E3 2006 News | Rare Confirms Working With Nintendo

Nintendo announced yesterday that it was bringing the Nintendo 64 classic racer Diddy Kong Racing to the Nintendo DS, but the question remained, would Rare help develop it like it did with the DKC GBA ports? Cubed3 spoke with Rare's Wil Overton earlier today to receive official confirmation and was told to keep a close eye on the company's official website. Now that confirmation has indeed appeared:

It's showtime again! Woo. And this year sees double the boggly-eyed animal fun as two separate Rare-developed titles strut their stuff around downtown LA.

E3 '06 is also the debut stage for our latest collaboration with Nintendo: we've possibly hinted at it in the past, but then again we've also hinted at a lot of other things, because we're like that. Yes, Diddy Kong Racing is our first official DS project, and Nintendo are busily promoting it as part of their next wave of big DS offerings for late 2006. Based on the N64 classic but improved and expanded in ways that only the DS allows, you can see the first shot and movie snippet over on NCL's website if you haven't already.

A few tantalising DKR DS info-bites to keep you going: eight-player single-card and multi-card WiFi play, touch-screen and microphone compatibility, some familiar faces in newly playable form, remodelled and retextured tracks, customisable vehicles, new modes, weapons and challenges, a little something called TT's Wish Races where you can create your very own tracks... and it doesn't end there.

But for now, kick back and enjoy the show, sunbeams!"

Stick with Cubed3 for further coverage on this and much more...