Zelda DS announced, Virtual Console expands @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on March 23, 2006

News: Nintendo lays down their strategy and makes some big announcements.

Everyone has been awaiting Nintendo President Satoru Iwata's keynote at the Game Developer's Conference today. What would he say? What would he announce? Would the Revolution stay the Revolution?

Well, we don't know the answer to that last one, but that doesn't mean Iwata disappointed. Instead, he announced that a new Zelda game for the DS, The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, would be released sometime this year.

The DS was a big part of the speech as Iwata talked quite a bit about the innovation that was possible with the little handheld that could and the desire to expand the system's popularity with the upcoming Brain Age series.

Naturally, a speech like this could not pass without some mention of the Revolution. While Iwata did not delve into specifics on the games, the name, the price or the release date, we do know a bit more about the Virtual Console.

First, he confirmed that new, original games will be offered on the download service in addition to the Nintendo back catalog. On top of that, these original games will be joined by two other back catalogs. Hudson will be licensing TurboGrafx games to the VC and Sega has pledged a "Best Of" collection of games from the Sega Genesis will also appear. That is a lot of classic gaming.

And that's all we know. Bring on E3!