intendo held their Fall press conference in Japan today, and it revealed quite a few good news items for the Nintendo faithful, as well as a few bad items. With Nintendo of America holding their Fall Summit later this week we expect some clarification on many of these items (Game Informer Online’s Jeff Cork will be present delivering the blow-by-blow). But with Japan jumping the gun with a few things, looks like Nintendo’s got a number of items up their sleeve – especially for Wii gamers.

First off, Super Smash Bros. Brawl has been pushed back in Japan until January 24th. No reason was given for the delay, however, in a we-were-sort-of-expecting-it-already move, Sonic has been revealed as a playable character. Who hasn’t wanted to pummel the plumber with the help of the hedgehog?  Also, while we knew there would be some form of online, Nintendo stated that Brawl will feature some sort of online cooperative play. Note, we won’t be happy until we know there’s full 4-player gaming.

While Mario Kart for Wii will also get pushed back a little bit – to somewhere in Spring 2008 (do you sense a Summer release?) Nintendo today announced that bikes will now be featured in the game. Getting a koopa shell tossed into a bike doesn’t sound too comforting, but we’re wondering if Nintendo will be releasing a handle bar peripheral to go alongside the steering wheel.

Mario fans will have lots to keep them busy as Nintendo will be releasing Super Mario Stadium for you sluggers out there. Time to put down Wii Sports as Mario and friends will be returning to the ballpark. Will Namco be heading up this version, as they did for Mario Superstar Baseball? With how that game turned out, lets hope not.

Monster Hunter fans also have something to look forward to as Nintendo and Capcom have revealed that the next game in the Monster Hunter series will be heading to the Wii. Titled Monster Hunter 3 or Tri, most would have expected this PlayStation-only series would remain on Sony’s console. While not hugely popular in North America, this is a big announcement for Japan. We’re assuming Capcom will take advantage of the Wii’s online capabilities. According to a report from Forbes, as Capcom originally planned on developing this franchise for the PLayStation 3, Capcom's Managing Corporate Officer Katsuhiko Ichii said that they've decided to move the development to Wii due to high development costs.

WiiWare will be seeing some serious additions in the future, and Nintendo announced quite a few new titles for the download service starting in March.

Dr. Mario - Nintendo
Maruboushikaku - Nintendo
Minna de Puzloop - Nintendo
Moji Pittan Wii - Nintendo
Pokemon Farm - Nintendo
Okiraku Ping Pong Wii - Arc System Works
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Little King and the Promised Land - Square Enix
Star Soldier R - Hudson
Bomberman - Hudson
Joysound - Hudson

Famitsu revealed that the FFCC title will cost approximately 1500 Wii Points. We do have one concern. With the paltry amount of internal memory the Wii has, where will you be saving all of this new software? We’re not deleting our Virtual Console games.

On the DS front, Fire Emblem was unveiled for the Nintendo DS, and users will soon be able to use their Wii as a Nintendo DS Download Station to download Nintendo DS demos.

While we’ll be looking for confirmation on all of the above elements, we’re betting we’ll find out more later this week from Nintendo’s Fall Summit later this week. Stay tuned.

Special thanks to Famitsu | Gemaga | Nintendo World Report | Wii.IGN for the details.