E3 2012

[hisak]

All right, I'm ready to post a qualified defense of the conference. Bear with me.

First of all, it was a bad conference and they completely failed at what they set out to do. This is indisputable, and I'm honestly worried about the system's success at this point.

But, as Reggie said in an interview with GT, it was only focused on the launch window of the system. Every game shown should be out by the end of the year or shortly afterward.

Now this at least explains the rationale behind the conference. The 3DS had a bad launch, and the Wii U's launch is objectively MUCH better. Even as the lowlight of the conference, Nintendo Land looks more appealing to me than any of the games 3DS had a year ago. And as someone who always planned to buy Twilight Princess on GameCube, this launch has even more for me than the Wii's, with Pikmin 3 and a surprisingly great-looking Mario game.

That said, I have NO idea why Nintendo thought people would only be interested in the launch. While Wii's biggest non-Sports attention-getters weren't released until a year after launch, they still helped drum up enormous anticipation for the system. I only bought a 3DS at launch because of the games that were announced for the system, not for the games it had. I hope Nintendo remembers this and plans to show one or two such games at the roundtable tonight. Remember that Smash Bros. was revealed at such an event, so it's not out of the question.

Anyway, I'm still disappointed, but I'm not filled with dread like I was two hours ago.

[Ezlo's Apprentice]

Had some time to reflect on the conference, it was disappointing but not a complete disaster. There was a good start with the long-awaited delivery of Pikmin 3, it was just a shame that none of the other game reveals matched the anticipation levels of that.

Scribblenauts Unlimited makes big promises, will see what it delivers. ZombiU looks fun, but it's not going to get me out and buying Wii U on Day One. Ditto Batman, Mass Effect and any of the other "hardcore" titles Nintendo have fought so hard to get ported. There was an awful lot of Mario, probably too much when you consider the broad range of franchises at their disposal. We get that Mario is more recognisable than Mickey Mouse, but you can have too much.

Nintendo Land is a weird one. The Donkey Kong minigame was nothing like I would have envisaged, so I'm not sure what the unseen ones will be like. But it does do the job of demonstrating some of the things the Wii U can do. Shame that it sounds like it won't be packaged with the console, but it may get the Wii Play treatment since the console has been confirmed to support two GamePads. (And, seriously, to hype up all these classic franchises and not say they're coming to Wii U properly was mean.)

But as hisak said, it isn't totally over. The developer roundtable could be a surprise treat while the 3DS keynote needs to be worth being up at 2am for. Something unknown, much desired and that isn't Mario will do just fine.

[Rew]

For me, Nintendo's conference can be boiled down to good news and bad news.

Good news: 4 new Mario-related titles. (5 if the rumor about a new Wario game is true?)

Bad news: No Metroid, Star Fox, Smash Bros., and most glaringly no Zelda. (Nothing from Retro either.)

Granted, in the wake of Skyward Sword's release last year, I'm certainly not looking for a Wii U Zelda yet. But I was at least hoping for Majora's Mask 3D.

[hisak]

Good news: 4 new Mario-related titles. (5 if the rumor about a new Wario game is true?)

Yeah, Game & Wario is a thing. I'm not sure about it though.

The roundtable is in a little under two hours. The negative response to E3 2008 prompted Nintendo to reveal Pikmin 3, so who knows what'll happen this year?

[Scott Shelby]

I really can't believe what E3 has become. To be honest, it gets me pretty depressed, and makes me feel old. Viewing this train wreck has me thinking about the golden years when the show was full of surprises and magic. It seriously used to be like Christmas for gamers. Now we get nothing but casual garbage, emphasis on useless peripherals and formats, wave after wave of uninspired, previously-announced sequels and, invariably, disappointment.

An absolute embarrassment for beginning to end.

[hisak]

I honestly don't think this show is indicative of how future shows will go. Sony and Microsoft will be here with their consoles next year, and Nintendo will either have abandoned this year's strategy or managed expectations better (either way we'll probably see Retro and Tokyo's games). I think it'll be a whole lot more satisfying all around.

[JordAnime]

This about sums up everything:



This whole E3 has been incredibly botched for Nintendo, starting with the weird Nintendo Direct presentation on Sunday, then splitting up the 3DS lineup for a conference tomorrow night, all because the press conference was going to be so "jam packed" with games.  Yeah I mean whew, there was just so much to get through that couldn't have been done with a sizzler reel.  

I mean having a demo for Arkham City was totally obnoxious, and also wasting time with games like Just Dance 4 and the new Wii Fit game, and that Karaoke Singing Game...oh and also ten minutes spent on NintendoLand and the obnoxiously long banter between Reggie and the various special guests. Yeah, it just wasn't possible to fit anything else in their really short press conference, nothing like a price point, tentative release date, look at menus, storage space, discussion of the Nintendo Network, absolute clarification that the Wii U isn't just a controller peripheral, etc.  To say nothing of big third party partnerships Nintendo should have been establishing and at least a tease of a Nintendo franchise that isn't related to Mario and isn't Pikmin.

I guess the biggest problem is, I think, at the core of it, the idea that the Tablet Controller is going to be the real lynch pin here.  Honestly, I'm not that impressed by it, and it's hardly unique at this point, everyone has tablets, and they seem to function better for that crowd of people because they aren't tethered to a game console.  

The show didn't appeal to the core audience, that's for sure, and it probably would just confuse the casual gamer that bought the Wii way back when, or just bore them, or they'll ask "why do I need another tablet, I have one of those already!"  Even CNN got mixed up and said the Wii U is just a tablet add-on for the aging Wii hardware, obviously their mistake big time, but I kind of blame Nintendo for not explaining the Wii U once and for all as a new system.  

Ungh, just awful.  They have a limited amount of time to clear this mess up, apparently an investors meeting is being held for Nintendo later this month, maybe they should hand Iwata a pink slip.

[hisak]

The bananas were all right.

I still see myself buying a system whenever the Retro and Tokyo games are announced and whenever I can afford it (which won't be at launch). I was expecting them to show their full hand and they only showed about a third of it, but that's the only real source of first-party disappointment. Nothing to fire Iwata over.

Third-party stuff is another issue, but that's still not entirely clear so I'm not jumping to conclusions.

[hisak]

Nintendo's last presentation of the show starts in 15 minutes, live-streaming at e3.nintendo.com. I'm not expecting any big announcements, but hopefully we'll see more good footage of the games we know about.

[Ezlo's Apprentice]

Three release dates, no huge surprises and no Layton 5... Even with low expectations, I'm still a little sore but I could just be tired. There was a better selection of software in that hour than in the main conference, and I could probably get used to this second showcase if it's at a more reasonable hour my-time.

Or, you know, just have a two hour conference with less crap and more games.

[hisak]

Nothing new announced at the 3DS conference...

...And then Fire Emblem was confirmed for North America seconds later.

What a bizarre series of decisions this E3 has been.

[JordAnime]

Or, you know, just have a two hour conference with less crap and more games.

Yeah, like just about every other E3 Conference Nintendo's put on, with a few notable exceptions.  Also, Reggie is full of shit.  In an interview with IGN he claimed that talking about Retro Studios new game would get Retro Studio's president mad at him.  Um, I think that's NOT how it works; I mean the developers obviously have a lot of say over their projects but I'm pretty sure the suits decide when a game is going to be discussed and shown, not the developers. 

[hisak]

I know that it's sometimes considered bad form to post things from other forums, but considering this guy actually has links to people in the industry, I think this post on NeoGAF provides a lot of perspective on this E3, and what we should expect from E3 in the future.

E3 isn't what you think it is anymore, at least not for Nintendo. This isn't to say it's for casuals or hardcores or time travelers or whatever. It's a show, in the middle of the year, in an industry that no longer needs to depend on shows in the middle of the year. Ubisoft did the best this year because they happened to have a new IP ready, the timing was right after the AC3 reveal, the the Wii U NDAs let them reveal that game here this year. Not because E3 is Christmas.

Sony is pretty much the only one who still treats E3 like the event you guys want it to be and they are hilariously incompetent at it.

Look at all the games and publishers who pulled out this year. Their was more worth to spending time working on the games than taking a week out of your schedule and however many weeks before to getting a playable version of your game set up for E3. Even Capcom couldn't be bothered to really have a presence for their 2013 titles this year.

E3 is about the next six months. It is about the year it is in. In a world with high-speed connections and a site exclusively dedicated to show trailers of video games, E3 pressers are ways to build up hype for the games you can sell this year.

[JordAnime]

That's a straw-man justification of a lazy E3 on just about everyone's part, I'm sorry.  Just because I can watch an E3 press conference on my cell phone in real time doesn't give it license to be confusing, disjointed, boring, unimpactful and uninformative, which was what Nintendo's conference(s) all were.

I think the bottom line is that E3 is more about what you're showing than how you're showing it, and the reason why it's important is because it's all happening at once.  There's pageantry and excitement in the air.  Journalists from around the world are all gathered in one place to report on what they see.  Just because the Internet is faster, it doesn't negate the importance of E3.  Nintendo spread it's E3 announcements across three broadcasts and it did not do the job better than any traditional two hour press conference would have.  In fact, I'd say it did it all much worse.  

I can understand third parties not caring about having big E3s as much anymore as they have things like game demos to push their content, but you can't download a new physical console can you?  This was Nintendo's big shot to show that Wii U had chomps and explain to everyone what it was and why you should own one, either immediately or for the long term.  They didn't really do that frankly, they handled the whole event more like a they were showcasing another year's Wii lineup instead of hyping an all new system.

Microsoft's show was lousy, sure, but at least it met up the basic expectations, Nintendo just fumbled.  It wasn't a downright detestable show like E3 2008, but it is probably a bigger PR blow.  

[hisak]

I think the bottom line is that E3 is more about what you're showing than how you're showing it, and the reason why it's important is because it's all happening at once.  There's pageantry and excitement in the air.  Journalists from around the world are all gathered in one place to report on what they see.  Just because the Internet is faster, it doesn't negate the importance of E3.  Nintendo spread it's E3 announcements across three broadcasts and it did not do the job better than any traditional two hour press conference would have.  In fact, I'd say it did it all much worse. 

We can argue endlessly about the actual quality of the press conferences, but the fact of the matter is that we're judging the conferences based on our perception of "what E3 is about" rather than the show's actual status. If you want evidence, look at Microsoft. They've had so many "bad" conferences in a row that I've lost count, but at the end of every year nobody seems disappointed or angry about the amount of content on Xbox 360. At this point, I would actually welcome a Nintendo announcement schedule that was similarly less obsessively focused on E3.

There's no need to center an entire year's news cycle around three arbitrary summer days. You don't see movie studios or publishing companies waiting all year so that everyone can announce their new products at once. The only other medium that does this is network TV, whose upfronts are necessitated by their rigid yearly schedules. But there's no such justification for video game publishers.

From the perspective of a fan who looks forward to big announcements, E3 is hardly a healthy enterprise. I skipped a 45-minute lecture this year in order to watch the conference because it has gained a reputation as the only time Nintendo provides big announcements and any sense of transparency. It gives me something to get excited for annually, but I'm starting to feel that it's not worth the trouble. Consider that there have only been two Nintendo shows in the last seven years that left everybody feeling satisfied, and we start to wonder why there continues to be buzz for E3 at all.

By withholding Wii U information for a year and teasing major announcements, Nintendo horribly mismanaged expectations for E3. However, the event that we got instead is something that I could adjust to easily. With the Nintendo Direct videos, self-promoted media summits, and live-streamed Iwata GDC keynotes, Nintendo now has plenty of opportunities to announce games at a more reasonable pace, and I hope that they use these opportunities in these next 12 months if they're actually interested in deemphasizing E3.

I don't know that I necessarily need Nintendo's E3 to be smaller. If May 2013 rolls around and we still don't know what Retro and Tokyo are working on, I'll revel in the hype just as much as anyone else (just look at this thread and the Count to see how much I was excited for this E3). But I'm genuinely interested in seeing Nintendo taking a different direction to release announcements this generation, and I hope that what we saw this week translates into such a direction.

[JordAnime]

As far as I'm concerned we can't defend Nintendo's horrible show because for some reason the value of an event like E3 has been decreased due to the prevalence of social and streamed media.  Either bring your A Game or say "We don't really care about E3 and we're doing things on our own terms, stay tuned".  

Perhaps Nintendo really did want to say that, but due to their membership to the ESA they just can't turn their back on the conference their very important interest group fought tooth and nail for; but in either case, don't disrespect the institution.  E3 is the big convention for games, and if it's going to die, let it die gracefully and moreover, alert your public that E3 doesn't have the same significance for your company as it used to.

We as gamers might need to respect our expectations, I can't tell you how many stupid "where's Zelda, Star Fox, Smash Bros, Mario Galaxy" posts I've seen over the last 48 hours on all manner of gaming media sites, and honestly I think much of this hoopla was somewhat facetious--but we are Nintendo's customers, and frankly they have to convince us to purchase their product, not so much that we have to re-justify our expectations to meet their "vision", it doesn't work that way.  

My concern is that their overall vision for the Wii U tries to accomidate everyone but ultimately pleases no one.  I doubt the non-gamer expanded audience person will understand that Wii U is a new game console, and I doubt even further that they'll buy it--they have an iPad already.  So that leaves us core gamers, and what to we have?  Well aside from an assembly line "New" 2D Mario game, which are anything but "New" at this point, we've got a handful of decent exclusives, a bunch of games available on other platforms we already own, and maybe a couple games down the line to get excited about.

Not very exciting Nintendo, not very exciting.

Here's what it boils down to though, I can't justify the Wii U as a game console.  It's the same movie we saw already, aged hardware with a gimmicky twist.  The only difference is it's launching before the real next-gen console games out and they will come out, and how will the Wii U look at that point?

[GamePunk429]

Rawr! lots of anger in this thread   

Maybe it's my slow progression to casual gaming (heck I haven't even beaten Skyward Sword yet, still working on it as I usually always beat a Zelda game in a week or two), but I don't really mind or care that they didn't announce a ton of game to be released this year. I probably now on average beat a game every 3-4 months. So if they release 4 solid games a year for me to play then I'm happy. Plus my sports game which are going to come out every year anyways.

Is this what it's like growing up and getting older?  

[JordAnime]

No, I think you're just less interested in games, I know plenty of adult gamers that still play like crazy.

[hisak]

Rawr! lots of anger in this thread   

I'm not angry. I'm just too invested in figuring this all out.

We as gamers might need to respect our expectations, I can't tell you how many stupid "where's Zelda, Star Fox, Smash Bros, Mario Galaxy" posts I've seen over the last 48 hours on all manner of gaming media sites, and honestly I think much of this hoopla was somewhat facetious--but we are Nintendo's customers, and frankly they have to convince us to purchase their product, not so much that we have to re-justify our expectations to meet their "vision", it doesn't work that way.   

My concern is that their overall vision for the Wii U tries to accomidate everyone but ultimately pleases no one.  I doubt the non-gamer expanded audience person will understand that Wii U is a new game console, and I doubt even further that they'll buy it--they have an iPad already.  So that leaves us core gamers, and what to we have?  Well aside from an assembly line "New" 2D Mario game, which are anything but "New" at this point, we've got a handful of decent exclusives, a bunch of games available on other platforms we already own, and maybe a couple games down the line to get excited about.

Not very exciting Nintendo, not very exciting.

I still don't have a firm grasp on what Nintendo's vision for game development for this system is. While that's certainly problematic, it doesn't give a reason to jump to the worst imaginable conclusion. The types of games Nintendo develops doesn't seem to have changed for the worse this generation, even after the Wii Music scare, so I don't see why they would suddenly shift focus now. I realize that just the promise of games from EAD Tokyo, Retro, and the Zelda team isn't going to sell most consumers on the system, but, as much as I might wish we knew what these games are, it's enough for me at the moment.

It will be interesting to see how Nintendo manages expectations for E3 next year. Even if they just have another fall-and-winter-releases showcase, I could still see them drumming up hype again like they did this year. There's nothing wrong with gathering attention to the event, after all. I just hope I'll be able to manage my own expectations.

[GamePunk429]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwYYqJVnFaM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwYYqJVnFaM</a>

Yeah my interest in gaming has gone down quite a bit I do like discussing them still. My free time is usually dedicated to working out, sports, and attempting to pick up women.

I have to say though I am excited to check out Pikmin 3and ZombiU. I never played the first 2 Pikmin games though I have heard nothing but great things about them so I will probably check this one out whenever I pick up the system.