Nintendo have revealed that the 'proper' Pokémon titles for the DS generation will see retail in Japan before the end of the year!

In widely unreported news from the DS Conference earlier this month, Nintendo appears to have stated that Pokémon Diamond and Pearl will be unleashed upon the Japanese sometime before the end of the year - Nintendo's first mention of the titles since their original announcement way back at E3 2004, almost two years ago.

With this news in mind, the games are almost certain to appear this May at E3 - and we'll finally get our first look at the titles, which have to date been kept top-secret by the Big N. We knew they've been in development, but there has been zero details so far as to graphical style, numbers of new Pokémon, or whether there will be new touch-screen controls.

Our best guess though is that Nintendo are priming these titles for a holiday release around November time - because to be honest, it's almost a foregone conclusion that in Japan, these titles will whup pretty much everything else.