WarioWare pokes DS, DSi

Nintendo followed up on yesterday's financial report with an operational briefing from president Satoru Iwata recapping the company's performance and offering a peek at some upcoming games, including the first downloadable titles specifically created for the recently revealed DSi system.

Iwata revealed that Nintendo is prepping a slate of WarioWare titles for release as downloadable DSiWare games. A variety of minigames from the Game Boy Advance and DS installments of WarioWare will be sold as DSiWare titles, and some original games making use of the system's camera functionality will be packaged together as WarioWare: Photograph.

Iwata said that for WarioWare: Photograph, players will place the DSi on a table and then step back so their silhouette appears onscreen (thanks to the camera implanted in the system's hinges). Simply moving their bodies will allow players to complete simple activities. One nose-picking minigame shown called for players to line up their extended fingers with a pair of floating nostrils. WarioWare: Photograph is scheduled for release in late December, around the time the DSiWare store goes live.

For WarioWare fans with legacy DS hardware, Iwata announced WarioWare Myself. The standard DS game will let players create their own minigames for the series and then share them with other players. Nintendo is also working on a WiiWare counterpart version of the game that will let players try out the created games on their home consoles, but it will lack the minigame creation tool.

WarioWare games weren't the only new products Iwata talked about. In addition to a series of six DSiWare ArtStyle puzzle games, Nintendo is contemplating releasing downloadable utilities for the system, like a clock and a calculator featuring the publisher's popular characters, or public transit route maps.