Since we are not in San Francisco for the big Nintendo Media Summit event that is going on right now, we will at least try to give you a quick summary of all of the news that is coming out of the event so you can better grasp why your spring and summer just got a lot busier.

Let’s start with third party news, shall we?

Capcom’s Monster Hunter Tri will be coming out for the Wii on April 20 for $49.99 for the regular edition and $59.99 for the bundle with the new version of the Classic Controller. Unlike the Japanese version, the North American version of Tri will be free to play online with friends. It’ll support text chat and the few Wii Speaks that are out there for communication between party members, so those of you that assumed Nintendo would support the microphone add-on have one more reason to not throw it out. On March 8, GameStop will have demo discs for those that pre-order the game and a limited number of Monster Hunter Tri-branded 500 Nintendo Points cards will be handed out when you pick up the game at launch.

Going a step beyond just co-marketing Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies for the DS with Square Enix, Nintendo will also be publishing the game itself in North America and it will probably be out later this year from the little bit of news that we are hearing.

Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands will be getting the SNES port of the original Prince of Persia included as a bonus with the Wii version of the game. The Forgotten Sands does take place in the Sands of Time trilogy as a side story that explains what happened to The Prince in the seven years between The Sands of Time and Warriors Within. The release date was previously revealed as May 18, alongside the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions.

Nicalis’ Cave Story will finally see a release on March 22 on WiiWare. The popular indie PC game will include five modes, two of which that were previously announced as DLC (Sanctuary Attack and Boss Rush modes) are now included with the game at no extra cost.

A number of other third party games were announced and/or given release dates at the event. Disney and Wideload Games announced their newest project for the Wii, Disney Guilty party, which is a detective game that is expected for release in the second half of 2010.Majesco’s DSi Exclusive, Ghostwire: Link to the Paranormal, uses the camera as a part of its augmented reality technology-based, ghost hunting gameplay that will be out in October. WiiWare will be getting Mega Man 10 from Capcom on March 1 and Max & the Magic Marker on March 8, which sounds a bit like Kirby: Canvas Curse but not made by Nintendo.  Indie games like the platformer And Yet It Moves, fighting game Rage of the Gladiator, and platformer Super Meat Boy will be out on WiiWare this spring, and summer for the latter game.

That’s all for third parties, so let’s move on to the headlining Nintendo news.

The biggest news is that the DSi XL, the much bigger and larger-screened version of the DSi, will be out March 28 for $189.99. That makes it the latest iteration of the DS handheld that increases the system’s price and size. The colors available at launch will be Burgundy and Bronze, which aren’t the most appealing colors I would personally have liked. Nintendo will be preloading some software on to the system, which includes the DSi Browser, Flipnote Studio, both DSiWare Brain Age games, and Photo Clock.

Nintendo’s DSiWare and WiiWare services will see a number of releases from Nintendo this year. Photo Dojo, a fighting game where you take pictures of yourself and record some sound effects to become the main character along with up to seven friends, will be out this spring on DSiWare. Metal Torrent will also be out this spring on DSiWare and is a shooter that will have online leaderboards and will even allow you to download videos of the best games to learn what works best. X-Scape is the last of Nintendo’s trio of spring DSiWare games and is an action adventure game about exploring up to 20 planets and destroying enemies and giant robots with your tank.

On WiiWare, Nintendo is releasing WarioWare: D.I.Y. Showcase on March 29 and this is the Wii version of the DSiWare release that offers a bunch of microgames to play along with interoperability with the DSi version to let you play those user-created games on the Wii. Nintendo continues its Art Style series with the releases of Art Style: light trax (supposed to be lowercase, so delete this note when you see it) and Art Style: Rotozoa. Art Style: light trax may be better known as DotStream when it was originally released in the GBA’s Bit Generations series of games, which is about differently-colored beams of light racing around tracks. Art Style: Rotozoa is a weird game to describe, as it’s about using your tentacles to absorb tiny, like-colored organisms to make them grow and things get tougher when you get more tentacles, which power-ups then come into play to help you out.

Nintendo will be kicking off a great start to the Summer for the Wii with the release of Super Mario Galaxy 2 on May 23, so we don’t have to wait long for some more 3D Mario action. Two weeks later, Treasure’s Sin & Punishment: Star Successor will be out on June 7 as the sequel to the cult hit Nintendo 64 shooter. Three weeks later on June 27, Team Ninja’s Metroid: Other M will be released so that Metroid fans can see how this new take on Samus Aran’s adventures turns out. Nintendo announced the North American version of Picross 3D for the DS that will be out on May 3 that will also see some DLC in the form of extra puzzles, though I’m still looking for the original on the DS so be sure to buy this as quickly as possible if you’re interested in it. Getting in on the digital book market, Nintendo announced 100 Classic Books for release on June 14 for $19.99 on the DS and it will have 100 works from authors like William Shakespeare, Jules Verne, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, and others along with more to download over the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.

Missing a definite release date, Nintendo also announced that FlingSmash, a Wii MotionPlus exclusive where you fling a ball-like hero around stages, is coming this summer for the Wii.

Just to give you a bit more to enjoy, there are some screenshots of Super Mario Galaxy 2, Metroid: Other M, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, and some better shots of the DSi XL below.

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About This Author: Chris Selogy

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