Written by: Mark Lee and Nathan Whincup

For those of you who have been watching our humble news pages for the past few weeks, you'll know that every developer under the sun has announced and detailed their E3 2008 line-ups, except for Nintendo (and with the exception of Captain Rainbow and Wii MotionPlus). Ninty are traditionally secretive, which means that every year we have the opportunity to have a right good guess at what they could possibly be bringing us on Christmas Day for gamers. Nintendo's conference is almost upon us, so we take a look at the titles and announcements which Nintendo could have in store for us.

VERY LIKELY...

1. The Return of a Major Franchise
Long-rumoured to be Animal Crossing (see below), Nintendo have (at least) gone on record saying they will give the traditional gamer something to get their teeth into. With Retro Studios working on something other than Metroid and most 'internal' Nintendo divisions not currently working on any announced projects, we firmly believe that a good selection of 'core gamer' titles will be unveiled.

2. Animal Crossing Wii
We will collectively eat some form of head gear if this one isn't one of the big titles at this year's conference. It's been on Japanese release lists since last year, and in addition to the countless stories and 'leaks' which add to the probability of the title appearing at E3, the rather trustworthy NGamer Magazine have just printed apparent confirmation that the title will be unveiled and released in 2008.

We expect larger towns, more character and environment customisation, some excellent Wi-Fi multiplayer and sharing, and...

3. Voice Chat
Yes, we went there. We've been happily chatting away on our DS's since 2006 and the launch of Metroid Prime Hunters; we've taunted our opponents as we Tail Whipped their Pidgey into oblivion and laughed in the face of combos with Puzzle League DS, and so we think it's about time the Wii got in on the action. We can see this working well with Animal Crossing (among other titles), providing Nintendo push the Wii's parental lock to prevent a "Nintendo Endorse Pedophiles" campaign spearheaded by the infamous Daily Mail.

4. Death by Powerpoint
Now that Nintendo are sitting pretty, we're going to see more PR spouting than we've ever seen before. Wonder how Wii Fit fared against the likes of GTA 4 and Metal Gear Solid? Don't Google it... listen to Reggie and Iwata talk about it for a good thirty minutes � complete with graphs. Lots of graphs.

Want to know sales figures and data for the Nintendo Channel, WiiWare and the Virtual Console? It's all going to be here in another half hour of snooze-inducing PR talk. (This is when you traditionally - and frantically - post grammatically incorrect and cynical "OMG - MEGATON!" posts in our forums!)

5. Miyamoto's Wii Remote Movements
He does it every year, Shigsy gets on stage and waves a controller/console/weapon around like mad. Showing off his latest project in said 'traditional' wacky mannerism is what these expo's were made for. This year we think we'll see a development on the conductor moment in which Miyamoto will conduct an entire "band". With Wii Music having been in development since the actual dawn of sound itself, we feel that this is the time Nintendo show Activision and Harmonix how their own music title stacks up. If Reggie dances around the stage, Wiimote to mouth and playing it like a pixie, we'll shriek with delight! (We imagine that onlookers will mistake the scene for a recreation of the bit in King Kong where the monkey breaks free of its shackles, however.)

6. 'Moto's Got A Brand New Badge
It's common knowledge that in recent years, Shigsy has been basing his latest creations on his current hobbies. The gaming god took up gardening and Pikmin was born. The man buys a puppy and brings us Nintendogs. His latest creation, Wii Fit, was spawned when he realised he was putting on a few pounds and decided to record his weight � it went on to sell around 5 million units and remains in the multiformat top 10 to this day. What's Miyamoto been doing with his spare time recently? We know he likes to play the guitar and banjo in his spare time, though that could be where Wii Music came from. Our guess? Shigsy will announce that he's been dabbling in the arts of either puppetry or painting, resulting in the resurrection of Marionette or Mario Paint respectively.

7. Disaster Incoming!
Now that the world is a safer place (debatable, but we'll continue), we wholly expect Nintendo to unleash Disaster: Day of Crisis onto the gaming world. With more time spent in development than anyone previously thought, we're expecting big things from this. With a unique backdrop and opportunity for both amazing graphics and Wiimote functionality, we're hoping the word 'disaster' is only in the title.

8. Balance!
Having pushed more boundaries with Wii Fit, there will be a slew of (primarily EA flavoured) balance board titles on display. We're therefore expecting Nintendo to offer a spin on a traditional genre via balance board functionality. Whether it's snowboarding, platforming or an FPS, when there's a peripheral involved, Nintendo usually deliver the goods.

9. Kid Icarus DS or WiiWare
The whole world seems to be desperate for some sort of sequel to Gunpei Yokoi's NES/Game Boy creation starring a young angel who was tasked with cleansing an underworld of a dark army, defeating Medusa and saving the Goddess of Light. Pit's recent appearance in Brawl led many to believe that Nintendo would be bringing him back in a brand new Wii adventure. We're not so sure.

We haven't seen a Kid Icarus game in over 16 years, creating a brand new epic instalment for the Wii would be a bit risky considering most of the new audience won't have a clue who Angel Boy is. We reckon a new 2.5D platformer which sticks close to its roots would be a sensible decision. A WiiWare or DS release could retain the core gameplay and keep it remotely similar to the original two games as opposed to a Zelda-style adventure by Retro, Factor 5 or whoever else you crazy kids are dreaming of at the moment.

10. Capcom's mystery Wii project
NGamer have been hinting at this for two issues now, and by the sounds of it they heard about the project from Capcom themselves. We honestly don't know what the title could be, but Capcom don't appear to have any more games to reveal at E3 now that Flock has turned out to be a UFO-'em-up for XBLA, PSN and the PC. We think that there's a strong possibility that Capcom's project has been produced for Nintendo (think of Namco with Star Fox Assault, and to be more optimistic, Sega with F-Zero GX) and therefore will be revealed in Nintendo's conference come Tuesday.

UNLIKELY...

1. Rockstar Unveil an EXCUSIVE Wii Franchise!
Having taken a mauling with the Manhunt 2 debacle and seeing the mediocre Table Tennis and the brilliant Bully fare worse in the market than cholera-ridden toilet brushes, we feel that Rockstar have had enough of the Wii. With a few bajillion copies of GTA IV sold, perhaps Rockstar are starting to cover the GTA development costs. What better way to say "thanks" to Wii owners than by releasing a 'clamoured for' GTA PS2 Trilogy pack. Wow, thanks Rockstar... more old games!

2. Mozart Hero
Having been born out of guitars and only recently discovering more instruments, it's a wonder Activision and Harmonix haven't turned their hands to a piano peripheral (only to out-do each other if anything). Always wanted to play classic 80's synth? So have we! Just don't come crying when you realise you paid �70 for only 5 keys!

3. Updates and Patches
Whilst other companies seem happy to update and patch their software, Nintendo will, perhaps never take this route. Having witnessed the farce that was the infamous Guitar Hero 3 sound issue, disk replacements will continue to be the order of the day on Wii.

4. New Wii!
Remember the DVD playback we were promised? Remember those snazzy coloured consoles at E3 2005? Well, with the excitingly colourful plain-white Wii still selling like hot cakes, the above features could launch in, say, 2010 at the earliest. It would be nice to see SOME variation at least. But, yeah, unlikely.

5. Mario and Sonic at the 2010 World Cup
Noticed the stonkingly good sales of Mario and Sonic's last outing? Now you can expect SEGA to announce more of the same! With the World Cup in 2010, expect SEGA to actually realise they created a title called Soccer Slam on the GameCube. As Nintendo stole that formula with Mario Strikers (turning it into a commercial success), watch SEGA as they plan on getting their own back. It's going to be exciting seeing SEGA re-unite Sonic and Mario for the third time in some kind of officially licensed 'soccer' action title. Even more exciting than seeing overly-long 'charged' cutscenes of Sonic going yellow. Nah, we think SEGA will still be busy advertising Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games in 2010 to even consider birthing a new cash cow.

6. Wii Storage Solution
As recently as a month ago, Nintendo have been actively encouraging us to clean out our bustling fridges. Nintendo Europe's Laurent Fischer even went as far as to dismiss the demographic rallying for a solution as "geeks and otaku". We imagine he got into a bit of trouble when he went on record shortly after that interview with an apology for any harm that may have been done by his previous comments, and the announcement that Nintendo were looking into a storage solution that didn't involve the use of additional hardware or peripherals such as an external hard drive. It seems to us that Fischer's comment was purely to save his hide, we doubt Nintendo will have anything to show at E3. Perhaps they'll have something to show at E For All, by which point we'll have most likely cleared out our fridges for the umpteenth fracking time.

7. Um Bongo!
We all know how much Nintendo hate their DK Bongo peripherals by now. Donkey Kong Barrel Blast developers Paon were most likely mind-wiped of any memories of the Bongos, and WiiWare developers Bplus were ordered to cut support out of Plattchen � twist 'n' paint after a year of Nintendo knowing full well that they planned to release it with Bongo support. With the rumoured appearance of Wii Music at this year's E3, we'd imagine Nintendo will stick yet another knife in the corpse of Donkey Konga and his rather fun musical drums.

8. Challenger Approaching
A new hardware manufacturing behemoth announces that they will be joining the console wars and aim to become the fourth major competitor in the current generation. We think three battling titans are quite enough, thank you very much.

9. Nintendo announce a camera add-on for the Wii or DS
There's no two ways about this, Nintendo are reluctant enough to offer any form of communication whilst playing over Wi-Fi Connection with friends, let alone give us visual access to our opponent's living room. The Daily Mail and Jack Thompson would have a field day with that one (that is, if Jack Thompson wasn't banned from practising law - burn!).

10. A new handheld
Speculation was rife a few months back that Nintendo were on the verge of announcing either a completely new handheld, a successor to the Game Boy or a redesign of the DS Lite. Considering the current iteration continues to sell through hundreds of thousands of units in a week, we don't think the DS is in any immediate danger of being shown up by the PSP (or the Ngage, but that goes without saying). Also, third parties are thriving on the DS now, it'd be a poor move to alienate those developers by releasing a brand new system � if anything we'd like Nintendo to localise a few wacky Japanese and American titles, including Chibi-Robo!, Jam With The Band (and its DX successor) and Rhythm Tengoku.

Do you agree with our predictions, or are you under the impression that we were inhaling solvents at the time of writing? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.