OK, we’ll get the news out of the way first: Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, the great man of games design announced a new Mii channel that will enable gamers to enter their Miis in popularity contests. Also Mario Galaxy should be with us by the end of the year... erm… that’s it.

Why so thin on announcements? We can only assume that, as we’ve been reporting all week, the games genius could have been hobbled by Nintendo and the Japanese government’s share deal, which is still in process. This means that no one from the company can apparently speak about anything genuinely new. At least, we hope so – if not, it means that Nintendo genuinely has nothing new to announce.

Therefore, the bulk of the keynote resembled more of a history lesson.

Unlike our usual expectations of the Nintendo’s recent seamless efficiency, Miyamoto’s GDC keynote kicked off later scheduled than its 10:30am (Pacific Standard Time) – half an hour late to be exact.

This kicked off with GDC head, Jamil Moledina, explaining the main man’s “quarter century of disruptively contagious hits” and introducing him as “the Steven Spielberg of games” – strange as we thought that Steven Spielberg is the Steven Spielberg of games.

Miyamoto was preceded by his Wii Mii on screen and the lesson continues as he explained that it’s been eight years since his last GDC presentation. Next up – on screen – came year’s worth of games.

Basically, the great man then had to talk in platitudes using ‘key terms’ such as ‘Balance’ (Wii Remote), ‘Risk’ (the GameCube), and ‘Tenacity’ (Famicom).

A full report follows…