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11:55 am: The Iwata GDC 2009 Keynote is going to start in about 5 minutes! Watch this post for all the latest news brought to you in one spot from all around the web!

12:01 pm: As always, loud music is playing and the press is picking out their seats. Reggie is chatting it up in the front.

12:08 pm: Kotaku just noticed a Metal Gear logo flash across the screen:

McWhertor:  Why did the Metal Gear Solid logo just run across the screen?

McWhertor:  Is that just queue up for Kojima’s talk tomorrow? Or does Nintendo have something else up its sleeve?

12:14: Iwata is on stage:

Global shipments of Wii are confirmed at 50 milllion, making it the fastest selling game hardware.

12:17: “Many of you are concerned that you cannot compete with Nintendo, but later I will explain to you why this is not the case.”

Ohhh, that’s a good “burn” Iwata. Nice, very nice.

12:19: Iwata is reminiscing about the good ol’ SNES days. He says he met Miyamoto siad it might be good after a few more months of work. He’s pretty nmuch saying how good ideas lead to success.

“He sees opportunities, where others do not…I don’t think I have to talk about his track record. He is leveraging opportunities better than anyone else in development today.”

12:23: Powerpoint time! Point 1: Ideas are everywhere.

Point 2: Personal communication is key

Points 3 + 4: Prototype Stage and Small Teams
They’re showing early prototypes of Wii Sports.

“It’s funny that Miyamoto was at one time my game design mentor. Now he reports to me.”

“Miyamoto actually encourages lots of errors just in case a mistake yeilds a fun idea.”

This is pretty much how Shiggy’s  game devlopment process/love fest.

12:30: Apparently Iwata stresses a LOT when a game is close to being done. Checking in on how a game is doing when it’s nearly done”is not very good for my mental health.”

12:32: Iwata says we have “Just one more Miyamoto Story.”

12:33: Miyamoto used to kidnap a random Nintendo employee, hands them a controller and asks them to play a game to see how it would appeal to casual players.

12:37: “He will offer no help to the kidnapee, but will merely observe them try and play the game, noting their reactions. Elements that frustrate the person will be tweaked, elements that please them amplified.” -Gamespot

12:39: “- We find out that Nintendo’s developers had to learn dance moves in order to better tune their rhythm, which helped them to create Rhythm Tengoku/Rhythm Tengoku Gold” – GoNintendo

12:40: Rhythm Tengoku/Rhythm Tengoku Gold will be a DSi launch title.

12:42: “Apparently the game’s core team was just three people, who spent over a year turning the GBA game Rizumu Tengoku into Rhythm Heaven for the DS.”- Gamespot

12:43: Everyone in the audience will recieve a free copy of Rhythym heaven when it launches in 11 days.

12:46: 47% of people who bought a DS last year were females.

12:47: “Many of these people would have never bought a Nintendo product had a veteran not brought one into their home.”

12:49: The Wii Blanace board has sold as many units as the PS3!

12:50 ROCK AND ROLL CLIMBER announced! Simulates rock climbing using the blance board! It’s a WiiWare title. No word on a release date yet.

12:51 Wii storage solution folks! Here it comes!

12:52: Wii Menu 4.0 has an SD card channel. Supports high capacity SD cards. Up to 32 GB on an SD card. Bill Trinen says it can hold 240 games.

12:54: Games and channels are playable off of the SD cards!

12:55: Wii Menu 4.0 and SD card channel available NOW!!

12:57: My Life as a Darklord and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years both coming to WiiWare later this year.

12:58: “Final Fantasy I and IV also coming to US Wiis in 2009–the first five games in the series will hit Japan as well.” – Gamespot

1:00 pm: DSi tool lets users draw and animate said drawings. Bill Trinen is demo-ing it on stage now.

1:02: “You can speed up and slow down animations, and even add sounds with the DS’s built-in microphone.” – Gamespot

1:04 Wario Snapped! is now being shown off. Its a collection of Mini games that are played with the DSi camera.

1:06: Animations can be downloaded from a central server. Yay, animation sharing! Ohhhhh, there will be lots of inappropriate images (read: porn).

1:08 Virtual Console arcade announced! Arcade games available for download today!! Sega, NAMCO, TAITO TITLES!

1:11: New Zelda DS game out of nowhere–The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.

1:13: Link rides a train with a mounted canon!

1:14 Super Punch-Out will be on the VC on Monday

1:15: It’s over folks! We’ll be doing a wrap up soon!

This was a pretty damn good GDC press conference in my opinion. Lots of good Nintendo Morsels!