There’s always a sense of excitement when one of the big three console manufacturers release a list of what’s due out on their consoles from now until the next six months or so. Part of this excitement comes from the fact that often there are games mentioned that haven’t been officially announced, or haven’t been previously reported as being released outside of Japan or whatnot.
This time round it’s Nintendo, with a list of what’s being released in US this year.
For Wii and DS owners it isn’t very good news. Nintendo’s own titles aside, the majority of games for both platforms are either licensed or child friendly. In fact, every DS and Wii game from Activision, Disney, Sega, Konami, D3, THQ, Ubisoft, Take-2 and Warner Bros has a license attached.
Incidentally, WB lists LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 for release on DS and 3DS but not on Wii. A mistake, surely?
EA’s Wii line-up makes for even more depressing reading – four titles based on board games and this year’s Madden and Need for Speed updates. Looks like they aren’t even going to bother releasing FIFA 12 in the US.
There are of course a few exceptions: Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 on DS should be worth an import. Two new WiiWare games are on the list too: La-Mulana and MotoHeroz. On DSiWare meanwhile there’s the excellent sounding Pro Jumper! Chimaki’s Hot Spring Tour Guilty Gear Tangent.
More exciting is the list of titles for the 3DS’s eShop – five GameGear games from Sega, Let’s Golf 3D from Gameloft, something called Picture Lives! and confirmation that The Rolling Western – shown at E3 – is an eShop title. That’ll explain why it looks so barren in the screenshots.
After a few months of silence, Nintendo are unleashing three big titles on 3DS – Kid Icarus: Unrising, Mario Kart and Super Mario are all due in time for Christmas while Starfox 64 3D is out in September. Paper Mario and Animal Crossing still have ‘TBA’ next to them. It’s not long until Kirby Mass Attack on DS though – that’s due in September as well.
Anything else? Ubisoft are stinking up the 3DS with no less than four virtual pet games – Petz Fantasy 3D, Cute Puppies, Horses 3D and Imagine Babyz. Shudder. It would also seem that Sega are holding back Thor on 3DS to tie-in with the DVD/Blu-ray release – it’s not due out until “Fallâ€. The DS version gained some favorable reviews; this could turn out alright too with the extra development time behind it.
To only see one DS game from Ubisoft is a bit of a suprise and it looks like THQ aren’t releasing any more uDraw games now that the uDraw for Xbox 360 and PS3 has been announced. Odd.
The US Nintendo release list in full:
