14AM

MEGATON exists. I knew to never stop believing.

I am glad they are making Everyone votes channel more cool lately its been kind of lame with some horrible questions.

MR: Oct 10th 2007; 3:23AM

All is well except the emphasis on - Wii Vote channel?
I removed it after a few days. Even the weather channel is more useful than that lousy voting crap. And I don't see any way that they can improve it to the point that I'll install it again.

mike: Oct 10th 2007; 3:47AM

Motorcylces? Boo. Why cant they just bring classic mario kart back? Double dash for my gamecube was so crap compared to the holy grail that was mario kart 64. Now we have to deal with motorcylces. I wonder if you race them together? Cause I never heard of go-karts even being in the same league as bikes.

baby sea tuna: Oct 10th 2007; 7:25AM

Are you kidding me? Double Dash was awesome!

Or, at least it was once you learned the subtleties of weight distribution and item management.

Lemmiwinks: Oct 10th 2007; 1:40PM

Mario Kart 64? Really?

heckthor: Oct 10th 2007; 4:03AM

WOW... THE WII Vote Channel future FEATURE sounds cool, it would be even "Cooler" if it all the others consoles would have something like that... U know where you can see what other players thought of certain game, cuz at least the people hating on the system would actually have to own one in order to do that... Cuz Everybody Hates Every Console Now-a-Days, there's nothing that consoles makers do that pleases people in some way AND just cuz u hate the system subsequently you would hate the games even if the games are really GOOD... Seeing what other players think in a HONEST SCORE would be something really FRESH and SOMEHOW NEEDED... Cool.
Please dont be hating on my post cuz im no FANBOY of any system... I got all 3 and i really think that they all have some GOOD and BAD THINGS... GAMES ARE FOR GAMERS, SYSTEMS ARE FOR FANBOYS... or Whatever!

Doug Kaplan: Oct 10th 2007; 9:02AM

*stands on soap box*

What's hilarious about heckthor's comments is that if you read it how he wrote it, you emphasize a lot of random words. Try it out, it's funny and questions the eduction system in this country.

*gets off high horse*

Ryan Hamilton: Oct 10th 2007; 4:03AM

Here we go again! Gamecube all over again. You get Mario Sunshine. Then tons of crappy games with Mario slapped on it for the rest of the systems life cycle. You get Mario Galaxy and tons of crappy games with Mario slapped on it. Wii has three real good games coming out, Galaxy, SSMB and Mario Kart. After that expect mediocre titles, mostly minigames.

Jonny: Oct 10th 2007; 4:12AM

Ryan Hamilton is just out of sorts because he accidentally drank the beer with the roofies in it. Better luck next time chump.

Foetoid: Oct 10th 2007; 4:28AM

Poor ryan. Have you not realised the minigame arguement is dead. Not including Wii Sports, there must be like 5 minigame compilations TOTAL in the Wii library. These are the games come out soon i want (more than the measly 3 u named):

SSBB
Mario Galaxy
Mario Kart
Metroid Prime 3 (not out in aus)
Battalion Wars 2 (Wifi FTW!)
Manhunt 2
Nights 2
Tenkaichi 3 (Wifi FTW!)
My Sims
Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution
Geometry Wars: Galaxies
Medal of Honor Heroes 2
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles

Plenty of good games coming out.

Rubang B (NDF - Heart): Oct 10th 2007; 5:10AM

What's SSMB? Super Smash Melee Brothers? Super Smash Melee Brawl?

Oh, and between now and the end of the year, Nintendo has more exclusive 3rd party titles lined up than Microsoft and Sony combined.

1600Points: Oct 11th 2007; 3:51AM

As good as "having the most 3rd party titles" sounds I would ask that you please LOOK at the titles involved.

Escape from Bug Island anyone?

Cal: Oct 10th 2007; 4:22AM

Um... isn't anyone excited about the Wii Demo Channel thing?

Pyramid Head: Oct 10th 2007; 4:28AM

You can say that again! NINTENDO FINALLY ENTERING THE MODERN AGE OVER HERE FOLKS

Questworld: Oct 10th 2007; 5:13AM

Motorcycles? Well, I suppose that despite it's a "Kart" game, I suppose every series could stand some expansion. Wario has a motorcycle anyway.

MysticX: Oct 10th 2007; 7:19AM

Best news of the day!!!

baby sea tuna: Oct 10th 2007; 7:23AM

This is all really great news, unfortunately I'm too far gone from the Wii at this point to care.

Evan: Oct 10th 2007; 8:23AM

What a difference between Nintendo's press conferences and Sony's press conferences.

Grey Acumen: Oct 10th 2007; 11:08AM

The fact that you can count on as much as half of what nintendo says to still be true next year. ZING!

Seriously though. I would actually like to be able ot do real feedback, and the DS downloads feature is going to be HUGE! I just wish they would put in an option to allow you to use your DS-Wii wireless connection to simulate the Gamecube-GBA wired connection when playing Gamecube games

Luigi193: Oct 10th 2007; 8:46AM

*sob*

FREAKING FIRE EMBLEM DS!!!! w00t!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

*asploads*

Karen: Oct 10th 2007; 8:49AM

I'm shocked that's everything I wanted:
Sonic in brawl
Demo channel
Info on Wii ware
Info on Mario Kart

Rhandos: Oct 10th 2007; 9:01AM

The Wii is dead to me anyway. After Super Mario Galaxy I'll sell it. If it wasn't for the Virtual Console, I would've done that months ago already.

verdigris: Oct 10th 2007; 10:27AM

Well aren't you just too cool for school. If you are going to sell the thing, then sell it already. Other people want one.

Foetoid: Oct 10th 2007; 5:17PM

So i guess none of these awesome games appeal to you?

SSBB
Mario Galaxy
Mario Kart
Metroid Prime 3
Battalion Wars 2 (Wifi FTW!)
Manhunt 2
Nights 2
Tenkaichi 3 (Wifi FTW!)
My Sims
Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution
Geometry Wars: Galaxies
Medal of Honor Heroes 2
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles

Sean: Oct 10th 2007; 12:01PM

Mario Kart & Kykle

vgxtremist: Oct 10th 2007; 12:31PM

I like where Nintendo is finally heading again...after a one-gen console hiatus, I might seriously consider the Wii with Galaxy, Brawl and others to sway me again totally to Nintendo's ranks (I still got a DS, so they've had me always in handhelds).

Ken Seang: Oct 10th 2007; 6:05PM

Where in the title does it says motorcycles in Mario kart Wii?

kip: Oct 11th 2007; 12:06PM

Nintendo will soon "begin a service similar to the DS Station retail service. You'll be able to download demos from your home."

About damn time. I expected this to be a launch feature, once I heard it would have wifi built in.

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