NiGHTS onto Wii?

Source: A teaser ad at the back of the April issue of the UK's Official Nintendo Magazine, with an assist from readers of GoNintendo. The official story: "We have nothing official to announce at this time."--A Sega of America representative. What we heard: The latest issue of the UK Official Nintendo Magazine contains a teaser for a world exclusive in its next issue. The full-page ad simply shows a field of stars, with a blurb reading "Step back in time as a classic game makes its long overdue return!" A scan of the ad was posted on GoNintendo, and readers quickly began speculating about what game it was hinting at. Kid Icarus, StarTropics, Star Fox, and NiGHTS Into Dreams were among the first guesses. But when a reader transposed a familiar piece of NiGHTS promotional art over the ad, it became clear which one of those guesses was on the right track. The outline of the image matched up nearly perfectly with a cluster of stars in the ad. NiGHTS certainly fits the profile suggested by the ad. Originally released on the Sega Saturn in August of 1996, the Yuji Naka-developed game met with critical acclaim, even if its commercial standing failed to elevate the ill-fated Sega Saturn above its third-place finish in that generation's console wars. As for the "long overdue return," NiGHTS never received a proper sequel. The last time Sega displayed the NiGHTS brand with any prominence was in 2003's Game Boy Advance title Sonic Pinball Party, which featured a NiGHTS-themed table. While the game in question certainly appears to be NiGHTS, there are a few questions. The teaser doesn't actually mention a system for the unannounced game, but the rumor is spreading primarily with the game in question being developed for the Wii. And if it actually is a Wii game, there's still the question of whether or not this is a new retail release for the system (a sequel or a remake of the original game) or a direct port for the Virtual Console service. No Sega Saturn games have been announced for the Virtual Console, but Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the Xbox Live Arcade and its sub-100MB size shows that older CD-based games can be compressed to semi-reasonable download sizes that will fit in the Wii's 512MB of internal flash memory. Some gamers burned by magazine April Fools' jokes in the past have pointed out that the teaser in question comes from the April edition of the Official Nintendo Magazine, an assertion a moderator at the magazine's official forums has flatly denied. "We do have respect for our readers and we don't set out to purposely mislead people," the mod's post reads. "This is not an April Fool." The aligning of the stars in the Official Nintendo Magazine teaser page is plenty convincing, and combined with the mag's insistence that it isn't an April Fools' Day joke and Sega's silence on the issue, we're going to go with the rumor on this one. The only questions are whether we're looking at a remake, a sequel, or a port and in which format it will be released. Bogus or not bogus?: Not bogus.

NiGHTS onto Wii?

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