E3 08: Nintendo explains Zelda and Mario confirmation

Were new Mario and Zelda titles for Wii confirmed at E3?

It seemed so

when Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told an excited E3 audience that our internal teams that make Mario and Zelda are both hard at work, and will bring new titles to Wii”.

But talk soon turned to what these teams were working on.

Speaking to IGN, Nintendo development legend Shigeru Miyamoto has offered some more insight into the Iwata statement: The Zelda team in particular always works on Zelda titles. The core members of the Zelda team have for a very long time now been focused on Zelda games, and continue to focus on Zelda games, so they are hard at work and working away.”

And then, of course, we have the DS Zelda team as well, so even there we’re having some switching of people in and out where the DS team is mixing in with the Wii team and working on the Wii version.”

And of the evolution of the Zelda franchise, Miyamoto added: "I don’t necessarily think it will change that drastically, but I think that Zelda is a franchise that does need some big new unique ideas. And so the team right now is very focused on trying to find those ideas."

The lack of discussion regarding the Mario team, however, obviously leads to its own conclusions.