Banjo Out, Diddy In

At E3, Nintendo was planning on Banjo-Kazooie being its big holiday title. That changed yesterday, as Banjo-Kazooie moved back to a release on March 16, 1998.

Why the delay? Nintendo's Corporate Communications Manager Perrin Kaplan told GS News that "Rare and Nintendo believe more work on the game will yield a superior product, thus the date change."

In its place, Nintendo will release Diddy Kong Racing, a title that was revealed yesterday and will be seen by the press today. Already screenshots of the game have gone up at Nintendo's official site, and from the looks of it, the game will be a winner.

Yoshi's Story has also been pushed back past the holiday season, and will be released on February 9. The reason being that translation from Japanese to English will take a while to finish.

Other re-arranging of the Nintendo schedule is expected, with the fate of Zelda and Griffey probably ending up being sometime in 1998.

GS News will have more news from Nintendo's press summit later today.

These screenshots were taken from Nintendo's site promoting Diddy Kong.