Make Way For Nintencats?

Now that Nintendogs has hit the streets in North America, the creative minds behind the DS doggie project are turning their attention to another familiar pet: cats.  While speaking to Eurogamer, Nintendogs guru Hideki Konno explained how the development team decided to develop a virtual puppy game over a virtual kitty title and mentions how DS kitten data already exists for future use:

We narrowed down the candidates into dogs and cats - after all, they are the two main types of companion animals loved by people all around the world. Why dogs instead of cats? Well, one of the things we really wanted to do was to let players teach tricks by utilizing their own voices.  So we decided that dogs were more preferable than cats when it came to realizing those elements.  To tell the truth, we were already starting to develop a cat-based game at the outset of this project. So we already have the cat models, voice data and so on.

It's not hard to picture an entire line of Nintenanimals, such as Nintenhamsters and Nintenparrots.  Of course, Nintendo must be careful not to launch too many projects that feel more like a cash grab than an actual creative and enjoyable experience.  If we ever get to the point of Nintendogs Basketball or Nintendogs Street Racing, I think we can all agree that the company has just gone too far.

Oh, and as for that box art image up there, I have no idea if that's real or not.  I found it online and thought it was too good not to use here.

(via rllmukforum)