Hoping to make it worth your money, Nintendos upcoming remakes of Pikmin and Mario Tennis for the Wii will be more than a simple port, as Famitsu has revealed that the Gamecube remakes will include new features.

Pikmin will feature a new day-by-day saving mechanism, allowing you to restart play from any day of your choice. As expected, Mario Tennis will feature support for the Wii remote, allowing for full control over swings. In addition to the Wiimote-mode, the game will also support a Wiimote/Nunchuk controller combination for full character movement.

The games are due out over the next months in Japan. North American release dates are yet to be announced.

Nintendo has confirmed that a Pikmin sequel is on the way after the announcement of a Pikmin re-release had some questioning an earlier statement by creator Shigeru Miyamoto.

In an interview with IGN, Nintendo of America sales VP Cammie Dunaway referred to the statement by Miyamoto, stating that it wasn’t the same Pikmin that he was talking about.

She clarified that Miyamoto was referring to a “new Pikmin, as opposed to the classics that are being rereleased for the Wii.”

There are a lot of GameCube games that fans would like to see remade on Wii. Most often they argue that it would be simple, leave the game alone and add motion controls. Nintendo was obviously reading the message boards because they are planning to do just that. Nintendo has released a list of a set of games under the brand “Play for Wii”, or “Wii de Asobu” depending on the language you speak. What a “Play for Wii” game is, is a GameCube game, but with Wii controls. The games that will be re-released as a “Play for Wii” titles are in 2009: Donkey Kong Jungle Beat (which is coming out first on the 11th of December), Pikmi, Pikmin 2, Chibi Robo, Mario Tennis, Metroid Prime, and Metroid Prime 2.

If you didn’t notice, Nintendo included both Pikmin titles in the group. This means fans will be able to play the first Pikmin as a Wii title on December 25. The dates of all other titles are unknown, but if you are dying to see how this would work, you can always pick up a copy of Twilight Princess for Wii.