Nintendo has a lot of franchises to draw from. They're continuing to pump out those Pokemans, gave us a new Zelda game last year and a new Super Mario Bros. game before that. So what's next for them? We think it's high time we got an Elite Beat Agents 2 already, but what about you all? What's the next major Nintendo game you want to hear about?

Earlier today, we pointed you in the direction of Joystiq's hands-on impressions of Guitar Hero: On Tour, itself on tour as various websites tried the game out for themselves.

One of those sites was ShackNews, which also got to speak to Vicarious Visions CEO Karthik Bala. And we had only just started reading when one of Bala's opening statements got our blood boiling: apparently, Guitar Hero: On Tour was developed to "see if it was even possible to do a really good music rhythm game on a handheld."

Altogether now: "WHAAAAAT?!"

We can only assume that Bala is totally unaware of the vast treasure trove of rhythm-based awesomeness already available on the DS -- never mind what is still to come, or even on other handhelds.

You know, we've never really felt the need to actually purchase one of the many stands available for the DS. We don't own Cooking Navi and playing Elite Beat Agents (or Ouendan) can be accomplished fairly easily by holding the DS with one of our hands and playing with the other. Then, we get an eye full of Hori's Taiko no Tatsujin stand and immediately felt the need to get one.

We can't imagine what we'd use it for, so we figured we'd ask you! Who better to let us know the many uses of a DS stand than the fine folks who've been using one for awhile now. So, tell us how your DS rocks its stand.

We actually enjoy playing our DS in the car quite a bit. In fact, one of us even went so far as to enjoy playing Puzzle Quest at red lights while behind the wheel. It's a dangerous obsession that not only threatens our own lives, but those of everyone else in the world. It's the nature of the beast, we suppose.

So imagine our surprise when we read this little piece and totally realized we could output our DS's sound to our car speakers, almost providing a surround sound experience. Sure, we have headphones for when we're trying to get our dual-screen on out in the wild, but sometimes they're uncomfortable. This just seems like an incredibly obvious thing we never thought of ourselves. We can totally picture playing Ouendan or Elite Beat Agents in this manner.

We know this is a loaded question, and has been debated many times by many gamers. We want to know where our readers stand on the issue, though. So, what do you think is better -- Elite Beat Agents or the Ouendan games? And why? Normally, it just comes down to the music (American pop/classics vs. J-pop). But, is there another reason? Perhaps you enjoy the stories more when you can read them? Or maybe you like a set of characters better?

If you haven't played both titles, which do you think you'd like better? And if you haven't played either, why not? Do these rhythm games just not interest you, or have you not gotten around to it yet for some other reason?

At this year's Singapore EOY earlier this month, a ragtag group of well-dressed Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan cosplayers took the stage for a game-inspired performance. Thanks to the internet culture in which we live, there's plenty of pictures and videos from the event to enjoy.

The SGCafe forums has started a thread for people to post images of the cosplayers, and although there are ample number of videos from the event on YouTube, the best two we saw were this one (embedding disabled) and this one (embedded after the break), the latter from very close to the stage but unfortunately missing the first 30 seconds of the performance.

View - Gallery
Watch - Video 1 (complete)
Watch - Video 2

One thing you can count on for any decently successful rhythm game: someone will figure out a way to make a free PC clone. First there was Stepmania for DDR players, then there was Frets on Fire for Guitar Hero shredders and now there's Osu! for Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents fans.

The public beta, available since yesterday, does a remarkable job of capturing the tap-out-the-rhythm gameplay of the DS games, though the dancing cheerleaders have been replaced with static videos for each song. You can build your own levels or download over 100 "beatmaps" of primarily J-Pop songs that were made by testers.

Casual fans beware -- a lot of these fan-designed levels are killer, though there is an easy mode that makes things a little more manageable. Even if you're a master at the DS games, using the mouse takes a little getting used to. Then again, if you have a tablet PC, it's probably just like the DS games. Except, er, bigger.

If your DS has been lacking the sustenance that new DS game cartridges provide, then you might be able to feed the beast with Circuit City's newest sale. For every DS game you purchase, you can get another game at half-off. Maybe you've been holding off on picking up Elite Beat Agents or checking out Sonic Rush, waiting for a more opportune time to purchase. Well, seems about as good a time as any to us.

[Thanks, Gabriel!]

Straight from ~Zsy's DeviantArt account, it's Elite Street Agents. Of course, without the outer circle moving inwards and hipsters in suits tapping funky grooves, the effect is lost. Check out the highlights for today:

Joystiquery
The Joystiq E3 2007 Awards
Today's newest input device video: Slide Adventure

News
Persona 3 delayed until Aug. 14
Variety: Ubisoft's Heroes game likely revealed this weekend
Xbox 360's Virtua Fighter 5 slated for October 30th
America's Army coming to arcades
Heavenly Sword demo in NA this week too
Richard Garriott calls for MMO devs to innovate
Sony's Peter Dille: 'We're attacking online very, very aggressively'
Project Sylpheed DLC: Free, but pulled; Vampire Rain DLC: Free, but pointless
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue producer reveals online features
Warhound: open-ended FPS headed to Xbox 360, PC in 2008
Shadowrun patched
PSP dev kits offered to universities
Sam & Max Season 2 starts this Fall
Lair is done, set for August 14 release date
GameFly expanding to Austin, Texas
Metroid retrospective explores first two games

Rumors & Speculation
Rumor: Xbox 360 gets $50 price cut in August

Culture & Community
Leipzig expects 200k people at Games Convention
PaRappa t-shirt contest got the got the funky flow
Xbox Live bringing Comic-Con home
Rockstar's rise and fall told by the common worker
N'Gai Croal vs. MS attack dog in PS3 bet
G4 makes Master Chief's True Hollywood Story
Space invading fashion hoodies
Disney press conference fails audience participation

The Japanese always luck out when it comes to games! From June 28th to July 11th, Japanese gamers with a copy of (deep breath) Moeru! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 will be able to head to the nearest DS Download Station and download the Elite Beat Agents characters, as well as Neko, for use in Ouendan 2. If we said we weren't jealous, we'd be bold-faced liars.

[Via NeoGAF]

Apparently, not everyone believes the language of music to be universal. Pro-G reports that Nintendo of Europe has rolled out of bed (which is the size of Manchester), grabbed a nearby megaphone and proclaimed July 13th as National Elite Beat Agents is Out In Europe Its About Time Seriously What Took So Long...Day. The streets would normally explode in a jovial mass of gyrating gamers at that time, but it's likely that most of them would have imported the rhythm game when it came out in the US eight months earlier.

Though some waiting period is to be expected for a continent home to as many languages as Europe, eight months seems an awful stretch for a game which primarily communicates through catchy tunes and brightly colored icons. As importers of Japan's recent Osu Tatakae Ouendan! sequel will attest, the game doesn't quite fall within the realms of text adventure or incomprehensible RPG. With cartridge space limitations working against the possibility of Nintendo recording different language versions of all the songs, it leads to the conclusion that the eight months were spent redrawing the game's many instances of "HEEEEEELLPPP!!"

Don't think this is the only case of a suspiciously long delay -- Metroid Prime Pinball also took eight months to make it across the ocean, and the Wii's Super Paper Mario is still without a release date. An instantaneous localization would be obviously be an absurd request, but perhaps it's time for Nintendo of Europe to take a few pointers from Square Enix, Mistwalker and Atlus. Starting the translation process during the game's development might just reduce eight months to something a bit more palatable to the impatient.

We've been playing a lot of Elite Beat Agents lately and the comparisons between it and its Japanese counterpart Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! are unavoidable. We can't really say which we think is superior, as they both have their own distinct charm, but our mind floats back to when we first tried Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! in a very inebriated state, in our hotel room, during E3 2005.

As we tried to follow the visual clues on-screen and tap in-time with the beat, we found that such an experience had to be a figment of our imagination. We visualized those cartoons of old, where a thirsty traveler searches the dunes for some sign of water, only to find a mirage and soon snap out of their delusion to find that they have nothing in their mouth but sand. We wondered how much we drank. We then remember how much it was and pretty much settled on it being a drunken fantasy.

But no, the next morning we played it again and it was as good as that first play, if not better. But, more appropriately, it caused us much debate at Fanboy HQ today. We wondered about Elite Beat Agents, and if it was good enough to cause some to import the Japanese game? We then wondered which version people preferred? We wonder a lot.

Do us a favor? Let us know! Did you import Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! after playing Elite Beat Agents (and having it rock your world, natch)? Did you dislike Elite Beat Agents? Did you love EBA, but found the Japanese charm of Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! to be anything but?

Bueller?

Ontama is a new rhythm game for the DS. Which is, really, all we needed to know for our hype-generating machine to go into full power. In case you hadn't noticed, we tend to get worked up about the music games.

Rather than telling little mini-stories like Elite Beat Agents, Noise Factory's new game seems to be a somewhat more stripped-down, arcade experience, with characters that seem to be limited to describing gameplay. We don't exactly know how the game works, but we can tell that you touch little round creatures (probably the Ontama themselves, since that translates to "sound balls" or "music balls") to send them into icons on the top of the screen; you then hit directions and buttons that correspond to those icons at the right moment, like Parappa the Rapper.

Enjoy the trailer after the break, and see if you can figure out a little bit more of what's going on.

We've already helped a student pass his exams in Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan, and then we reunited a little girl with her dead father in Elite Beat Agents, so what's the next challenge on our rhythm-gaming plate? Turning our eyes towards Namco Bandai Games' Nodame Cantabile, it looks like we'll be conducting music with a ragtag class of students.

The Nintendo DS has been home to many manga/anime licenses, so it's no surprise seeing the shoujo series appear on the handheld. Judging by what we've seen so far, the game plays like a simplified version of Ouendan. Players tap a series of floating notes in time with the music, filling up a "life" gauge with each successful hit. Missing a beat depletes the gauge, ending the level when the gauge is emptied.

A flash demo of the game has been put up to promote Nodame Cantabile DS, and you don't even need to know any Japanese to play! Check it out after the post break.

[Via NeoGAF]

Every day we get to see even one more frame of Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 is a good day. Just getting an excuse to type the awesomely overblown title out makes us smile. And today we have two nice, big magazine scans to stare at.

The scans show two of the new levels, and we have descriptions of the objectives thanks to the language wizards at NeoGAF, who can instantly make small amounts of Japanese become English. The first level involves Tsuyoshi Hanada, the student from the first level of the first Ouendan, and his job search. The second involves a salesman who wants to peddle sneakers in space. The screenshots from this level indicate that the rival Ouendan team will be playable!

The full scans are available after the post break. Click them (rhythmically, of course) for larger versions.

[Via NeoGAF]