By Aaron N
The aspect of E3 that I look forward to watching the most every year is Nintendo. Some of the greatest moments in E3 history came from Nintendo. This year there was much hype surrounding Nintendo mainly because of the inevitable focus on the upcoming Wii-U system. But, like many others, I felt let down by Nintendo this year. There were plenty of positives that came out of E3 for them but somehow I actually am less excited about the new system than I was before it.
There are many reasons for this let down. Firstly I feel like Nintendo set themselves up for failure when they announced that they would be having three different press conferences. One would be before E3, the second would be the major press conference that they hold every year, and the third would come in the form of a press conference solely about the Nintendo 3DS. They did this because they were promising that they had too much information to be told in just one press conference. This became a problem because there did not seem to be enough information to warrant the three different conferences. One of the main things to be revealed, which was the Wii-U pro controller, was revealed in the pre-E3 conference online. Then with the third press conference being exclusively about the 3DS, it meant that the main televised press conference would not reveal much about that system. This is a problem because much of Nintendo's fanbase stems from the 3DS and they will be let down when they watch the major press conference and they only touch quickly on a few games. This also leads to another problem because they opened the big press conference to have major reveals for the new system. This brought expectations very high and could only lead to disappointments when they do not have many big reveals.
This leads me to the major televised press conference itself. It started out great with the announcement of Pikmin 3, which gamers have been begging for since the Gamecube. This started things out on a high note, but unfortunately as a viewer at home, things did not stay high. With the announcements of a new WiiFit game and "Sing", they continued to focus on the broader audience as opposed to the hardcore fanbase that they promised to focus more on with the Wii-U. They also showed some third party games that will be on the Wii-U. Games like "Batman: Akrham City" and "Mass Effect 3" would finally be on a Nintendo system. But instead of quickly going over games that have been out for almost a year, they spent about ten minutes showing how different their version of Batman was then what is out now. This was a horrible decision when they should be focusing on new ideas. They then proceeded to show two "New Super Mario Bros" titles. One for the Wii-U that did not show how the Wii-U would change gaming, and did not show much improvement in the graphics category. The other one came in the short 3DS segment and also seemed to downplay the Wii-U and it didn't bring anything new to the table besides even more gold coins. This would bring them to the big reveal that usually ends the press conference. I was most excited for the end because I expected this would be where they would bring out something big, maybe a new Star Fox, a Metroid, or something big to bring some excitement to an otherwise dull conference. But instead they showed a new game called "Nintendoland." Which is a theme park style game that will help you gauge the new system. It reminds me of what Wii sports was. This is a fine game but only if it comes with the system like the aforementioned sports game. This should have been shown in the middle of the conference as it underwhelmed me and much of the audience.
There were some positives to E3 from Nintendo. I am glad to see that the new Luigi's Mansion 3DS game got a launch date. ZombiU continues to stun people, and it's use of the Wii-U gamepad is unique. But my favorite thing was "Project P100". This game is a superhero game mixed with Pikmin. You control a group of heroes and they save the world. I am really looking forward to this game. But this brings about another problem as the most exciting thing to come from Nintendo debuted on television on SpikeTV during an interview. This should have shown at the press conference and it would have had people talking in a good way. I hope that Nintendo can learn from its mistakes this year because the Wii-U can definitely change gaming much like the Wii did, but they need to find a good way to promote it or else it will become more like the Gamecube.
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