Quote:Nintendo Plans Stuff
New trademarks hint at fun stuff down the road.
June 01, 2004 - One of the biggest crazes amongst Japanese fan sites is to keep track of trademark filings from your favorite game companies. This practice has resulted in numerous finds for game-related products prior to official announcement. Notables include Sega's Shining Tears trademark, which turned into the Game Boy Advance game of the same name, and Nintendo's Origin Of Our TV Games, which, while a total mystery at first, turned into the catch copy for the Famicom Mini series of titles and is stamped onto every game in the series over in Japan.

Nintendo's latest filings have people even more confused (and intrigued) than the "Origin Of Our TV Games" trademark. Registered recently in Japan were the following: "COMMANDERPACK," "COMMANDER," "MISSION," "Manebito/Camera," "Ningen-Copy/Manebito," and "Peach Hime."

The last trademark is the easiest one to explain. Hime is Japanese for Princess, making the trademark read "Princess Peach" in English. We're not sure why Nintendo has chosen to patent the name of Mario's favorite princess-in-distress now, but perhaps an all-girl platformer is in the works.

The first three trademarks seem to be connected to one another and are so mysterious that we can't even conjecture what they could be. The first two are written both in English and in Japanese Katakana characters while the third is just in English.

The remaining two would be just as mysterious had Nintendo not provided images with their registration. Ningen Copy translates to "Person Copy," with Manebito translating to "Someone who imitates." Given that the word "Camera" appears along side that, one gets the feeling that Nintendo may be planning a camera peripheral of some form. Perhaps this is the big GameCube peripheral that the company has been speaking about.

For now, we can do nothing but speculate. The two pictures for "Manebito/Camera" and "Ningen-Copy/Manebito" can be seen below. Look closely at the bottom picture and you'll note what seems to be a GameCube inside the second kanji that forms the word for "Person." Hmm...


A camera is attached to the
"Ka" character in "Camera."


"Ningen" (person) is written with a camera
attached to the first character and a GameCube
forming the center part of the second character.