32GB SD Cards And Zelda DS Highlight Nintendo GDC Keynote

The 2008 Game Developers Conference is currently taking place in San Francisco, CA. The Nintendo keynote address from Satoru Iwata (the Big ‘N’s head honcho) just finished. Here are the highlights:

• Nintendo has global shipments of more than 50 million Wii consoles, making it the fastest selling video game hardware in history.
  
  
  

• Rock & Roll Climber was announced. This is is a rock climbing game using the WiiMote, Nunchuck, & Balance Board.
  
  
  

• Wii System Menu 4.0 was announced. This will include support for the 32GB high capacity SD cards. Here is what Mr. Iwata had to say about it: “With Wii System Menu 4.0 we’ve made a number of improvements … a single SD card can hold up to 240 titles.”

  “You’re no longer limited to 2GB SD cards” and can use high capacity cards capable of holding up to 32GB right now. That’s a lot of NES games (read: all of them). You can also download content straight to the Wii’s SD card and run them straight off the card “with just a short loading time.” This is available right now BTW.
  
  
  

• Some Final Fantasy news for all you SquareEnix fans: My Life as a Dark Lord, which is a sequel to the WiiWare launch title My Life as a King & Final Fantasy IV: The After Years which is a sequal to Final Fantasy IV but has only been released for mobile phones. In addition to that, the Virtual Console will see all the FF games from the NES/SNES era released in Japan. The ones that have been already translated to English, FF I & IV, will be released here in the States. No word on the other titles at this point nor any indication of a release date.
  
  
  

• A couple of DSIWare titles were shown: Moving Memo, an end-user animation studio, & WarioWare Snaps, a game that uses the DSI camera to record you playing the game & plays it back for you after you complete each mini-game.
  
  
  

• The Virtual Console is being expanded to include the Virtual Console Arcade. Sounds like Nintendo’s version of XBLA. Launching today with Mappy (500 WP), The Tower of Druaga (500 WP), Gapius (600 WP), and Star Force/ (500 WP). Space Harrier & Solvalou are comming soon.
  
  
  

• Lastly, Nintendo announced The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for the DSL. No pricing, but it is expected to ship later this year.

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