At Nintendo's recent Media Summit, the gaming giant finally announced dates for several highly anticipated games. It's an impressive list, both in terms of the pedigree and the sheer number of releases. Japanese blockbuster Monster Hunter Tri in April; Fan favorite Super Mario Galaxy 2 in May; Treasure's Sin And Punishment: Star Shooter in June; Metroid: Other M, co-developed by Nintendo and Tecmo's Team Ninja, also in June. My non-scientific methods conclude that this is the most dense, title-rich stretch of important releases in the history of the Wii. But why now? And what's on the horizon?

Nintendo is a company that knows its market. It has a precise, almost surgical understanding of the worth of its intellectual properties. Last fall, Nintendo launched New Super Mario Bros. Wii into a landscape that most publishers had pretty well surrendered to Activision's Modern Warfare 2. At the time, people were asking, "how can a kiddie game compete with MW2?" New Super Mario Bros. Wii was too easy. It was too hard. It was too much like the DS game. But Nintendo, as always, held firm. New Super Mario Bros. Wii has now sold in excess of ten million copies worldwide.

My point is this: Nintendo knows how to strike, and when to strike. It leverages the strength of its internal properties and executes right on time. So why is the company essentially "using up" two of its most storied franchises, Mario and Metroid, during what is traditionally the slowest time of the year? There can only be one reason: this fall, Nintendo is dropping something big. Really big.

There are a number of possible answers as to what, specifically, Nintendo's big fall reveal will be. I claim no special insight into their plans -- this is pure speculation on my part -- but I'd like to explore a few very real possibilities.

A New Legend Of Zelda

This game is no secret, and has got to be the first thing that jumps to every mind. Eiji Aonuma, caretaker of the series since Majora's Mask on N64, has discussed the new Zelda's development on several occasions, noting that it would be very different from the last few installments of the series. He has even made public his hope to have a playable version at E3 2010. But is this one game enough for Nintendo to completely front-load its Wii release schedule? I'd like to suggest, without jumping too far ahead, not by itself.

A New DS

You can't read a game site lately -- Game Rant included -- without tripping over scores of DS2 speculation. I don't think there is any doubt that DS2 is coming, and coming soon. Perhaps Nintendo wants to clear its slate of Wii releases in order to focus exclusively on DS2. After all, the DS is the best selling handheld game system in history. There is clearly a lot of anticipation for the DS2 (or whatever its name may be). The market is there.

The only problem with this theory is the simple fact that the original DS is still selling. Fast. DS routinely outsells all other platforms during a given month, and Nintendo is not one to walk away from money. The latest DS iteration, DSi XL, hasn't even launched in North America yet. The money-train is simply running too fast. My guess is that DS2 is slightly further out than this fall.

Continue to Part 2 for what else Nintendo may be releasing this fall. A new game? Wii HD?

Unannounced Mystery Game

This theory is equally hard to prove or dismiss. Could it be that Shigeru Miyamoto, greatest of all game designers, has created an entirely new title? Something so new, so fun, so clearly brilliant, that Nintendo has willingly bet its entire fourth quarter on this mystery games' success?

In my heart, this is the option I would most want to see play out. After all, Miyamoto hasn't given us a new game (a real game, not some fitness/music/minigame thing) since the original Pikmin (and where is Pikmin 3, anyway?). The thought of a completely fresh experience from The Master has got to be enough to get any self-respecting gamer salivating.

If any company could keep such an event secret, it's Nintendo. But... I really don't think Nintendo (or any other publisher, for that matter) would be so bold as to rely solely on an unproven property during the most crucial money-making season of the year. Remember, Nintendo is all about exploiting its existing characters, not creating new ones. So, while I'll continue to hope we do see a new Miyamoto game, I'm pretty sure that is not what Nintendo is holding for the Fall.

Wii HD

This is it. The last one. The big one. Rumored for years. Could this be Nintendo's big holiday secret? Let's think about this one carefully.

I mentioned earlier that a new Zelda game, on its own, wasn't a big enough deal for Nintendo to move Mario and Metroid to the summer. But a new Zelda on a new system? Well, that would be something. A new Wii would almost certainly have a controller that is distinctly different in fundamental ways from the current Wii controller, while retaining the current controller's functionality. That could help explain why, from a gameplay standpoint, the new Zelda is apparently so different from last few games in the series.

Consider this: a lot of noise is being made about Sony and Microsoft's pending entry into the field of motion based gaming with Arc and Natal, respectively. Confident though they may be, Nintendo has got to react to this development. A new system, now, could be the preemptive strike Nintendo needs. In terms of motion control, Sony and Microsoft are only just catching up to where Nintendo was years ago. Were Nintendo to roll out a new system, with a new control interface, it could leave rival technologies in the dust. Again.

A new system would also be the perfect reason to clear out existing games in development. With Mario and Samus along for the ride, the current Wii would go out with a bang. While the glut of budget titles produced for the Wii would be unlikely to dry up any time soon, Nintendo's internal teams could focus on creating games for the new system.

It's a safe bet that the new Wii will be fully backward compatible, so any lingering current-gen Wii games will be playable on the new system. Perhaps there will also be some way for the current Wii to play versions of the newer system's games -- lower res graphics, reduced feature sets, et cetera. Sure, for a console, that idea sounds crazy. But scalable games have been the reality on PC for years. If anyone is going to completely redefine what it means to move from one console generation to another, it has got to be Nintendo.

Any or all of these possibilities may be true. To be fair, they may also be nothing but idle speculation. But what is clear is that Nintendo has something big in store for the end of the year, and they're not ready to tell us what it is just yet. Will it be at E3? Or Tokyo Game Show? Who knows. But I, for one, can't wait to find out. What do you think? Could one of these be Nintendo's big surprise? Or can you think of other possibilities?

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