Speaking at a recent Nintendo strategy meeting in Tokyo, the company's president, Satoru Iwata, not only confirmed three previously unannounced GameCube games, but he also alluded to a mysterious new Nintendo product that will be formally announced next spring.

　　"All these complex, large-capacity games of today require enormous amounts of energy and time of users," Iwata said. "I want to release a very different product, and by next spring we'll be ready to announce the details."

　　Whether or not the product in question is a successor to the GameCube or the GBA remains to be seen, but what is certain is that Iwata believes the GameCube still has plenty to offer. Iwata stated that he still believes it's possible for Nintendo to sell its predicted 6 million GameCube consoles for the fiscal year ending March 2004, despite the fact that only 80,000 were sold worldwide in the first quarter--boosted, he hopes, by the arrival of upcoming games such as Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Pokémon Colosseum. Iwata went on to confirm that both a GameCube version of the GBA game WarioWare Inc. and a Namco-developed Donkey Kong game will be released in Japan before the end of the year, and that a new Zelda adventure is scheduled for release sometime in 2004.

　　Also mentioned at the meeting was a new rewards scheme that will see gamers who buy Nintendo products in the US and Japan earning points similar to those awarded in frequent-flier schemes. The program, called "Club Nintendo," will allow gamers to exchange their points for items related to Nintendo games. A similar scheme is already available to gamers in Europe, where "stars" earned with every Nintendo product bought and registered can be spent on screensavers, desktop wallpaper, calendars, iron-on T-shirt transfers, and the like.

　　"We'll begin the new program in Japan and the United States by the end of this year," Iwata said. "We aim to have 300,000-500,000 users sign up for the program in the first year."

　　We'll bring you more information on all of Nintendo's products as soon as it becomes available.