I doubt that they'll be sales beasts, but I'm convinced they'll be quality games and all first-day buys for me :)

Holy Quadrity, or something. Add in Monster Hunter 3.

Your wish is my command.

I don't think anyone has said this yet, so...

2010 is going to be the year of the Wii!! MH3, RE:DC, RS2, NMH:DS, Galaxy 2, Metroid Other M, S&P2, EO2, Monado and maybe Zelda combined with possible $50 price cut=death of HD gaming!!!!!1!!!.

Ahem. Sorry, but it had to be done.

Anyway... I'm hoping for Galaxy 2, then Metroid, then Zelda next year. For now, I'll just have to finish Majora's Mask, and then move on to Wind Waker and Twilight Princess.

(I almost forgot the inevitable Wii Slim! Or new colours! OMFG!!!)

This really sounds like 2007 with the "big three" (Galaxy, Corruption and Brawl). We all know that the big 3 didn't really happen because Brawl was pushed back, but the titles were close together then already.

Also, back in the GC days, we had this holy trinity released within a year too. It was not a calendar year, but Mario Sunshine was released in September 2002, Metroid Prime in March 2003 and the Wind Waker in May 2003. These are european launch dates and I may be off a bit with the months cause I'm doing this off of my head, but they were definitely all released within a year back then.

It is important to note that Nintendo doesn't see a problem in releasing them all close together. First of all, Metroid is not in the same league as the other two from a business point of view. And second, a year is still long enough to spread titles out.


I doubt it will happen anyway though. If it should happen, we'd need one game in spring, one in summer and one for the holidays. We know that Zelda won't be ready before holiday season, so this spot is locked. And after seeing Nintendo's latest release lists, it seems as if NSMBWii comes out in October the earliest, with November and December even more likely. Because of this I doubt Galaxy 2 comes out in spring 2010. This makes Metroid the only game left for spring. The ones analysing the number of missiles etc. were already speculating about a march release, but from looking at the trailer, I doubt it'll be ready by then.

So we are probably looking at two summer releases. If Galaxy 2 is a summer title, it will come out only in the second half of next year because the early summer months are no good choices saleswise. So Galaxy will likely come in August or September. Of course this doesn't really stop Zelda from being a holiday title, but it seems unlikely, especially if the team has difficulties to finish the tilte until then.

So for holiday 2010, I'd rather expect Pikmin 3 which has been in development for a long time as well, or an Intelligent Systems title which would most likely be Paper Mario (as others have mentioned, they weren't really busy and they also have the capacities to do some games at once.

Speculating about the other teams is shooting into the dark though.

     Personally, I think Metroid is part of a holy trinity and I suspect that the only characters that Nintendo has that are more popular than Samus are Mario and Link.  Also, I predict the other M will receive much higher review scores than the Wii version of Mario Kart.

I just don't want to have to wait for SMG2. NSMBW is going to push Galaxy as far back as possible, i just know it.

Metroid is my favorite Nintendo franchise. Second is Zelda.

Very good article Puffy. I beleve that Zelda will arrive sometime in 2011, but we really have no information about the game.

Sorry I was not aware that the 'deal' between Intelligent Systems and Square was a mistranslation, considering it was reported on by many people.

However, the information that Ocarina of Time was made over the course of 4+ years comes from Miyamoto's own mouth from interviews.  And its well known that Nintendo begins pre production and concept design on games even before the consoles come out.  Look at the TGS footage for Link fighting Ganon that eventually turned into Twilight Princess more than 5 years later.

You are right then, but then Zelda Wii would have had more than 5 years before release considering that Zelda TP was mostly done before it's release date. This time around they really were slow with the production, and it all seems slower when too few titles worth playing are getting released. By next year it will be all good, but the constant and long SW droughts really make these 5 - 6 year development cycles seem terrible.