Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said he sees three titles being released this year – Wii Sports Resort, New Super Mario Bros Wii and Wii Fit Plus – to sell over ten million units.

“I believe each of these three software titles have the potential to surpass 10 million copies worldwide in the whole fiscal year,” said the exec, speaking in an investor Q&A released by Nintendo yesterday.

He added: “We recognise this Q1 result is not the strongest and closer to the lower parameters of our expectations, but we expect we can reverse the situation through the full-fiscal year and therefore did not revise out forecast.”

Mario Galaxy 2 to sell a billion units at launch? Bet on it.

On Gamespot. There’s a picture of a cartoon horse standing in front of a sign that says “happy” there, which should give you some idea of what to expect.

Take a look.

According to this Kombo story, Nintendo’s confirmed that Animal Crossing: Let’s Go to the City – the more sensibly named Animal Crossing: City Folk in the US – will support a USB keyboard.

There’s going to be lots of typing involved in Tom Nook’s new, plat du jour, clearly. There is literally nothing else we can say about this. So we won’t.

According to this Vooks story, Animal Crossing City Folk is to be renamed Animal Crossing: Let’s Go to the City for release in Australia.

The news comes from the OFLC rating for the game.

It’ll probably be changed in the rest of the world next. Look, Australian censors. We know you like things just so, but stop making things worse for the rest of us?

Thanks, GoNintendo.

According to this Destructoid story, Nintendo confirmed at a GameStop manager’s conference in Las Vegas yesterday that the Animal Crossing: City Folk and Wii Speak bundle will cost $70 in the US.

The pack, announced at E3, will be out before the end of the year.

It’s previously been reported that the game will release on November 16 and Wii Speak is to cost $30 as a stadalone peripheral, but this has never been confirmed.

More through the link.

In the wake of July’s NPD figures, we thought we’d look at just how well the ‘big three’ have fared over the last seven months by tallying all hardware data for 2008.

We all know Nintendo is having a fantastic year, but just how well is Wii doing?

Microsoft and Sony are fighting their own high-def battle, but how big is the margin between the two, and who has the lead?

After the drop.

Back in February, “Big” Jack Tretton announced that this was the year of the PS3, and if it wasn’t for Wii he may well have been right.

The Mario machine has certainly lived up to its E3 promise of making people smile, moving 4,038,000 units so far this year.

Wii’s success isn’t the only reason Nintendo’s smiling like a Cheshire cat this year: DS has sold 3,795,400 machines so far in 2008, making Nintendo’s total hardware tally for the US 7,833,400.

By comparison, Sony’s three-pronged attack of PS3, PS2 (no Jan 2008 sales figures are available, oddly) and PSP, has achieved 4,705,000 unit sales in total.

Xbox 360 sales figures have remained steady since January, but have always rested near the 200,000 mark. Total 360 sales for the year come in at a relatively paltry 1,560,800 units.

This figure puts Microsoft’s console firmly at the bottom of the next-gen pile. In fact, if we take every device into consideration, Microsoft’s great green hope has sold just over 400,000 more than PS2, and that’s without January’s figure for the last-gen Sony machine included.

As we’re fast approaching the Christmas period, and with so many big titles from all three consoles – most markedly from Sony and Microsoft – the most pertinent question in the US market is whether or not the Nintendo train can be derailed in any meaningful way.

Sony is pushing LittleBigPlanet hard, with the company wanting Sackboy to become an “emblematic character” for the brand. There’s also the mouth-watering Resistance 2 and Motorstorm: Pacific Rift to look forward to in the last quarter of this year.

Microsoft is betting heavily this autumn on Epic’s Gears of War 2, a Rare duo of Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, and Lionhead’s atmospheric Fable II.

While all the above look fantastic, it remains to be seen if these high profile titles will be preaching to the converted or they’ll have the power to turn onlookers into new customers. Will they encourage the nearly 5 million Wii owners to choose a PS3 or 360 as their second console?

The only ‘AAA’ Wii titles confirmed as hitting US shores before Yuletide are Wii Music, Animal Crossing: City Folk, Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquillity and Star Wars: Clone Wars Lightsaber Duels. While it looks like an anorexic line-up, Wii Music alone is likely to secure success for the machine this Holiday.

But Christmas is months away. Who’s “winning” in America so far this year?

NPD Hardware for 2008

1. Wii: 4,038,000
2. NDS: 3,795,400
3. PS3: 1,833,000
4. PSP: 1,704,200
5. 360: 1,560,800
6. PS2: 1,168,500

By Mike Bowden

The peripheral manufacturer has obtained an official license from Nintendo, and the keyboard is designed for use in conjunction with “mass communication” titles such as Animal Crossing: City Folk.

The keyboard will launch in August for $49.99. No price or date for Europe was given.

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden

Unfortunately only that feature alone was detailed.

Thanks, DSF.

By Mike Bowden

More about Wii Speak here and Animal Crossing: City Folk here.

By Mike Bowden

We performed some of the usual activities, including fossil digging and weeding. We also joined Hannah in some fishing, though surprisingly, none of these controls involve waggling the remote in any way. To cast your line into the water, you hit the A button; ditto for reeling it in. Sadly, we didn’t get to leave the town and head for the city. According to Nintendo, however, the city opens up new innovations within the franchise. The most intriguing of these may be the auction house, where you and your friends can put items up for bid. You can also visit Gracie’s store, where you can buy seasonal items unavailable at other times of the year. Happily, though, she won’t be replacing the entrepreneurial Tom Nook, who will still set up shop in your town.

Shots and a movie here.

After the break. The game was announced in the Nintendo press conference at E3 tonight. It’s Animal Crossing. On Wii. You can get your hair cut, and everything.

“Players are free to do thing their own way”, he says. “Even when you are not playing the game, the animals in Animal Crossing still get up in the morning and go to bed at night.”

He goes on to detail a brand new city with a unique auction site, beauty salon and all manner of things. However, the biggest news is Wii Speak, a brand new service that lets you talk to all players anywhere in the world.

Katsuya Eguchi finished the presentation by saying, “You talk to your friends, or even make new ones.”