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New Nintendo Panels Announced

Building Characters: The SUPER SMASH BROS. BRAWL Postmortem
Speaker: Masahiro Sakurai (Designer and Director, Sora Ltd.)
Date/Time: TBD
Track: Game Design
Experience Level: All

Session Description
One of the strengths of Nintendo is its great number of character franchises. SUPER SMASH BROS. BRAWL builds on this legacy by providing a unique experience for Wii, leveraging many popular characters from the history of Nintendo and beyond. However, integrating so many different characters, each with its own personality, is no easy task, especially when characters from other publishers are willing to join the brawl. The man behind SMASH BROS., Masahiro Sakurai, discusses how he has approached this unique game series.

Planning the Wii Menu: From Pre-Launch to WiiWare
Speaker: Takashi Aoyama (Group Manager for the Network Administration Group, Nintendo)
Date/Time: TBD
Track: Game Design
Experience Level: All

Session Description
Takashi Aoyama of Nintendo\'s Network Group explains for attendees the story of the development of Wii hardware\'s internal programming. The Wii Menu includes a diverse array of built-in entertainment and educational options for users, including the News Channel, the Everybody Votes Channel and the Check Mii Out Channel. Aoyama discusses how the team at Nintendo has tackled these unprecedented challenges for Wii, including the most recent challenge to introduce WiiWare.

Wii FIT: Creating a Brand New Interface for the Home Console
Speaker: Takao Sawano (Deputy GM in Entertainment Analysis & Development, Nintendo)
Date/Time: TBD
Track: Game Design
Experience Level: All

Session Description
A fitness video game? Nintendo developers were challenged from the start when given the directive to develop an application for daily use that enables you to have fun while monitoring your fitness. Takao Sawano, the principal Wii Balance Board developer, discusses how his team ended up creating an unprecedented new game controller that will have a far-reaching impact for both casual and core gamers in WII FIT and beyond. Attendees will learn about the development of WII FIT as well as how the product, which recently launched in Japan, is already turning family living rooms into private fitness clubs.

In addition to the big news that’s coming out of the Microsoft camp at GDC, Nintendo is also set to have a strong presence during the conference. As announced today on GDC Executive Director Jamil Moledina’s blog, there are a trio of Nintendo-related talks scheduled for the event. Takao Sawano, the project lead of Wii Fit, will explain the process of creating a brand new interface for the home console and Takashi Aoyama, the team leader for Nintendo’s Network Group, will discuss the creation and development of the Wii Menu and the upcoming WiiWare project, which is Nintendo’s original downloadable game service. Finally, Masahiro Sakurai will be speaking at the event with a postmortem of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which will be the first postmortem of a major 2008 title.

That's you.

Doubles matches in Brawl are going to suck without being able to actually communicate with your team-mate.

We need god-damn headsets.

You sir, have clearly not played competitively. But I can't hold your lack of understanding against you.

So I'll mention BWii... that could use headset... and its pretty hard to be in denial about that one.

Well we've got Nomad out there so if there's anything big, we'll here about it ^_^

I'll try to post some input. Soon as the conference is done I'll likely eat dinner then come back to the hotel to get ready for whatever. I'll try to post at that point. Even thought to bring a pad of paper to take notes while walking around. Hopefully I'll be a good reporter and keep you guys informed. I'll try =)