Get ready, Nintendo (OTC BB: NTDOY.PK) Wii fans. You've got a lot of cool games to look forward to.
At this week's E3 conference, Nintendo of America CEO Reggie Fils-Aime said that by the end of the year, the Wii should hopefully have a library of 350 games. Right now, there are 150 games available to all the Donkey Kong disciples out there.
Judging by the games showcased at E3, the video game pioneer won't let its Mario franchise rest anytime soon. Super Mario Galaxy will take the iconic plumber (and nemesis of giant apes) into space in a sci-fi adventure. Super Smash Bros. Brawl -- a very popular game where various Nintendo characters square off in no-holds-barred slugfests -- will certainly add further value to the platform. It may not be up my alley, but the go-cart racing franchise Mario Kart will get the Wii treatment as well. Meanwhile, the first-person shooter Metroid Prime 3: Corruption also has a good chance of being a hit. And if you long for the days of Donkey Kong, the big ape's new Barrel Blast will debut in early October.
Another key game, dubbed Wii Fit, is Nintendo's latest effort to get gamers up off the couch. Players stand on a special controller, currently dubbed the Wii Balance Board, which measures shifts in their weight and center of gravity. The Balance Board allows the Wii to log pushups, lead yoga and aerobics routines, track dance moves, or let players swing virtual hula hoops or block onscreen soccer balls.
Out of all these titles, I think Wii Fit holds the most promise in appealing to casual gamers. It'll probably have a short, gentle learning curve, and it fits perfectly with the Wii's image of a system that actually makes users burn calories while playing games. As my Foolish colleague Jack Uldrich mentioned in a piece on virtual competition, people do become awfully excited while interacting with the Wii. Plus, given the popularity of Konami's (NYSE: KNM) Dance Dance Revolution -- a workout in and of itself -- the potential appeal of Wii Fit becomes obvious.
Let's not forget that major third-party releases will excite Wii owners, too. Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS) will bring the new Madden NFL game to the Wiimote universe in August, following its initiative to increase support for the Wii. Activision's (Nasdaq: ATVI) Guitar Hero III is set to rock out, and THQ (Nasdaq: THQI) will have a new Destroy All Humans! adventure, subtitled Big Willy Unleashed, ready at some point. Sure, these titles aren't all exclusive to the Wii, but they nevertheless compose an important part of the young system's library expansion. And remember, the Wii's motion-sensing controllers will make playing Madden 08 a different experience than any other console can offer.
The next several months should herald great business for Nintendo. Sony (NYSE: SNE) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) are still playing catch-up; Microsoft, in fact, is having a hard time just making consoles that function properly. The one threat to the Wii is aggressive price-cutting; Sony has already performed a first round of cost adjustment, and the Xbox 360 will eventually see some price relief in the future. Mario doesn't seem concerned, though; he's just happy about the fresh batch of new software to come.
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Fool contributor Steven Mallas owns shares of Activision. As of this writing, he was ranked 16,355 out of more than 60,000 investors in the CAPS system. Don't know what CAPS is? Check it out. The Fool has a disclosure policy.
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