GoNintendo is a Nintendo fan blog I read frequently because Rawmeat Cowboy will post absolutely anything there that is even remotely Nintendo related, and I can’t get all the content he manages to post in a single day on a single site, anywhere else. Today, RMC posted an “End of Day Thought” regarding the complete and total lack of hype surrounding next week’s release of Battalion Wars 2 (BWii) for the Wii. I’ve been especially looking forward to this title, as I never played the first, and have been eager to play some strategic battles online against some of my friends. But Nintendo’s neglect for this title is obvious. In fact, I have a theory that it may be entirely intentional.

I think BWii is likely the most graphically advanced and technically complicated game to hit Nintendo’s online network (which isn’t saying a whole lot, I know, but bear with me). Super Mario Strikers was the first, and its release was quickly followed by stories of lag and disconnects. Pokemon came out, but ended up being nothing more than a stadium for matches between your Pokemon on your DS. Graphically underpowered, and not a technical challenge, so we haven’t heard much about online quality issues. The rest of the games on their network are all DS games, which are also not high in the graphics area, and are not overly sophisticated, technically speaking.

Then comes BWii. I think Nintendo is planning to undersell this game dramatically and purposely just so it doesn’t put an enormous strain on their online infrastructure. Wait for it to sell fairly low through the holidays, and then sometime in the spring — after Super Smash Bros. Brawl and possibly Mario Kart Wii hit the shelves (and the online network) — look for Nintendo to begin pushing BWii in a sort of a “second wave” of advertising and promotions. Possibly as some sort of campaign alerting consumers to check out Nintendo’s online offerings.

Of course, this is all pure speculation. It could be that Nintendo is saving their pennies for a big Super Mario Galaxy marketing push. Or maybe the game is crap and instead of quietly axeing or delaying the project, they’re going ahead and releasing it so they can fulfill their obligation to Kuju (or possibly free up the developer for another, tastier project). WHo knows? It’s all conjecture at this point. All I know is Nintendo is being too quiet about this game — quieter than they were about Metroid Prime 3: Corruption — and that worries me.