My money's on still on StarTropics.
Remember, it has to be a franchise. That usually yields itself to mean that more than one game was made for it already, which means it probably isn't
Balloon Fight
CluClu Land
Gyromite
Mach Rider
What I think it could be?
Punch Out
Kid Icarus
StarTropics
Those Lololo or Lalala or whatever they're called games
What is on the line of being considered a franchise or a game? I think Ice Climbers are on that line, and so is Duck Hunt, though Ice Climbers is closer to being considered a franchise, IMO, from SSB:M.
Listening to that podcast, it sounds like Nintendo is not making this game in house, but rather, some publisher is making the game, something like StarFox Assault and Namco. It seems like the publisher could publish the game, but since it's a Nintendo franchise, Nintendo is not going to let go of those rights. Remember that we don't know the platform, either, so Rare could be involved in this if it is on the DS.
Now, Nintendo usually does this to buff third party relations or when there is a conflict over the rights. The only case where I think there could be conflict over the rights is anything that Rare makes, and the only franchise that Nintendo owns the entirety, or at least half of the rights of the IP, and not just the publishing rights, is Killer Instinct, since Rare has stated they can't make another KI game before, but most of their other games have sequels in the making. So my guess is that if it is a game Rare is known for, it could be Killer Instinct, but that's the only possibility there.
Namco has a pretty good relationship with Nintendo, so I don't see them being involved in this development. Besides, they got Donkey Konga and StarFox: Assualt last gen.
Capcom has been pretty poor to Nintendo until very recently, with the RE4 and RE:UC. I could see licensing one of their dead franchises to Capcom, but the problem is that out of the games we're looking at, I don't think Capcom would want to touch any of them with a 39 and 1/2 foot pole.
EA is another option. The game here would probably be Punch Out, I don't think Nintendo would let them at anything else. I don't think this would happen, as EA supports the Wii already, because they're smart enough to see that it is where the money is.
Square-Enix is who I think is developing the game. I could see Kid Icarus with a few more RPG elements. I can see StarTropics the same way, too. They've been supporting Nintendo a whole lot, right out of the gate, and before the Wii proved itself. Could it be because of talks with SE about an older franchise or two? Or, perhaps Super Mario RPG is considered a franchise, and we might just see an actual sequel to that? I doubt the second one, though. It depends on what those IGN guys consider a franchise, as well as what they consider to be dead. Although you have to think, we haven't seen Super Mario RPG on the VC, yet it's one of the titles we've known about for the longest time. On top of that, Nintendo would have had to collaborate with SE on that one, since they both own rights to the insides of that one. Maybe getting the title on the VC had something to do with forming their agreement on the game?
Retro might be looking for a new game. Perhaps they'll take Kid Icarus, perhaps not. I think they'd rather make their own IP, though.
Like I said, licensing out the title might account for that slip-up they made about it being published if Nintendo wanted to cancel it.
Ideally, I'd like to see a DS KI by Rare, a HAL Ice Climbers, a Game Freak/APE/whatever they call themselves now StarTropics, a Nintendo Duck Hunt, an SE SMRPG, an Independent Lololo game, Pit in Soul Calibur Legends, followed by a Kid Icarus game from anyone at all, and Retro should take a look at Punch Out.
I think those are pretty good match-ups for games. The actual Kid Icarus game is a toughie, though. It could be so many different styles of gameplay, it's hard to think about, honestly. It could be an FPS, FPA, Third Person hack-n-slash similar to God of War, but without the boobs and guts, and an RPG. It could also be based on exploration or flying, too. There's too many possibilities to try to match these things up with who would be ideal for it.