Iwata, casually dressed without tie, spoke about the rampant success of the Nintendo family of products with the Wii at nearly 50 million units sold worldwide and the DS already surpassing 100 million units.

Iwata also praised legendary video game creator Shigeru Miyamoto’s efforts by saying Miyamoto “sees game opportunities where others don’t” and “In my opinion he is leveraging these development opportunities better than anyone else today” furthermore, “When Miyamoto sees something that a lot of people are enjoying, he’ll study what part of that activity is fun,” and finally, “Even if people don’t realize why they are having fun, Miyamoto does.”

Bill Trinen of Nintendo spoke to the question of a Wii storage solution and if you fire up your Wii today, you’ll find Wii menu update 4.0 which adds the “SD card menu” that allows for additional storage space with 12 channels per screen and up to 20 screens which equals a total of 240 games!

How can a simple SD card hold so much information? The answer lies in SDHC card, capable of up to 32GB of space.  You can download from the Wii Shop Channel directly to the SD card, and then launch titles directly from the SD card.

Next, Iwata took back the stage and announced the Virtual Console Arcade, an expansion on the Virtual Console with titles Space Harrier, Gaplus, Star Force, Solvalou, The Tower of Druaga, Mappy and more available today!

In addition, a slew of Final Fantasy titles for WiiWare as well as Virtual Console.  “My Life as a Darklord” is a sequel to WiiWare launch title “My Life as a King” as well as “Final Fantasy IV: The After Years and yes, Final Fantasy will come to the Virtual Console in Japan with all six Famicom/SuperFamicom titles released in Japan and “FF 1″ and “FF:IV”  debuting stateside.

Finally, after an interesting, dungeon filled trailer, Iwata announced “The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks.”

“This new DS title is tentatively named The Legend of Zelda; Spirit Tracks. It will be available this year.”

Iwata said that while new original development may be difficult during the economic downturn, he noted that the jet engine, television and the chocolate chip cookie were created during The Great Depression.

Stay tuned for updates and more information regarding everything we heard today, but feel free to let share in giddy excitement over a new Zelda title, I know I will.

Via Michael McWhertor at Kotaku.

I have never been a huge rap fan, but anything mixed with video game soundtracks, namely The Legend of Zelda, of which I am a dedicated follower, is sure to find its way onto my iPod.

The aptly named Ocarina of Rhyme features ten tracks that dub vocals over classic Zelda tunes.

The mash-ups include Common and Hyrule Market, Jay-Z and meeting the Owl, Clipse and the Lost Woods, and my personal favorite, Slim Thug and Mike Jones and Great Fairy’s Fountain, and many others.

A project like this has the possibility to fail so, so hard, but instead the execution is great, allowing your inner nerd to shine alongside famous rap artists.

Download the 10 tracks over at the Ocarina of Rhyme website free of charge.

Valve’s genre-blending first person shooter/puzzler also took home two other awards at GDC. 2K’s Bioshock, Crytek’s Crysis and Nintendo’s latest Zelda chapter were also big winners.

“The Game Developers Choice Awards stand out from other game industry prizes by being open to all games of a calendar year and by recognizing the individual developers behind each celebrated game,” said Jamil Moledina, executive director of the Game Developers Conference. “We are thrilled gamers at home will be able to meet the people behind their favorite games when our first ever television broadcast special on the awards airs soon on the G4 television network.”

The recipients of the 8th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards are:

2007 Best Game Design
Portal (Valve)
Kim Swift, Realm Lovejoy, Paul Graham

2007 Best Visual Art
BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)
Scott Sinclair, Shawn Robertson, Andrew James

2007 Best Technology
Crysis (Crytek/Electronic Arts)
Cevat Yerli, Douglas Binks, Timur Davidenko, Martin Mittring

2007 Best Writing
BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)
Ken Levine, Emily Ridgway, Joe McDonagh, Susan O’Connor

2007 Best Audio
BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)
Eric Brosius, Pat Balthrop, Emily Ridgway, Justin Mullins

2007 Best Debut
Crackdown (Real Time Worlds / Microsoft Game Studios)
Ramon Gonzalez, Violetta Sanchez, Rafael Diaz, Jose Guerra

2007 Innovation
Portal (Valve)
Kim Swift, Erik Wolpaw

2007 Best Handheld Game
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo / Nintendo)
Eiji Aonuma

2007 Best Downloadable Game
Flow (thatgamecompany / Sony Computer Entertainment)
Kellee Santiago, Jenova Chen, Martin Middleton, Hao Cui, John Edwards,
Nick Clark

2007 Game of the Year
Portal (Valve)
Kim Swift, Erik Wolpaw

Recipients for the evening’s special awards were:

Lifetime Achievement Award
Sid Meier

Pioneer Award
Ralph Baer

Ambassador Award
Jason Della Rocca

For more information about the awards and all the recipients, visit: http://www.gamechoiceawards.com/