Nintendo prepping 'big' holiday

As compared to years past, the 2007 E3 Media & Business Summit was relatively light on big game announcements, and most publishers were content to merely share new looks at their holiday 2007 wares. However, Nintendo was an exception to that rule, given that the publisher took the opportunity to unveil not just the next installment in the popular Mario Kart series, but also the game it hopes will seed the next big thing in gaming: Wii Fit.

With this year's E3 on the horizon, Nintendo of America president and chief operations officer Reggie Fils-Aime is already greasing the hype machine for how the Wii maker will attempt to steal this year's show. Speaking to GameTrailers TV's Geoff Keighley, Fils-Aime said that Nintendo would be laying out its lineup for the rest of the year at the show, and said, "We're going to have great new content maximizing all of our key franchises, it's going to be a good second half."

Fils-Aime didn't divulge details on what said products in key franchises would be, but he did mention that Nintendo has an ace up its sleeve to capture gamers' mindshare during this year's holiday rush. "There's going to be a big game for the holidays that the gamers will want," said the former Nintendo VP of sales and marketing. "All I can tell you is that what we announce during E3 is going to be fantastic. The gamers are going to be excited and the expanded audience is going to be excited."

Responding to prodding queries from Keighley, Fils-Aime also mentioned the long-under-the-radar Wii Music Orchestra. "We were just in Japan, we saw a range of different products, we saw a sneak peak as to how that's developing, it's looking great," he said. "So who knows, maybe that's one of the things we talk about at E3."