Sega has announced that AiAi and gang will be joined by two newcomers - YanYan and Doctor - in Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz. The former is described as a “young, vivacious female monkey”, while Doctor is an “older monkey with a past steeped in mystery due to his acute case of amnesia.” Both characters will have their own skill-levels which will affect the outcome of their performance.

In development for the Wii at Sega Studios, the game will feature 50 new party games, which have all been designed to take advantage of the console’s unique controller. Some games include “Ring Toss”, “Alien Attack” and “Whack-a-Mole”. Banana Blitz is set for release this Winter.

Through this rough translation of an article on JeuxFrance, Atari has confirmed that gamers in Europe will surely be paying a higher price for PS3/Wii games. The company, who also distributes Sega games in some parts of Europe, has stated that Sonic the Hedgehog for PS3 is going to cost 68 Euros, while World Snooker Championship 2007 will be 74 Euros. The Wii will be 8 Euros cheaper - Sonic Wild Fire and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz will both retail for 60 Euros when released.

And yes, Nintendo did offer its Wii E3 lineup:

• Wii Sports
  
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
  
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
  
• Super Mario Galaxy
  
• Excite Truck
  
• WarioWare: Smooth Moves
  
• Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and Call of Duty 3 from Activision
  
• Sonic and Super Monkey Ball games from SEGA
  
• DRAGON QUEST SWORDS: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors and CODENAME: FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: Crystal Bearers from SQUARE ENIX
  
• Madden NFL from Electronic Arts
  
• Rayman Raving Rabbids and Red Steel from Ubisoft
  
• SpongeBob SquarePants title from THQ

Nintendo also announced that Wii titles are in development at Atari, BVG, Eidos, Konami, Majesco, Midway, Namco, SNK and many other publishers.

Sega’s second pre-E3 announcement discloses the development of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz for Nintendo’s… Wii.

Being designed as a party game, Banana Blitz will let players control “AiAi and his friends” using the console’s unique controller. Players can flick the controller up, having the characters on-screen jump at once - it’s pure genius… as the announcement puts it. An abundance of new party games have been created specifically for the Nintendo console, including “Whack-a-Mole” and traditional games of “ring toss.”

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz is currently being developed by Sega Studios. The game will be on display at Sega’s booth at E3. No release date has been announced.