Nintendo registered a new mystery trademark. Head inside for the full story.

Back in December 2004, Nintendo of Japan registered a new trademark in Japan: the V-Pocket. Nintendo hasn't officially commented yet on the registration, but various rumours are floating on the worldwide web already.

First of all, the V-Pocket is said to be the name of the Play Chan, Nintendo's own media player for the GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS. However, the trademark was registered shortly before the official announcement of the Play Chan, which doesn't make much sense. Other sources claimed that V-Pocket would be the name of the Play Chan to be used in the United States. The sources could not explain the registration in Japan instead of the US. Again, we think of this as bogus.

The next rumour came from Japan. Since the font used for the trademark happens to be the very same as the official Nintendo DS logo uses, the link with the dualscreen was easily made. The V could stand for Voice, implying that Nintendo is working on some kind of voice add-on for the Nintendo DS. Voice over IP perhaps?

The third kind of rumours are on about Nintendo's recently acquired license on some Palm OS software, as featured on PDAs. According to these rumours, Nintendo is planning to release a PDA-like application pack for the Nintendo DS.

Finally, there's one more story that recently reached our ears. V-Pocket could be the name used for the vending-machines that will be used in Japanese gamestores to download demos from to the Nintendo DS.

What Nintendo really has in store for us, we don't know. But as soon as we find out, you'll hear it from us.