It’s been speculated around the interwebs that one of Nintendo’s big announcements at E3 would be the long-awaited debut of Animal Crossing on the Wii. The popular franchise has always been a steady source of income for the Big N, so everyone just assumed it wasn’t a matter of if Animal Crossing would get the waggle treatment, but when.

While E3 was thought to be the platform, it turns out Nintendo may have preempted itself by leaking details of the game both in Japan and the UK. Today on his blog, Tom East, online editor for the UK’s Official Nintendo Magazine, stated, "those of you who have read the new issue of Official Nintendo Magazine should already know that Animal Crossing Wii will be unveiled at the conference [E3]." Really Tom? We had our suspicions, but no one had actually told us yet. Thanks for the heads-up though, I’ll go ahead and make a header in the "Nintendo Press Conference" area of my notebook that says "Animal Crossing Wii." In fact, since I have time now to prepare, I’ll make sure to decorate the space with hearts and cute little critters, just to get the full effect.

Further driving home the game’s existence is the fact that Nintendo of Japan has already listed a 2008 release for Animal Crossing, meaning that all other territories should be posting up say, oh, I don’t know, about an hour after then Nintendo press conference wraps?

The game’s existence is still technically a rumor, but it sounds like from here it’s all over but the crying.

Editor’s Note: Seems that Mr. East became a little camera shy after the press began reporting his mention of Animal Crossing Wii, and has since edited his post to be more vague. Nintendo’s PR may be fast, but the damage has already been done.