SAN FRANCISCO: Nintendo President Satoru Iwata revealed the company’s new offerings for consumers and an expanded palette of video game development opportunities for the industry during his keynote address at the Game Developers Conference. Iwata announced a storage solution for Nintendo’s Wii home console and showed video highlights of a new Nintendo DS game from The Legend of Zelda franchise.

Video game developers now have expanded opportunities given that worldwide shipments for the Wii system surpassed 50 million units and worldwide shipments for the Nintendo DS franchise are at more than 100 million units. Iwata said, “It is in the power of game developers to invent things that gamers have never seen — or even imagined — before.”

Iwata also noted several key initiatives that are on the way for consumers:

• Similar to how the WiiWare service works in the Wii Shop Channel, the Nintendo DSi Shop which launched April 5, will feature a variety of downloadable Nintendo DSiWare games and applications. These games and applications will be available at four different price categories: free, 200 points, 500 points, and more than 800 points. The DSi itself launched in Europe on April 3.

• Iwata gave conference attendees a glimpse into some of the upcoming Nintendo DSiWare games and applications such as Moving Memo (name not final) and WarioWare: Snapped!. Moving Memo lets users create animated digital flipbooks of their own design, while WarioWare: Snapped! uses Nintendo DSi Camera functionality for a fresh gaming experience.

• The new The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks game that Iwata announced will utilize the intuitive touch control of Phantom Hourglass in an all new adventure that will please longtime Zelda fans while keeping the game accessible to all DS owners. The concept behind this Zelda game includes utilizing a steam locomotive to travel around the world, switching Phantom and Link to explore the dungeons, and solving puzzles using new items.

• To highlight new development opportunities for independent developers, Iwata unveiled a game for the WiiWare downloadable game service called Rock N’ Roll Climber, which uses the Wii Balance Board accessory to help users simulate the experience of rock climbing. The game is being developed by Vitei.

• As the library of downloadable WiiWare and Virtual Console games continues to grow, Wii owners have asked Nintendo to provide easy, expanded storage space. Wii owners will now be able to save downloaded WiiWare, Virtual Console video games and Channels directly to High Capacity SD cards, in addition to SD memory cards. To play games that have been saved to SD cards, consumers will be able to select and launch them from an SD Menu icon on the Wii Menu. Note that when launching games or channels from an SD card, an equivalent amount of internal Wii memory is required. To clear space from the internal memory, users can transfer games or channels from the Wii Menu to the SD card. This feature is included in the latest version of the Wii System Menu Update, which owners will receive immediately after performing a system update.

• Gamers will be glad to have that additional storage space, as the Virtual Console will expand to include the arcade versions of classic third-party games such as STARFORCE by Tecmo Ltd., and Mappy, Gaplus and Tower of Druaga by Namco Bandai Games Inc. Other upcoming games include Excitebots: Trick Racing, which is a new take on the classic Excitebike series. It launches April 20 and a new game in the classic Punch-Out!! series will be out on May 18.

Numerous analysts are reporting that the game industry is actually thriving during these tough economic times. People are looking for value in entertainment and a video game provides more fun for less cost than many other leisure options. Analysts expect the industry to continue growing, with IDC predicting a double-digit rise in 2009. Although some recent game releases for the Xbox and PlayStation have done well, it’s thought that Nintendo will reap the biggest gains in the current environment since its platforms attract the widest spectrum of casual gamers.