Then months fly by with a bare trickle of DS games, giving Sony ample time to reveal that the PSP will launch with full-bore online wireless multiplayer. And when we finally do get a new A-list DS game - WarioWare Touched - it has no multiplayer of any kind. Except for a simple little Pong style game that requires both players to be on the same DS.

Not that multiplayer games are the only games worth playing, just that those three little words have become the new marketing war: Online, Wireless, Multiplayer. Nintendo has to know by now that they can't promise something that everyone else is doing and then not deliver it.

One thing about Nintendo: they don't like to fight on other peoples' turf. Sony and Microsoft can scream each other blue as they war over online, over graphics, over exclusives, over demographics... and Nintendo will be off in the corner watching butterflies through a window. As gamers, we all know that Nintendo will eventually say something, even if it's completely unconnected to the other guys' conversation... there's just no telling when they'll say it.

GDC 2005 must have seemed right, because Nintendo tossed some serious moves out there. First, ol' Reggie starts dropping bombs, then Iwata-san confirmed everything.

Animal Crossing DS will have online wireless multiplayer.

I was all set to accept an Animal Crossing without online wireless multiplayer. I figured it would have local wi-fi, and that would fall under the familiar category of Nintendo Has Decided This Will Do. But the fever dream of online AC is approaching.

And other games too, but quite frankly, AC is so big that I don't have room in my brain to consider portable online versions of Mario Kart or Metroid or whatever else. Yet.

I don't know how they're doing it... other than some vague mentions of Nintendo just snapping their fingers and creating a free network for DS systems to seek and connect to, once they sense a local wi-fi connection. (Like my house!) Will it run just like the GameCube version, where each player gets their own town and a train connects you to whatever town you want to visit? Will players have to permanently live in shared towns worldwide, a la MMORPG? Will you be able to download new items into your game? Will you be able to have more than one character per game?

An Animal Crossing I can stuff in my pocket. I'll never miss the Spring Sports Day again.

Greg Costikyan has a great post-GDC rant where he flambes Microsoft's Bigger Will Be Better speech as well as Nintendo's "heart of a gamer" speech (slightly underbaked given their onetime status as the industry's dictator.) Having read them both, the differences are obvious: Microsoft is all about the hardware and Nintendo is all about the software. Hardcore online high-def graphics vs. a game where you talk to dogs. The Xbox is going to continue to battle with Sony over the teen testosterone set. Nintendo is going to continue being Nintendo. Xbox Live will be even better (they promised a "consistant interface," which is a phrase they probably copied directly from Apple.com); Xbox games will continue to look great but there won't be enough of them that are worth a damn. Nintendo will run their own race, aiming game after game squarely at those too young for Xbox and those too old for Xbox.

Nintendo had to reveal this news. With the PSP hitting soon, they needed to give DS owners something chewy. And they squeaked in some good GameCube news as well: new Zelda trailer, the Revolution will be GameCube backwards-compatible (there goes your weirdo no-controller rumors), and a new Pokemon GameCube game that won't suck.