So, today’s big news is the Nintendo press release that was put out last night (my time). The statement dealt with the upcoming DS releases for Q4 this year began with this paragraph:
The fourth quarter of 2006 will herald a new era for Nintendo with the launch of its remarkable new Wii™ home video game system. But that’s not what this news item is about! How could that be, you ask? Perhaps the secret to the launch information for Wii is somehow encoded in the text of this news item. You might want to pore over it for a few hours before staying up all night to debate phraseology and comma placement with your friends online. Or maybe it’s all just a scam to get you to read the other games we have launching this fall. One of the two.
Then details the release dates, and then ends with this:
And, for Nintendo GameCube™ owners, The Legend of Zelda®: Twilight Princess will be available for you this fall. An enhanced version also will be a launch title for Wii. That will all happen on … Oh look, we’re out of space.
For one, it’s really nice to read a press release that not only isn’t filled with bullshit about how good the company and its products are, but is actually rather amusing. When I first read it, I laughed politely, got excited about the fact that Yoshi’s Island 2 is coming to the DS on November 13th, and then went to bed. Then I woke up to find that the internet has gone Goddamn insane trying to find a secret fucking message in the article.
I don’t want to break anyone’s heart, but Nintendo have already stated that the official announcement will be made sometime in September. It seems pretty unlikely that it will be somehow ingeniously encoded into a press release in July just for you, my little forum-going Dan Brown-wannabe friend, to figure out. Nintendo were taking the piss. Is this difficult to figure out? Is this because they didn’t use the [/sarcasm] tag that you use on the IGN forums because your writing skill is not up to the level that you can properly convey emotion?
But, just in case you are interested in what the supposed date is, the evidence is, apparently, held in the dates of the DS releases. You see, there is a title every Monday in the fourth qusrter with the exception of the 2nd of October, the 20th of November and the 27th of November. According to our internet-Langdon friends, the 27th is out, since it is after “Black Friday”, which is the biggest day of shopping in the US, and after Thanksgiving, which Nintendo have already said the console will be released prior to. The 20th is out, since it’s after the release of the PlayStation 3, and Nintendo have given strong hints that the Wii wil be out prior to that too. So, it must be the 2nd of October.
Obviously. It works perfectly!
Well, except for the fact that there are two games coming out on the 30th of October. And the fact that it could be any date in the fourth quarter, and we won’t know for sure until Nintendo tells us. This is not The Da Vinci Code, you are not Tom Hanks, and spending all night pondering a press release will not allow you to make out with Audrey Tautou.
But, the best reason I’ve heard backing this up is that the “You might want to pore over it” sentence clearly refers to Yom Kippur, which, this year, falls on - you guesed it - the 2nd of October!!
So dark the con of fanboys…