Iwata's GDC Keynote Unleashes the SD Card, Zelda

Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's devout leader, gave an interesting keynote at GDC on Wednesday.  While major announcements were in abundance, Iwata took time to focus on Nintendo's design philosophy, specifically about Shigeru Miyamoto's "Way," as it came to be known.

To cut straight to the big announcements, Nintendo not only announced specifics on their storage solution we heard about at their Fall Conference, but they actually released it as well.  The Wii is now SDHC (High-Capacity SD card) capable.  Which means that SD cards upwards of 32GB currently can be supported on the Wii.

"Supported" is more of an understatement, though.  As of the announcement, Wii System Menu 4.0 (ahem, v4), has been made available to all Wii owners with a working internet connection to download it.  The new update creates an SD Menu for games and channels to be launched directly from the memory card.  Games can also be downloaded directly to the memory card as well, making the storage solution relatively seamless.  With a small loading time, and larger storage options, here's to hoping for more DLC.

Wii would like to shop

With the extra space also comes extra games.  Iwata announced the Virtual Console Arcade, which focuses on arcade titles being made available in the Wii Shop channel.  It will launch stateside with four games, likely with more being released in the upcoming Mondays that the Wii Shop sees updates.  Games like The Tower of Druaga, Mappy, Space Harrier, and Star Force saw mentions, with many more to come.

The Wii Shop got some of the biggest retro news, however, with Square Enix Support.  A sequel to Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King will be available this year, titled Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord.  And just as the excitement sets in with a certifiably excellent WiiWare title to look forward to, Japan will receive the first six Final Fantasy games starting in May.  The United States will get these games eventually, but according to Wired, Final Fantasy I and IV will not be translated.

A new Zelda game

It seems that the DS will be getting a new Zelda game, possibly in the form of a sequel to Phantom Hourglass.  Titled "Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks," the game boasted a similar cel-shaded Link riding a train that shoots cannonballs.  Interesting enough.

Considering past reports saw that both the DS and Wii Zelda teams were "hard at work," there is no reason to assume that this is the only Zelda game we will see for the rest of this console generation.  We'll surely see more at E3.

Wii are so successful

Iwata got a bit of time to boast Nintendo's success.  In fact, hardware install base numbers are more astounding than ever:

• Wii - 40 million (as reported, the Wii has now reached 50 million [AP])
• Xbox 360 - 23 million
• Playstation 3 - 16 million
• Nintendo Balance Board - 14 million

In possibly the biggest smack-in-the-face-take-that-competition move, Iwata pulled out the big Wii Fit guns against a console competitor.  Semi-surprisingly, Nintendo's Balance Board peripheral has almost caught up to Sony's PS3, shown in the data from "global life-to-date" sales.

While we understand that only one plays Blu-Ray movies, is compatible with hundreds of games, and lets you chat online with others in a virtual environment; both may be able to withstand 250 pounds.  Really, Iwata?  You had to be THAT guy?

Sources: Wired's fantastic liveblog and Ars Technica

GDC images courtesy of Ars Technica