Issue 202 of Edge magazine is thudding onto subscriber doormats as I write this, and this month’s mag has plenty to interest Nintendoites.

Space Invaders Extreme 2 gets a 9/10 review, there’s a very positive preview piece on Punch-Out!! and there’s an interview with the key players of Japanese developer CiNG, creator of Hotel Dusk and Another Code R.

But most exciting of all is the next month page - at least, unless my eyes are playing tricks on me. It shows a close up picture of a seemingly featureless patch of grass, but in the top right-hand corner is a tiny little lilac-coloured blob, which looks very much like a Pikmin.

Does this mean the magazine will be talking about Pikmin 3 next month? Or is my imagination running riot over this seemingly incongruous tiny spot of colour? It’s so small that there’s no point in me posting a scan of the page (though that in itself would be a little naughty) so for the moment file this under ‘rumour and speculation’.

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It’s looking increasingly likely that Wii Sports Resort will arrive in either April or May, if new information on a Wii version of Virtua Tennis 2009 is anything to go by.

VG247.com is reporting that the MotionPlus logo has been seen on the Sega game’s boxart, and given that the third-party release is arriving in May, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Nintendo’s flagship release must be hitting shelves a little earlier.

Of course, it could just be rumour and speculation, but Sega isn’t denying that the game features MotionPlus (despite the non-mention in the official press release) which tells its own story. And it’s a game that would undoubtedly benefit from Nintendo’s new peripheral.

Two plus two equals five? Perhaps. But I firmly believe now that we’ll be seeing Wii Sports Resort in the first week of May at the very latest.

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Nintendo’s official Japanese site for the Metroid franchise has an interesting little banner on its front page, which seems to suggest that the Metroid series is set to get a new side story, possibly based on the Space Pirates.

Spotted by an eagle-eyed NeoGAF forumite, the banner mentions ‘Another Side Story - coming soon’. Naturally, there’s much fevered speculation as to what it could be, but with strong rumours that Retro Studios isn’t currently working on a Metroid game, it’s unlikely to be a new 3D Metroid. A 2D outing on WiiWare, then? Perhaps, but I’d suggest it might be some kind of anime series, or maybe a manga comic. Or possibly even just a bit of background info on Samus’ enemies on the site, to tie-in with the Wii-releases of the first two Metroid Prime games in the Wii de Asobu/New Play Control range.

Still, there was that mention of Metroid Dread in Corruption…could it be that Wii’s Year of Hardcore brings us a new space adventure for everyone’s favourite bounty hunter?

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Gaming Target is reporting on a rumour that Fatal Frame IV will get a US release later this year, but that it may not have that title when it finally comes out.

The spook-snapping horror has been pencilled in (very lightly) for a European release for quite some time now, but it’s certainly not going to make the February date the site suggests - indeed, it’s not down for the entire first quarter, and still hasn’t been 100% confirmed for launch in PAL territories.

Yet Gaming Target claims to have spoken to an unnamed industry analyst, who claims that it may not be released as Fatal Frame IV. “Why any publisher would throw away the cult of popularity the series has gainded over the years is questionable,” it adds, but then concludes that “the desire to start fresh and make Fatal Frame more of a cult series could be the impetus behind that decision.”

I think ‘popularity’ is the wrong word for the series, which has never performed particularly well in the west, and perhaps under a new banner it could sell a whole lot more. Anyone for Ghost Photography Training?

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Quite possibly. PSU is reporting that the latest edition of US mag Game Informer carries a piece suggesting that “RockStar North is alreadyworking on the next instalment in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, which should be ready for release this holiday season.”
And this isn’t just downloadable content, no sirree.”We’re not talking about new DLC or a collection of previously available DLC, we’re talking about a full retail game,” says the mag. “We expect this title to follow the suit of previous GTAs and use a subtitle such as GTA: San Andreas etc. Tokyo might be a possible setting for the game,” it adds.

Now GTA IV was by all accounts a mammoth undertaking, and given that the team behind GTA IV will undoubtedly have its hands full with the Xbox 360-exclusive DLC, that the release would come very close to the launch of the second episode late in 2009, not to mention the fact that it would seem impossible to craft an entirely new HD GTA in that sort of timescale - possible on last-gen consoles, maybe, but not these days - and you’ve got a host of problems that point to it not appearing on PS3 on 360. Which can only mean one thing: GTA on Wii.

Think about it - Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has mentioned how he’d love to see a GTA on the Wii. The console’s success has turned the heads of quite a few publishers who are now all racing to produce more high-quality games for the console after dismissing its early sales as a fad. Then you have the head of 2K Games - which owns Rockstar - mouthing off about the dearth of top-notch Wii titles. Put that all together with the reduced development period required for a Wii title compared to its hi-def rivals, along with faint whispers that the game has been in production for quite some time already - and, of course, the appearance in March of a GTA on the DS (a case of testing the waters, perhaps?) - and you’ve got a strong chance that GTA is indeed coming to the Wii.

Even the suggested setting makes a lot of sense - IV performed very well in the Japanese sales charts recently, and a GTA set in Tokyo would be a definite tilt towards the eastern market. Any game with ‘Grand’, ‘Theft’ and ‘Auto’ on the box is likely to be hungrily gobbled up by western audiences regardless of its setting, so Tokyo would seem a very good fit on the most popular piece of home console hardware out there. It potentially raises Rockstar’s profile in the east, and is an almost surefire smash hit in the west.

I’m sure if quizzed about this, Rockstar would pull a Nintendo and declare it to be nothing more than ‘rumour and speculation’. But don’t be too surprised if E3 brings us a big reveal of the first 3D GTA on a Nintendo console.

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Eurogamer has reported that Nintendo of Europe is keeping quiet on release date details for the DSi, after IGN revealed the handheld could be landing in the US as early as April.

Last night’s story from ‘an inside source’ suggested the DSi would cost $179.99 (50 bucks more expensive than the Lite) and would launch on April 4th. Nintendo of Europe dismissed the information as - you guessed it - ‘rumour and speculation’, with the camera-packing handheld apparently bound for release in Spring 2009.

It seems as if Nintendo will be positioning DSi as a premium option for hardcore gamers in the west rather than suggesting it as a replacement for DS Lite, presumably continuing to target the expanded audience with the latter, and bigging up the downloadable games on the former as a nod to the real enthusiasts. Because girls and grans can’t use the internet, can they?

That said, a camera with funny face-morph software is bound to appeal to a wide market, so it’ll be interesting to see how Nintendo markets this - particularly as the DS isn’t facing particularly strong competition from its handheld rivals in the west.

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