PixlBit

Expect the unexpected, and keep hope alive!

Nintendo

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from video game history, it’s that you underestimate Nintendo to your peril. It wasn’t really that long ago that people were predicting the company pulling out of the hardware market to go the way of Sega. Then they conquered the world with the DS and Wii. People are quick to count them out after a solid but not Earth-shattering Wii U launch, but we’ve been here before, haven’t we? While it remains to be seen if the Wii U will be a Nintendo 64 or just a Gamecube, the safe money is on the company to show off some amazing stuff this year.

Okay, but what is that stuff? Ah, that’s the 64,000 dollar question. The front of the year has a few games of note coming from the Big N, like Fire Emblem: Awakening and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity for 3DS, as well as Game & Wario for the Wii U. Spring brings with it Pikmin 3 (covered in an earlier sneak preview) for the Wii U and Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon for the 3DS.

Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess. Granted, that’s true of Microsoft and Sony this year as well, with the latter half of the year shrouded in mystery as the companies jockey for position in the next generation. Nintendo has always played things close to the vest, but with the 3DS finally hitting its stride and a brand new console on the market there just doesn’t seem to be much coming from the developer so far in 2013.

It’s a foregone conclusion that new (not “New”) games in the Mario and Zelda series will be making their way to the Wii U, but based on that classic Nintendo philosophy of releasing games when they’re perfect I would be surprised to see either of these games in 2013. Retro is working on something as well, with a lot of speculation that it could be a new Star Fox or Metroid, but things are oddly quiet there, too. E3 will be huge for Nintendo, and while I’m sure they will blow us away with announcements, I’m hesitant to say that any of their big guns will be here by the holidays. We have Pokemon X and Y to look forward to though, and a few of us at PixlBit are counting the days.

Of course, there are a couple of avenues that could be exploited with the Wii U that we haven’t seen yet. HD collections of Wii and Gamecube games seem like a license to print money, and Nintendo certainly isn’t above re-releasing classic games. And speaking of classic games, the GamePad is just begging for some Virtual Console action. Whether this is simply a firmware update that allows VC games purchased on the Wii to work with the GamePad or new classics are released for the Wii U, who wouldn’t want to get a little Link to the Past in before bed on their nifty tablet controllers?

Whatever they have up their sleeves (and they’re long sleeves), you can be sure that the industry will be watching Nintendo closely. Underestimate them to your peril, folks; Nintendo is the very definition of a wild card.