The Donkey Kong franchise is a household name that is spread across all generations of gaming. Some of its most beloved games include the many platformers produced by Nintendo, with Rare's Donkey Kong Country trilogy on the SNES being the most iconic. While most of the big ape's offerings have been platformers, the franchise has had a few different spin-offs over the years as well. This includes Diddy Kong Racing, Donkey Kong Barrel Blast, and even facing off against Mario again in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series. One of the more overlooked spin-offs that involve DK, however, is the Donkey Konga series.

Donkey Konga was a trilogy of rhythm games on the GameCube that was developed by Namco. The main gimmick involved the unique controller peripheral, the DK Bongos, which would involve the player tapping the top of these bongo controllers to play in time with the song. This team was responsible for the Taiko no Tatsujin series, which used a similar drum-style gameplay. The first two games were brought overseas, albeit with a different tracklist than the Japanese version, while the third game never made it over to the West.

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A recent trademark renewal has been made by Nintendo, which may suggest that this series will be re-releasing soon. This renewal comes at an interesting time, considering the 40th anniversary of Donkey Kong franchise has already passed, and Nintendo itself didn't do anything to celebrate the momentous milestone. The series' last release was a Tropical Freeze port on the Switch in 2018.

Coincidentally, this also lines up with a recent interview with former Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Amie, who once stated that he hated the Donkey Konga franchise. He stated that he fought with executives at Nintendo about the fact that it would possibly hurt the Donkey Kong brand. While he still ended up not being a fan of the game and how it played, he admitted the game sold "reasonably well" at least.

While it's unclear if Reggie's departure from Nintendo in 2019 ended up being the catalyst for Nintendo to start renewing the trademark for this series, it seems like there's still plans to use it in some fashion. Fans might be seeing a trilogy re-release on the Nintendo Switch, either as a full remastered package, or as another Nintendo Switch Online incentive. It could also be an entirely new game, though this is speculation at this point. Hopefully whatever this new Donkey Konga game ends up being, fans can still use the DK Bongo GameCube controller to play it.

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