E3 2012

[hisak]

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.

I think the Wii port of Pikmin 2 is coming out in the US in a week or two so you can try it out and see if you like it if you feel like it. One of my favorite Gamecube games.

[Sheldon Cooper PhD]

I have to agree with what Jord has said so far here. Nintendo completely dropped the ball this year. Really everybody outside of Ubisoft did.

But seriously? All of the "Big 3" completely bombed.

Microsoft met basic expectations because we've come to expect the cycle of "Halo one year and Gears of War the next with a dash of Fable inbetween."

Sony. Please. Sony was a joke. Aside from a Smash Brothers clone that looks slightly entertaining there was nothing new. Another God of War? Yawn. Thought that story was over with. And multiplayer in it? Good God. At least they arent pumping out a new Uncharted yet. Also, Im pretty sure the Vita is considered a failure at this point.

And now Nintendo. I wont waste space whining about what's already been said. Simply that so far I'm only interested in about 3 games total for the system's "launch window" and I cannot justify investing into a system from a company I truly love that not only cannot meet the graphical expectations I have (especially with Unreal 4 and the Square Enix demo that was shown yesterday) but also cannot seem to play past the first 2 months of the system. Would I love to be surprised? Absolutely. And yes I did say 5 days ago that I could become a Day One adopter. Not anymore. I refuse to invest into something with so much potential that also has the same potential to go the route of the Wii I once owned.

it's so clear to me why I became a "casual" gamer now. Its not because of less time (well partially it is) it's because Im tired of being shown the same crap over and over again. Do I love Halo? Absolutely. Will I get this installment? Probably since I only by a few games a year but I;d rather spend that money on something new. Something that isnt a sequel. Most of the games shown at E3 this year were sequels. And sequels that alot of us didnt want at that. COD? Boring. Another Assassins Creed? Yawn. Re-Releases of Mass Effect 3 and Arkham City? Boring.

Bottom Line: We need creativity again. I will never forget the first time I played Pikmin Christmas 2001. It captivated me and to this day Im not sure Ive ever had a gaming experience quite as unique as the first time I played that game. Or Metroid Prime. I would LOVE for Nintendo to give me a rich experience like that over Sony or Microsoft ANY day. And this is coming from a self proclaimed Xbox Fanboy. I still, and always will, love Nintendo but something needs to happen. And it needs to happen fast.

[JordAnime]

At least they arent pumping out a new Uncharted yet.

Isn't that "The Last of Us"?  

You know as I was sitting down to view "Watch Dogs" I knew nothing about it, and it was a pretty awesome demo, but all the while I was like "okay, when is it going to turn into a cover-based shooter", right about three minutes in!  Still it was a pretty awesome looking cover-based shooter with the data-control gimmick to boot.  

I think Nintendo knows the reponse to Wii U at E3 was tepid, they seem to be trying to make up for it talking a bit about what Retro Studios is working on(well that it is indeed something!), Miyamoto talking about how they're figuring out Zelda for Wii U, etc and a little more insight into how Miiverse will operate.  

I think the main tell will be in a few weeks at the investor's meeting, with Nintendo's stock falling over a dollar per share over E3, I think Mr. Iwata might need to do some 'splaining.

And it all really boils down to this:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx38Q2nEJBk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx38Q2nEJBk</a>

Bananas!

[Beh]

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.

You, Scott Shelby, are a hardcore gamer. Hardcore gamers will complain about the quality of presentations and such, but in the end, they will buy games. Companies do not have to please hardcore gamers.

E3 is now appearing to the masses of casual gamers. On reddit someone posted some statistics that put Nintendo's mindset in perspective:
Wii Sports: Resort - 29.69m
Wii Play: 28.56m
Wii Fit: 22.71m
Wii Fit Plus: 20.52m
Just Dance 2: 9.18m
Just Dance 3: 9.08m

You may hate these games, but they sell and that is all companies have to care about in regards to casual gamers.

[hisak]

I think the main tell will be in a few weeks at the investor's meeting, with Nintendo's stock falling over a dollar per share over E3, I think Mr. Iwata might need to do some 'splaining.

I do look forward to seeing how Nintendo reacts to the stock fall. Making major game announcements probably isn't necessary, but it could go either way. Do you know the exact date of the meeting?

[JordAnime]

June 28th at 10:00 AM Japan Time

Punch and pie to be served. 

Kotaku posted an interesting article about how E3 either needs to change or go away; the gist is that after E3 2006 the conference collapsed under its own weight and ever since then it's been pretty awful, tying to pander to both core gamers in a very limited sense while also trying to please financially minded institutions like Bloomberg and the WSJ. 

At this point, I can't say any one of the big three really won E3, or lost for that matter.  Every one of the console maker's conferences were either boring, predictable or just shockingly bad.  If I had to chose a loser, it'd be the big N.  Let's face it, mainstream journalists are still confused about what the Wii U is, and frankly Nintendo didn't do a great job selling the concept...AGAIN.  Most importantly, it was a bad show for Nintendo's base; when looked at from afar, without the horrible conference, Wii U's launch window lineup seems pretty decent, but beyond that, we just don't know anything, and were bombarded with too many dull and uninspired moments to make us excited. 

Sony and Microsoft can afford to have kind of boring shows, because their hardware is kind of on the way out, let's face it, the 360 in specific doesn't have many legs to stand on, and this "Smartglass" business seems like a tremendously desperate attempt to drum up a Kinect-Like sense of excitement for the aging platform.  Sony...well, I didn't actually watch Sony's conference, so I guess I can't say that much, again, their platform is getting old and boring and how many games can Naughty Dog pull out of its ass before people lose interest?

Finally, there was Sega's announcement of the Dreamcast 2...boy that came as a big shock, but it's great to see Sonic, Ecco, Toe Jam and Earl, Shenmue 3 and Skies of Arcadia 2 all on one new HD platform with a ton of power to boot and all that great Sega goodness...

Oh wait, that didn't happen, but it was certainly more interesting than anything that did happen at E3 I'll say that much!

[GamePunk429]

Finally, there was Sega's announcement of the Dreamcast 2...boy that came as a big shock, but it's great to see Sonic, Ecco, Toe Jam and Earl, Shenmue 3 and Skies of Arcadia 2 all on one new HD platform with a ton of power to boot and all that great Sega goodness...

Oh wait, that didn't happen, but it was certainly more interesting than anything that did happen at E3 I'll say that much!

I would still love to see Skies of Arcadia 2, but I doubt that will ever happen. It's not a huge deal since that game had plenty of closure. Unlike Chrono Cross...

[JordAnime]

Yeah, what with Sega's financial difficulties, I doubt they'd take a risk on making a sequel to a cult-classic RPG anyway.  Besides, I really don't think Skies of Arcadia was all that remarkable an RPG anyway--it was mainly a big deal because it was one of the first console RPGs with a really detailed fully 3D world(when it was first released on the Dreamcast, anyway).


But I digress, E3 really left me with a rotten feeling this year, there's a few games I'm excited for, like Resident Evil 6, and the prospect of owning an HD Nintendo platform is exciting, but I just have a hard time getting myself that hyped out about it like I was for the Wii.

[Be_yourself]

In Nintendo's favour, they did drum up a fair amount of games for a release. 
For exclusives we have Mario, Pikmin 3, ZombiU, P-100.  Then we have the shared titles such as Rayman, Darksiders 2 and Assassins creed 3 etc. and old games that are being brought to the WiiU (ME3 & Batman), with new functionality etc.

I think what is really lacking is one of those big golden nintendo titles.  We all really want to see how Metroid, Zelda or 3D mario, or even, god forbid, a new IP, will appear on this new console.  A 2D mario which we could play on DS, or something more marginal like Pikmin 3 arn't really going to drive us the same way HD Zelda would, they are icing on the cake.  what nintendo served as the cake was the vastly dissapointing Nintendoland.  Whilst this game will probably be fun, it doesn't have any of the exciting lush story, feel or gameplay depth of a classic nintendo title.

The games we were offered are ok.  Mario will be fun, Pikmin 3 will be something fresh and interesting for many people, Darksiders 2 and Assassins creed 3 will provide us with our action adventure fix, ZombiU gives us something hardcore and newish to play (if you can stand zombies, i honestly think they are so dull) and if you missed ME3 and Batman and you really feel you must, you are able to go and play them on your wiiU.  But like i said, there is nothing here that blows anyones mind.  These games are all icing and we wanted some cake, a nice big Chocolate cake, not some of that wedding cake crap, but as with wedding cake, at least the icing is good.

But yeah...e3 kinda sucked...

[JordAnime]

Rayman Legends is currently a Wii U Exclusive but we'll see how long that lasts...

As for Zelda, I didn't really expect that to be ready for launch...Super Mario Galaxy 3, on the other hand, well that could have been very quickly and easily done, basically just make Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 with some extra crap, add more Yoshi in HD and call it a night.

[hisak]

I agree with Be yourself's assessment; as someone who was never interested in a Wii version of Twilight Princess, this is easily the best launch lineup since GameCube (even if Pikmin misses launch, which would't surprise me). I don't need a rushed 3D Mario with "some extra crap" thrown in -- that doesn't satisfy what I expect out of the series and I'd rather wait until EAD Tokyo's next big production is done.

The problem is that (at E3 at least) Nintendo treated the system like a one-time purchase, when in reality it's a $250-350 investment that I need to know will pay off. But who knows, maybe we'll get the big announcements that we want sooner than expected.

Also, don't dismiss Pikmin 3 so easliy. I wouldn't be surprised to see it looking like a must-have game within a few months.