I will be following Iwata's keynote speech in this topic.

9:09 Introducing Iwata now.

9:09 She's off.

9:09 Iwata's on in a leather jacket!

9:09 You klnow what that means!

9:10 Thanking crowd for the invite.

9:10 The global market's changed since they inctroduced the Wii.

9:10 100 million DS shipped.

9:10 Wii's hit 50 million.

9:12 Revenue has grown from $5 billion to $10 billion from 2001 to 2008.

9:12 He's given credit to business partners around the world in dev marketing, manufacturing and sales.


9:13 He's talking about the expanded market now.


9:13 Lots of thank yous.


9:13 This is a time of rapid change, apparently.


9:13 People feel unsettled in the current climate.


9:14 How can we get more audience? That's what he said.


9:14 Some devs feel they can't compete with Nintendo because of money, and there was a time he felt the same way.

Not yet!

9:15 He's talking about his history with Nintendo.


9:16 He's talking about the pressures of getting his first game finished with Nintendo.


9:17 Still talking history. Nintendo was better to make games for, etc.


9:18 Just announce Wii 2, Satoru. Kill the pain.

9:18 Miyamoto see games as leverage for the benefit of Nintendo and gamers.


9:19 Miyamoto's a great developer, he says.


9:19 He loves watching people, apparently. very curious. We didn't realise he was like that, to be honest.


9:21 He will think a lot about activities that people love, and that's why his games are popular with both gamers and people who have never had played games before.


9:21 Screen shown Miyamoto on a Balance Board.


9:21 He says he's not allowed to talk about Shigeru's hobbies any more. Laughing.


9:22 "A pic of Miyamoto saying upward spiral."


9:22 Take that to mean what you will.

9:23 They're showing Wii Boxing now. How it looked on the drawing board.


9:24 Ideas are everywhere.

9:24 Prototype stage. Small teams. Multiple projects.


9:25 Miyamoto is a perfectionist.


9:25 The prototype stage of his games takes two years, as they need to work out what's "fun".


9:26 And even when they fail they never feel as though they've wasted their time.

9:27 Prototypes that do make it through, he and Mitamoto discuss further.


9:27 Miyamoto was his mentor, buit now he answers to him. Strange twist of fate.


9:28 He says he makes a point of not asking Miyamoto how he game is, as it may stop them reaching the desired conclusion.


9:29 He says forecasting can be blurry when it get to mass production stage.

9:26 Mass marketing is trial and error.

9:29 Miyamoto is never angry, apparently.


9:30 " We never face the issue of starting from scratch because of the development stage."


9:31 Miyamoto's stories are an inspiration to Nintendo.


9:32 He's finished with Miyamoto.


9:32 Oh.


9:32 No he hasn't.


9:33 " 20 years ago
kidnapping
he will kidnap an employee
and handed ovet to someone and told to start enjoying themself
no charges are ever pressed"

9:34 "I'll have to tell you on the phone. It's an employee thing."

9:34 As developers, we creat entertainment. If it's not fun it's not the consumer's fault.


9:35 He's saying that in order to surprise the consumer you have to surprise yourself.


9:35 2004 is an example.


9:36 When they were surprised about a game discussion.


9:36 Was the game Wii 2, Satoru?

9:36 A dev team was put together to create a prototype.



9:36 Showing a screen of devs dancing.


9:37 This was the first time they'd approved a budget for dancing.


9:37 Seriously.

9:38 Apparently only five dev staff were needed to make the game which was...



9:38 Rizumu Tengoku.


9:39 So... yeah.

9:40 There appears to be something of a lull. Maybe they're dancing.


9:41 Theyr'e talking about how the game went from Game Boy to DS and went on to sell 1.7 million in Japan.

9:42 They spent a year of trial and erro making the core control system.



9:42 Surprise is important to Nintendo.


9:42 World of Goo and Spore are new ways of thinking about games.


9:43 20 percent more homes had consoles in them than last year, he says.


9:43 47 percent of new DS owners last year were female.

9:44 There are misconceptions about what's happening.


9:44 Hardware must help build a hardware user base, to help everyone sell games.


9:45 He's talking about Virtual Console, about "expanding the ability of everyone to sell something".


9:46 Growing developer opportunity.


9:47 They're showing Rock and Roll Climber for WiiWare.


9:48 Showing a guy climnging up a wall and his fight against gravity.


9:48 Using a Balance Board.

9:48 There's a meter representing the shifting of weight on the board.


9:48 Water's falling on the guy climbing the rocks.


9:49 At the end of every stage aeveryone's given a guitar to rock on as a reward.

Wii Balance Board global sales are creeping up on PS3 sales

VC Arcade

9:51 They want to expand oppotunities with WiiWare. It's a partnership and a platform where your dea can succeed without loads of inveestment. 90 percent of WiiWare pubs are indies.


9:51 Here we go.


9:51 The storage solution for devs and fans.


9:52 They're showing Wii System Menu 4.0. SD card ison takes you to a new screen.


9:52 A single SD card can hold up to 240 games.


9:52 Up to 20 screens.

9:53 The SD card is a high capacity thing. You just buy stuff straight off the Wiishop and send it to the card.


9:54 Loading up Zelda.


9:54 It's a NES Zelda.

9:54 Just an example of how to use the card.


9:55 He's back out.


9:55 The new update's now live.


9:56 WiiWare Final Fantasy, a sequel to Life as a King, out this year.


9:56 FF4 out this year.


9:57 Original FF coming to VC, may be followed by five more.

9:57 They're talking about DSi now,


9:58 And DSiWare.


9:58 Theyr'e demoing the picture features of DSi.


9:59 They're making a frame-by-frame cartoon on DSi, an animation.


10:00 You can add background sounds.


10:00 He's done a nice car noise, apparently.


10:00 It's called something like "Moving Memo". You can download other people's animations as well.

10:01 And upload your own.


10:01 They're showing more animations.


10:02 Next game.


10:02 WarioWare Snap.


10:03 it's a camera game.

10:03 You line up image and add stuff to your face, and the resulting image gets added to the game.


10:04 When you make moves in the game, it records you.


10:05 DSi in general now.


10:05 The machine has more Amazon pre-orders than any other in history.

10:06 Gamestop have pre-ordered more DSis than it did with the original DS.


10:07 He's announcing an expansion of the Virtual Console Arcade.


10:07 Space Invaders added today.


10:07 There's a train sound.


10:07 Sounds like Zelda.


10:08 They're announcing a new Zelda game, we think.

10:08 They're announcing a new Zelda game, we think.


10:09 For DSi.


10:09 Spirit tracks.

10:10 It's called The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. It's out later this year.


10:10 The title's tentative.


10:10 Talking about the economy. The future's bright no matter how rought the depression, says Iwata.


10:11 And he's off.

10:14 They showed Link on a train "conducting it," then they showed him fighting a monster thing "like an owl".

Very cool.

I am intrigued.
*waits for more specific info on announcements*

Also, aren't Nintendo conferences fun?

Oh! The SD card thing and VC Arcade are live right NOW? Well, apparently. Though I haven't heard of any of the arcade titles that started off available here.

You had better mean DSi AND DS.