After Nintendo's E3 performance, many gamers felt quite perplexed as to Ninty's future goal as a gaming company, since they seem to have the casual mindset. Animal Crossing Wii (with Wii Speak), Wii Music, and Wii Sports Resort (with Wii Motion+) left a bad taste in many mouths, simply because there weren't any "core" games out there for those non-casual players. Add to that the half-assed announcement of a new Pikmin and it's safe to say that many gamers were certainly peeved at Nintendo for their lack of support.

Next comes September of 2008, where rumors started flying around that Nintendo was going to hold their own conference on October 2. Hype, flying around like food in a food fight during lunch time at school, got around that Nintendo was finally going to break free of their "casual" mentality and start announcing the "good stuff" at this conference.

One of the major rumors flying around was a new redesign for the Nintendo DS. Although I don't personally own one, I've been wanting to pick one up for a while now because of all of the games that are out and are coming out. Although not very surprising due to all of the rumors floating around, a new DS WAS announced at this conference. Dubbed the DSi, it sports a sleeker look over the DS Lite, along with a myriad of other functions. Although the lack of a GBA slot is disheartening, the inclusion of internal memory, SD card usage and the ability to access the Virtual Console gives access to a plethora of possibilities down the road (GB/GBA VC games?).

There were also rumors going around that one of Ninty's old franchises was going to get a new game, one that didn't have a game since the SNES or NES. A lot of speculation went around as to what this game really was, but I'm sure plenty of people were surprised that it was a new Punch-Out!!! Another game that was surprising was a sequel to the N64 shooter, Sin & Punishment.

I think Nintendo certainly caught the attention of many gamers on the morning of October 2. Although it wasn't exactly a huge announcement (ok, maybe the DSi was big, but it was expected due to all of the rumors), they have certainly stirred up many a gamers who are patiently awaiting the English conference, which is scheduled for tomorrow.

Punch-Out looks really cool, like it could very well be the fantastic new entry (looks mostly to be a remake) in the series that fans so richly deserve. I'm very hopeful for it indeed.

I think Wii is really coming along nicely, and has warmed up in much the way that I predicted it would. I hope that time continues to prove me right and that the titles revealed at the show are merely a sampling of much more good stuff to come.