GDC ‘09: Liveblog; Handheld news from Iwata’s Nintendo keynote

It’s the first day of GDC proper and that can only mean the first big 9am keynote, and that can only mean huge queues, really huge queues. In fact these queues are so big, we’ve given up queuing; preferring to stay in our air conditioned penthouse suite and spill cocktails over the keyboard when anything exciting happens...

Let’s hope we need plenty of cleanex for Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's keynote then.

It’s entitled 'Discovering New Development Opportunities' - well this is the Game Developers Conference after all.

08:26 PDT
The queue is already building nicely. Indeed, we picked up the first Tweet that it had formed about an hour ago. There were 15 people queuing even then.

08:38 PDT
Continuing the rumour, Joystiq says the Japanese version of WiiWare is due to come back online at 10:00 PDT, which is when the keynote ends.

08:42 PDT
Love the cynicism from reillyhawk's Twitter
"Today is the Nintendo event at the GDC. Let's see if there any more fanboy dreams I have left that they can crush."

tadhgk is more constructive: "Wondering how many times Iwata will use the word social in the Nintendo keynote"

08:46 PDT
Okay, the feeds are starting to come up. 1UP is complaining about the boring music. Kotaku is holding tight.

08:49 PDT
1UP's Jeremy Parish is now complaining that he had to wait in the cold for 30 minutes. Poor little lamb.

08:51 PDT
Wonder if Miyamoto will dress up this year? Princess Peach would be great.

08:53 PDT
Tweeters are being pulled in different directions; RawkusX reckons GAF's hype train has pulled him onboard, while RichardAM is expecting to be disappointed, saying " Gaming GAF is preparing themselves for a letdown."

08:57 PDT
Behind the scenes, a small, rather portly Japanese man is clearing his throat and trying to imagine the audience standing naked before him.

09:00 PDT
And they're off...
Actually not yet...

09:04 PDT
He's poked his head around the curtain and gone back in. Groundhog Day. 30 days more of winter. Reggie's in the house though.

09:06 PDT
Eurogamer is suggesting a vodka shot everytime he mentions the words "accessibility", "female" or "broadening the demographic".

09:09 PDT
Okay, GDC introductions over. Cue small, slightly porty Japanese man onto stage. Wearing a leather jacket.

09:11 PDT
He's talking up past glories. Wii and DS beyond our wildest dreams. DS over 100 million shipped. Wii fastest ever to 50 million.

09:12 PDT
"Software sells hardware" truism rolled out.

09:14 PDT
Now he reckons it's not true that only Nintendo games sell well on Nintendo consoles. He's obviously been smoking something waccky.

09:15 PDT
The old 'I used to be a developer schtick' is coming out. Wonder if we will get the 'beating heart of a developer" speech from GDC 2005 again? Later in that show someone queried, "Whose chest did you cut it out of?" Harsh. But. Funny.

09:18 PDT
Talking about the Death Spiral for developers. Yeah. Over 5,000 have been sacked in the past year, dude. Move along. Start talking about new development opportunities.

09:20 PDT
No Miyamoto dressed as Peach. Just his smiling face on the bigscreen. "He is curious." Presumably not bi-curious.

09:21 PDT
Miyamoto works in an "Upward Spiral". Iwata has obviously been on a creative speechwriting course or something. Miyamoto "almost never" writes things down. Clever. No papertrail. No blame when it all goes wrong.

09:24 PDT
Miyamoto is a perfectionist. What Miyamoto is is isn't here mate. Stop talking about him. Move on.

09:26 PDT
Is there's a Steve Jobs subtext behind this?

09:29 PDT
Miyamoto is never angry. Presumably not karma cancer then.

09:30 PDT
Eurogamer archly points out there haven't been any graphs for 18 minutes.

09:31 PDT
Offline from keynote, Eurogamer reporting the new WiiWare update means you can download and run stuff (including Virtual Console) from SD cards - required for DSi but presumably they already had that feature live in Japan.

09:34 PDT
Miyamoto practises "Random employee kidnapping." That sounds like fun. Rob - the van's coming for you!

09:35 PDT
In order to surprise consumers, you have to surprise yourself.

09:37 PDT
Now talking about the development of Rhythm Heaven game, which is released in Europe in April I think. Development and prototyping took years. Developers had dance lessons.

09:38 PDT
Wonder if Iwata is himself dancing around the question of whether he actually has anything to announce with 22 minutes to go...

09:40 PDT
Kotaku is reporting the first "Whoop" from the audience.

09:41 PDT
Everyone in the audience is going to get a free copy of the game. Hardly Microsoft's flat screen TV giveaway of previous years but am sure Chris will hand his over to his DS editor.

09:43 PDT
47 percent of DS buyers in US in 2008 were female.

09:44 PDT
Looking like we're going to be coming up dry on real hard news unless he has a last minute rabbit in the hat. Miyamoto dressed as Jessica Rabbit?

09:46 PDT
Now waffling on about Wii Balance Board and the new WiiWare game Rock and Roll Climber. Are we making this bit up?

09:48 PDT
Building up to an announcement about storage for WiiWare games.

09:51 PDT
Bill Trinen comes on stage and says - and we kid you not - "I am here to show you a menu." He isn't a waiter though.

09:52 PDT
New firmware for Wii. Save up to 240 games on an SD card. Is anyone else as bored as me?

09:54 PDT
Bring on the dancing girls. Or there has to be clowns. Preferably crying clowns.

09:57 PDT
Or fat lady clowns crying and singing.

09:58 PDT
Finally. talk of DSiWare. Two new titles. Moving Memo - you can draw things to personalise your entertainment, whatever that means. Okay, it's a simple animation package. Like a flipbook. Plus you can add sound effects. And upload and download from server.

10:00 PDT
Wonder what the Time To Penis is of Moving Memo? It's the new metric that's sweeping GDC thanks to ex-Edge editor Margarent Robertson's talk yesterday about Spore.

10:02 PDT
Next. WarioWare Snapped. This uses the DSi camera. Like EyeToy. A collection of mini-games.

10:04 PDT
Actually not so like EyeToy as it only takes a single photo of you as you're doing stupid things. Let's face it, DSi camera is only 0.3MP.

10:06 PDT
DSi pre-orders are more than DS (doesn't mention DS Lite though). Two million DSi sold in Japan to date.

10:08 PDT
Best until last. New DS Zelda game. Some sort of railroad building game with dungeons. Zelda Railroad Dungeon Tycoon?

10:10 PDT
Nope. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (working title). Think Phantom Hourglass with trains instead of ships.

10:11 PDT
Out later on this year. Link wears a train conductors uniform.

10:11 PDT
Maybe Miyamoto in a conductors uniform at E3 then? But that's all folks. Nintendo press conference over for another year.

Produced by sucking out the brainstems of 1UP, Eurogamer, Kotaku, and vg247.