Alright after reading alot about the announcements to come out of E3 I have no doubt that Nintendo is intentionally holding back. With only a handful new games announced some of them cheaply developed casual titles that appear to be to ensure that the casual demographic remains on trac, their is far more Nintendo is not showing us.

AnimalCrossing in the flesh, Pikmin announced, but no date for Pikmin yet likely a fall unvieling. Where is the Kid Icarus game everyone expected. Nintendo is the largest games publisher with far more development studios then any other first party. The current progress Nintendo is showing is that of its competitor Microsoft. Yes its that of a company with only a handful of internal studios.

Nintendo has to have alot more under raps.What is Retro making right now?, how about EAD Tokyo? The Factor5 game said to be Kid Icarus, where are all the games. Last year's E3 revealed only two new games MarioKart/WiiFit this E3 has seen barely more with only WiiMusic,WiiSports,AnimalCrossing,Pikmin3 and some smaller games like WarioWorld hardly a financial feat.

So where are the games? Nintendo's capacity makes it able to put out a minimum of 12-games a year for its home platforms. I know because on the GameCube I used to buy a first party game every month. After taking over Monolith and building EAD Tokyo and such Nintendo has far larger capabilities this generation. But where are these games?

I have three theries!

Theory one, Nintendo is purposely targeting only the casual user base in an attempt to not only bulster its own sales but to improve its third party sales. By avoiding directly targetting Nintendo user base Nintendo is giving third parties a chance to hit the hardcore demographic hard. While cashing in on cultural changes like musical gaming.

Theory two, Nintendo is holding back bigger titles like Kid Icarus, Donkey Kong (confirmed at TGS2005), StarFox....etc....etc.... for when its new found market begins to shrink. What happens when 2009 hits if the casual games stop bringing in high quantity sales? Nintendo is stock piling games, only announcing titles when it is nescessary to appease the user base. Saving its big guns for another day. Likely these games have been under development since Spring 2007. I'd say studios like Retro and EAD's many arms have likely been developing titles for some time. For example this time Donkey Kong has been getting a thurough polishing and Nintendo might have ordered many studios to hold back maintain multiple projects at once. The end effect when Nintendo needs a jolt in the arm they will announce a solid line up of first party titles.

Theory three, perhaps the most unlikely. Nintendo has diverted all of its excess studios and assigned them to developing next generation titles. Your likely saying to yourself (Wahhhhhhhhh......is he insane). Think about it a second. Miyamoto confirmed at E3 2006 that the next console from Nintendo would support HD. A game like Metal Gear Solid 4 using the full 50-Gig of the BluRay disk took several years to develope. We also know that this generation Nintendo lagged with its big titles not getting Galaxy or Brawl to the market as forecasted for launch window. My third theory is that Nintendo has diverted some of its studios to work on the next generation 2011.

Alright now theory three is border line conspiracy but it wouldn't be out of Nintendo's personality to do so. Whats your take. Their is no way that Nintendo has shown even half of its current projects. Why is Nintendo holding them back, when will the projects be revealed (EForAll maybe). Where is Donkey Kong, Kid Icarus?

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Their being secretive, i didn't know that they didn't even show Galaxy last year. Yes maybe their developing HD games, that would be sick. I do think all developers under Nintendo have been told to shut the f--k up until just before release.

Stock pilling sounds bloody awful though, i don't think thats happening as much as their doing ninja shit.

I think all three theories are wrong becuase they are anti-Nintendo

1)Nintendo has never focused their release schedule with 3rd parties in mind. basically, they do as they please
2)With how things are going now, the new audience wont just up and leave. Not only that, why would they purposely hold back titles. They could release them now and make money. If they have enough arms, stockpiling wouldn't be a problem.
3)This is just rediculious. The Wii will probably sell for long past this date, not to mention it's 3 years in the future. A little far off there.

The truth may be that there isn;t much they have this year. This year proceeds a year with Mario, Zelda and Metroid with Mario Kart and Smash soon after. There is going to be a bit of a dry spell. Nintendo EDA has AC: CT and Wii Music and Wii Sports Resort (which doesn't require many people). The rest are making the Pikmins and Zeldas. They just aren't ready yet.

Remember, Nintendo has seeked help from outside sources a lot, a reason why we see many games. Namco, Camelot, and many others. The Wario Land games is made by Feel Good Inc, Starfox Command by another, and Nintendo hasn't touched Yoshi since Yoshi Story.

Stock piling is not anti-Nintendo. Infact the third theory of developing titles already for their next generation fits in perfectly with Nintendo's past strategies. Think a second Nintendo already knows that their next console will incorporate HD and that was before the Wii even hit store shelves. I know from knowing someone at IBM personally that Nintendo begins to get their products in line usually before their systems hit the stores. Nintendo's next console is already under development. I wouldn't be suprised if the console was about 70% completed already.

Why would Nintendo hold back titles? Nintendo has held back titles many times in the past. Even LOZ:TP was held back ported to the Wii to improve Nintendo's showcase. If I recall correctly Reggie stated that Nintendo would have 7 titles present at launch. Those titles weren't seen till this spring. If they were so close to being complete at launch why was their a year wait for them to hit store shelves? Nintendo held back giving its third parties time to strengthen their sales. UbiSoft for example got dev kits long before the Wii was even unvieled. Nintendo gave companies like UbiSoft, Sega time to dominate the market. Their is no doubt in my mind that Nintendo delayed the release of its hardcore games untill third parties had seen some success. Same deal when the DS was released, Nintendo had plenty of time to develope and release its own internal games yet third parties were present day one , again UbiSoft is the perfect example. Nintendo has been holding back for years now.

Why not release the games now to make a mint? Because releasing the games would not make a mint. At the moment their casual games are making enough money that they don't need the hardcore demographic to stay afloat like they did last generation. Nintendo is smart as long as those casual games continue to drive sales they don't need to play all of their cards. Say you have 1 million hardcore gamers, and 2 million casual gamers. A hardcore game sells only to the million but a casual game can sell to both demographic's. However the casual demographic is not reliable in the long run. So rather then use their one million selling core games they would rather save those for a rainy day and rely on the casual games for now.

P.S - Miyamoto just finished saying that E3 is not the place to show off core games anymore. He re-assured us that their are more core games like Pikmin not being showcased. "Were making Pikmin" what else is Nintendo making that they are holding back. Miyamoto confirmed Nintendo is holding back its core games for a later date.

The Pikmin's and Zelda's are not ready yet? A new Zelda went into development in 2005, an exclusive for Nintendo's Wii. Iwata confirmed it when he confirmed a new Mario and Donkey Kong game. The title was not TP as Iwata at the time said TP was a GameCube game. That was three years ago, Nintendo's best games take only 3-5 years to complete especially if EAD is working on them. I would also like to point out that Brawl was developed by Sora which is a third party developer meaning it wouldn't have held any of Nintendo's internal studios back. EAD Tokyo made Galaxy but again Galaxy was initially announced as a launch title meaning it was pretty much ready over a year ago. Animal Crossing was confirmed and listed for release this year in Japan during the spring showcase. I have no doubt that Pikmin is also pretty close to complete considering how Miyamoto rarely talks about games to far off in the future.

In other words, Miyamoto himself has stated Nintendo held back core games from us.After the GameCube their is no reason to believe Nintendo is actually this slow. Their is no way Nintendo has this few games under development or completed and ready for the market!