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[Milly Osworth]

That's nice, but we have been here before. We have seen this before. It's always words but no actions.

Nintendo has so many amazing IPs, such talented teams and so much money. How can you still manage to screw up then? Make me CEO of Nintendo for a day to start 10 projects and all the Nintendo fans will die of happiness during E3 2016.

It's a shame.

 

[PantherLotus]

Considering that we are now finally getting to the point where most of the big AAA games aren't cross-gen, I am not worried in the least. Nintendo shifting certain games to NX says nothing about the power of the console. Pikmin 3 also started on Wii and was later transitioned to Wii U. Despite Wii U's performance compared to other consoles, it is a huge leap over Wii.

I think at some point -- and the reason we're talking about this -- is that Nintendo tried to break the generation cycle with the Wii and failed.

I have no idea how they're going to fix it, and regardless of the system's power (even if it's PS5 level with an included VR headset in every box), I have no idea how they're ever going to break this cycle when they're this late to the generation (or that early to the next, which is fair to question whether they'll reach).

 

[Windom Earle]

So... were there any exclusive NEW 3ds games at all?

 

[_woLf]

So... were there any exclusive NEW 3ds games at all?

Zelda 3 swords?

 

[10k]

Man if Yamauchi was still alive he'd slap the shit out of iwata

No he'd blame the fans and call us emo's for not liking a seventh Mario spinoff or fourth Zelda spinoff

 

[Hatchtag]

We don't even know this is the last year of Wii U. NX won't even be unveiled until next year apparently, which means it might not be releasing until 2017.

I think that's the point, we're approaching what is only the third anniversary of the Wii U launch and it legitimately feels like it's the system's last year on the market.

 

[Plinko]

Zelda 3 swords?

I think he means "New 3DS."

 

[Wensih]

Yeah 12/4/2015

Well that's something at least.

 

[UberTag]

It's crystal clear where Nintendo's focus is now and it definitely isn't in what currently exist.

Nintendo's focus = Amiibos, Mobile, NX and creating Nintendo Land at Universal Studios

At least we have serviceable placeholder fare to nibble on while they recalibrate. Everyone still loves Splatoon, right?

 

[DataGhost]

So... were there any exclusive NEW 3ds games at all?

The cross over of paper mario and M&L RPG

 

[Kintaco]

Iwata, please quit. Thank you.

 

[krizzx]

Iwata, please quit. Thank you.

So things can get worse?

 

[Yogg]

After reading those comments I finally put the finger on why that digital event felt so disturbing to me: I felt insulted watching it. They took what I love the most about Nintendo franchises and they made fun of it. They made fun of me.

SE introduced Kingdom hearts with a mobile title, but then moved on to KH3 footage. Sony introduced FF with World of FF, but then moved on to FFVII Remake. Those were scripted emotional events, bringing people's expectations down and then immediately rebounding so much higher.

Nintendo mentioned Star Fox (the lesser offender) and showed the crappiest textures on a WiiU title yet. Then they mentioned Zelda and showed a tiny filler DS title, and stopped there. Then they mentioned Metroid Prime, and showed a tiny filler DS title and stopped there. Then they mentioned WiiU Animal Crossing, and showed a party game with amiibo prereq. And then they mentioned a new WiiU mario game, and showed a tennis filler title.

They never rebounded from those low points. It was just a streak of low points. They took all the franchises people were expecting the most of, and they destroyed every one of them with insignificant filler titles.They didn't promise anything after those. They just showed the lesser version of everything, and then stopped.

I'm a die hard Nintendo fan, but I can't defend that. It feels like a terrible effort at content between 2 cycles. At that point I'm scared they redirected the next Zelda to be a launch title for the next system, along with a proper Metroid.

 

[SuperCambot]

There's enough great Nintendo stuff on the horizon to keep me happy. Not sure why everyone is despairing so hard.

Besides, I also still have the Shenmue 3 announcement to keep me warm at night.

 

[Linkhero1]

Next year will pretty obviously be all in on the NX.

This was a bit more barren than I thought it would be, but I'm guessing they delayed a few projects to NX that would have otherwise filled in the rest of the year until it came out.

It makes sense too, because why waste more output on two EOL platforms.

Overall I didn't find it very upsetting since I was expecting things to be winding down.

You hit the nail on the head. At first I was irritated with their presentation but once I took a step back and looked at it objectively, it made sense and it was clear what they were trying to do. I'm still a little bit irritated but it can't be helped.

 

[jmdajr]

That's something. What a joke this year was. I am embarrassed.

Cannibalize Metroid.
Cannibalize Paper Mario (again?).
Cannibalize Animal Crossing.
Cannibalize Zelda.
100 Mario games.

"Mario is in all of our souls. Let us embrace our love for Nintendo on social media. Thank you for watching our most insulting E3 conference ever."

What a disaster. So many half-commitments to much-desired projects in condescending ways. And an overemphasis on the most overemphasized mascot in gaming. How many people does Nintendo think love Mario this much?

Cry every time.

Cannibalized. That's a good word for it!

 

[Blader]

No other CEO is as effective at making you feel bad about criticizing his company than Iwata.

 

[Sandfox]

As I've said in the other thread, even 2017 is too soon. The audience they need is the gamers--the people that go out and buy new consoles when they launch. Wii was a fluke, it was Furbies, it was Tickle-Me-Elmo. They didn't realize this, and now Wii U is a failure sales-wise.

Nintendo have a lot of work to do. They need to bring their online up to standard, they need to bring their power up to standard, and they need to open their wallets and get that third party support. They also need to revamp their marketing completely, stop giving systems stupid names, and start being consumer-oriented.

But no matter what they do, releasing NX in 2017 dooms it. It's the middle of the gen, assuming a 5-year cycle the next Xbox and PS5 launch in 2019, meaning NX would be two years behind them tech-wise. So do they lose whatever audience they gained to the actual next-gen hype? Or do they abandon NX after already abandoning Wii U and lose that audience anway?

Releasing early is a short-term solution, not a long-term solution. Long-term, it's lose-lose. Nintendo should dig into their savings and weather this out until the actual next gen starts so that they can be competitive while also having the benefit of having not abandoned their audience twice.

I think Nintendo will always target the family audience first and foremost.

 

[sd28821]

I think Nintendo could’ve put on a better show had they not shown so much in advance.

The following is a scenario where Nintendo saved certain things for E3, and tweaked the way they presented other things:

+ Open with Star Fox Zero, but immediately say it’s a collaboration with Platinum Games. And say that the gameplay is the focus right now, targeting 60 fps (according to the IGN article), and the graphics will continue to improve until launch. Split the developer story between Miyamoto and Platinum.

+ Smash logo appears! In this scenario, Smash DLC was NOT shown early. Trailer plays for Roy. Sakurai appears onscreen and quickly explains Roy, and notes Roy and Lucas will be available after the Digital Event. He also quickly notes new stages and Mii Fighter outfits will be available, as well. And I mean quickly: Like all of the Mii Fighter outfits are shown onscreen at once, next to their franchise logos.

- Moving on: Explicit confirmation that The Legend of Zelda is still in the works for WiiU. In the meantime: A look at Triforce Heroes, with immediate confirmation that it has both single-player and online (something they took a while to say). Followed by Hyrule Warriors Legends, which in this scenario, wasn't leaked early by Koei-Tecmo.

- An unexpected bombshell (for English-speaking audiences): Mother 1, fully localized as EarthBound Beginnings, available on the WiiU eShop immediately after the Digital Event.

- Moving on: Metroid Prime: Federation Force, featuring Blast Ball, with the following statement upfront: “We continue to work on ideas for new Metroid games, both 2D and 3D. We hope to have something for you soon. In the meantime, enjoy this new concept inspired by the world of Metroid.”

- An unexpected announcement (for English-speaking audiences): Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, which in this scenario has its localization confirmed at E3, rather than a prior Direct. Follow this up with a new look at Devil’s Third, which in this scenario, wasn't shown a few weeks earlier. And follow this up with Bravely Second End Layer, also saved for E3 in this scenario.

- Show off Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem — in this scenario, for the first time. Yes, that means the earlier Direct would’ve been shorter, and yes, the audience reaction would still be mixed. But anything with “Atlus x Intelligent Systems” in the headline would garner interest. Also remember, for several years this game had borderline mythical status, where people weren’t sure it was still in development. It could’ve been a TLG-like payoff if saved for E3 — much smaller in scale, of course, but still buzz-worthy.

- Show off Fire Emblem Fates and confirm the two versions upfront. Not a plus for everyone but still a point of interest.

- Still on Japanese stuff: Yo-kai Watch coming to the west, Xenoblade Chronicles X this Christmas, etc. Show off Monster Hunter X — not sure if it’s confirmed for the West, but if this had been shown here instead of the earlier Direct, it would’ve made waves.

- Merge the Animal Crossing content into one smaller segment: Happy Home Designer, and on a side note, Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival, each with amiibo integration.

- Drastically shorten the Yoshi’s Wooly World segment. Save the developer story for a post-show YouTube release. For the Digital Event, simply have a trailer showing off a huge variety of levels in rapid succession.

- A short segment about Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam. A short segment about Mario Tennis Ultra Smash. The time saved here would help slot in the new additions like Fatal Frame and SMT x FE.

- Ditto for Super Mario Maker. They can have a bit of explanation, but save the philosophy by Shiggy and friends for another time. For the Digital Event, simply have a trailer showing off many crazy levels and enemy combinations.

- “One more thing.” This is where they close by showing Ryu in Smash, with a trailer and explanation. Also show off the accompanying stage, and say Ryu is available alongside Roy and Lucas right after the Digital Event. In this scenario, Nintendo actually managed to keep Ryu and Roy a secret.

Had Nintendo played their cards this way, I think the show would’ve gone a great deal better. Still not Sony level with the TLG/FFVII-R/S3 wombo combo, of course, but still buzz-worthy.

yep i was thinking the same thing

 

[Draxal]

Star Fox just reinforced how much of an albatross the gamepad was.

 

[AgeEighty]

I think that's the point, we're approaching what is only the third anniversary of the Wii U launch and it legitimately feels like it's the system's last year on the market.

Correct. The person I was replying to suggested that this is natural for Nintendo because it's the last year of Wii U's life span. But it very well may not be.

 

[LizardKing]

What should be more alarming is that projects that could work on a WiiU scale would be appropriate on an NX scale, whatever that means. Read: NX will not be a big jump.

You mean like PS3 games on PS4?

 

[Occam]

Nintendo: here are some expected or otherwise bland announcements of games you already knew we were working on.

Sony: Here are three of the biggest third party announcements that people have been asking for over a decade

It isn't just that Nintendo's outing was poor, it's that Sony's was so incredibly well received.

Personally, I think it's mainly that Nintendo's show was very poor content wise. Instead of new games (which unfortunately they forgot to make, again), they spent most of the presentation showing us stuff like the first level of Super Mario Bros for 10 minutes (one of the most well known games of all time, no less), Miyamoto's favorite temple and handmade yarn puppets. It was borderline insulting.

 

[footfunghi]

No other CEO is as effective at making you feel bad about criticizing his company than Iwata.

lol, so true xD

 

[Fourth Storm]

I think at some point -- and the reason we're talking about this -- is that Nintendo tried to break the generation cycle with the Wii and failed.

I have no idea how they're going to fix it, and regardless of the system's power (even if it's PS5 level with an included VR headset in every box), I have no idea how they're ever going to break this cycle when they're this late to the generation (or that early to the next, which is fair to question whether they'll reach).

They milked Wii and 3DS for way long without making the proper next-gen preparations. That's for sure. I believe their objective starting w/ NX is forward compatibility and more frequent new 3DS-style hardware refreshes. They should have just made a Wii HD back in 2010 or so with a forward compatible plan. Of course, times were different back then, and smart devices along w/ the barrage of digital services we have now have changed the battlefield.

 

[Burai]

That's assuming that pissing off the dedicated few who actually still bought the hardware isn't going to bite them in the arse even more.

Either they need to do something wii remote level revolutionary again or they're going to be even more screwed by this.

Nintendo's hardcore following eat shit on a regular basis and say it tastes like ice cream. They've got nothing to worry about on that front.

We don't even know this is the last year of Wii U. NX won't even be unveiled until next year apparently, which means it might not be releasing until 2017.

Like I say, that's never stopped Nintendo before.

 

[Opiate]

That much is expected considering there's no way anybody could have presented anything to beat Sony at that point

Well, that's part of the problem then.

Performance is relative. If Sony is now super amazing, then Nintendo will also have to be super amazing or they will fail.

 

[Kriken]

Well next year should be amazing when they announce their new platform and how a 3D Mario, Zelda and Metroid will all be launch games, right?

 

[PumpkinSpice]

Following Sony's last night I think it was pretty much impossible to make people satisfied. Still wish they had done something crazy like announced Mother 3, or like Star Fox 2 on Virtual Console (which Miyamoto even mentioned!).

3DS continues to look pretty bare for the rest of the year, and for Wii U I'd buy Mario Maker but not for $75; really hope the price on that goes down to something reasonable.

 

[spons]

Shit the dude makes me feel bad but you couldn't even deliver on a proper Animal Crossing title.


I.E.... you couldn't beat E3 2008.

I don't feel bad for him. That's reserved for the guy who presented his yarny doll on stage.

Already said this in the Nintendo Humble Bundle shitstorm thread, but why Nintendo does what it does is a complete mystery to me. I really don't get the Wii U.

Why not an account system? Why not more powerful hardware? Why not make the platform viable in even the slightest way? It was obvious from the get-go that they were targeting the Wii crowd by not even showing the device proper, just the gamepad. And this has backfired so much the entire company is in shambles. It's time Nintendo gets absorbed into Microsoft or Sony, getting rid of what powers the bad things (e.g. Iwata) and leave the games to the great developers Nintendo has.

 

[Mr. Nice_Guy]

Ugh, why is he so good at making me feel bad. It's not that I dislike you Iwata! I adore you, I think we were all just disappointed with the content shown. I like the developer diaries, but I think they took up too much time.

But to be honest, I assume the lack of content to show was because everything has shifted gears to the NX.

 

[manueldelalas]

That's nice, but we have been here before. We have seen this before. It's always words but no actions.

Nintendo has so many amazing IPs, such talented teams and so much money. How can you still manage to screw up then? Make me CEO of Nintendo for a day to start 10 projects and all the Nintendo fans will die of happiness during E3 2016.

It's a shame.

Why would they continue making huge AAA games on a console that doesn't sell games? Isn't it smarter to put their talented developers and money in their next big console that they are betting their future on? Like NX.

I would have loved Mario 64-2, HD Zelda, new Metroid, much more detailed Starfox, and some third party moeny-hatted exclusives, as much as anyone else, but what's the point if you are just wasting money?

I think (and hope) this is the case, that they have their teams working on the next console and that this explains the lack of games and seriously bad E3 conference.

 

[PetrCobra]

I'm not buying any of the other consoles so I guess I'll finally get to play some games from my PC backlog sometime this year.

 

[Lorul2]

Phil line 1 they say it's Nintendo

 

[AgeEighty]

+ Smash logo appears! In this scenario, Smash DLC was NOT shown early. Trailer plays for Roy. Sakurai appears onscreen and quickly explains Roy, and notes Roy and Lucas will be available after the Digital Event. He also quickly notes new stages and Mii Fighter outfits will be available, as well. And I mean quickly: Like all of the Mii Fighter outfits are shown onscreen at once, next to their franchise logos.

- “One more thing.” This is where they close by showing Ryu in Smash, with a trailer and explanation. Also show off the accompanying stage, and say Ryu is available alongside Roy and Lucas right after the Digital Event. In this scenario, Nintendo actually managed to keep Ryu and Roy a secret.

Yes, this would've been dramatic, but that genie was let out of the bottle as soon as people data mined the existence of the characters.

 

[Gonzo The Great]

All I wanted was fucking Donkey Kong and even that wasn't announced. How many years does it take Retro Studios to finish a game? Nintendo became complacent after the success of the Wii and didn't invest that capital back into their own development studios.

 

[Zok310]

Here's, and I'm not exaggerating, all the Wii U news you missed during the event:
-Star Fox is now Star Fox Zero, coming 2015 (developed by Platinum, but for god knows what reason, they waited till after the event to mention this)
-Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival Announced
-new Mario Tennis announced
-Bowser and Donkey Kong in Skylanders
-Amiibo support for Mario Maker
-new #FE trailer
-Release dates for announced games

Ohhh, ok.
Sounds like folks are just overreacting then.
I thought it was something dire.

 

[nowheretorun]

Totally agree.

AND I think Star Fox Zero looks AWESOME, visuals and everything

Wow. Mine and your standards differ totally.

 

[visiblemode]

Taking our impressions seriously is useless, since effort wasn't lacking...the presentation values were great.

What was lacking was games, and presumably this is just because the plug is being pulled from the Wii U. That is the source of our disappointment.


It was inevitable, but I think a lot of us felt there was one good E3 left in the tank.

There wasn't.

 

[Griss]

Star Fox, Yoshi, Mario Maker, Xenoblade and Mario Tennis is a more than OK 2015. Wii had some worse lineups in its latter years.

I see three games there that I'd buy. Yoshi, Xeno and FE. And I just bought a "New" 3DS, so I'm dying for games to play. (EDIT: Sorry, 4: add Mario Maker)

Also disappointed with the release schedule. Was sure that Yoshi would be a summer game, and that Xeno would be November.

 

[sd28821]

Next year will pretty obviously be all in on the NX.

This was a bit more barren than I thought it would be, but I'm guessing they delayed a few projects to NX that would have otherwise filled in the rest of the year until it came out.

It makes sense too, because why waste more output on two EOL platforms.

Overall I didn't find it very upsetting since I was expecting things to be winding down.

yep it was boring and disappointing but its what i was expecting.

 

[DataGhost]

Nintendo mentioned Star Fox (the lesser offender) and showed the crappiest textures on a WiiU title yet. Then they mentioned Zelda and showed a tiny filler DS title, and stopped there. Then they mentioned Metroid Prime, and showed a tiny filler DS title and stopped there. Then they mentioned WiiU Animal Crossing, and showed a party game with amiibo prereq. And then they mentioned a new WiiU mario game, and showed a tennis filler title.

Seriously, you are offended by the texture of a nintendo game?

Others, I have to agree on that they should have rebounded, but they had nothing to show.

 

[Always-honest]

Please Nintendo. Make a great console. Your games deserve better hardware. Not the cheapest parts available.
Imagine making a Zelda, Mario, Metroid, Pikmin or any other new ip with hardware that is more powerful than the PS4. Surely that is not unthinkable in two years time? How happy do you think your artists will be when they can create exactly the games they have in mind. Without distracting jaggies, etc.
Focus on good online. Work on partnerships. Listen to developers, artists, fans (though many will say different things..).
The Wii was a great way of including many more people in the gaming comunity. Now it's time to show you are king again.

Sorry, but you are loosing fans. Fans that really want the best for your games.

Maybe i'm being naieve though. Maybe the gaming industry is shifting towards mobile more and more. Maybe the costs and time of making games is just not realistic anymore.

 

[Tobor]

All they had to do was a sneak peek at the NX. What is it? Is it a handheld? A console? Both? Neither? A quick tease and that's all that anyone would be talking about right now.

 

[AgeEighty]

Like I say, that's never stopped Nintendo before.

They've never gone two full years at the end of a console's life cycle with that kind of a game draught. But then, from your reply to that other person I can see that your attitude toward them is not exactly a fair one.

 

[protomouse]

What happened on Sunday?

Huge showing for their second Nintendo World Championships tournament in 25 years. It was great fun.

But man... it was like a different company put this presentation together. Last year they came out self-aware, putting together a show that made 45 minutes of presentation feel like 1h 30 of content. The momentum carried beautifully over into the Treehouse segments (and having Kit and Krysta there to kick things off was really effective).

Today's presentation made 45 minutes of presentation feel like 15 minutes of content. They chose to over-emphasize on Mario and Miyamoto talking, and ended with a music montage that sort off finished off whatever momentum was left after Reggie's corny speech. It felt like the Treehouse guys went on stage at a metal consert after Nickelback had finished up the opening act.

The digital format is great, but they squandered it with poor pacing and horrible content selection for Wii U. Instead of using talk as filler, they could have put some of the stuff they announced afterwards into the presentation itself (like Fatal Frame). Indies, updates for existing games, new gameplay montages of stuff we've already seen - anything but Miyamoto explaining Super Mario Bros. 1-1 level design.

 

[Busaiku]

Also disappointed with the release schedule. Was sure that Yoshi would be a summer game, and that Xeno would be November.

Yoshi is Summer in Japan and Europe, but not US.

 

[Berordn]

I'm sure it's been mentioned but... the event would've been a lot better if they hadn't blown their load with the 3DS direct last week and Smash Bros. on Sunday. Cut out the developer stories and some of the amiibo fluff and stick those bad boys in there and you'd have something to shake a stick at.

 

[PhoenixDawn]

I'm sure they knew it would get a bad reception, they've definitely gone almost all in on NX and are leaving the almost pointless Wii U behind at this point. There's still obviously a few games coming for it, but those were either already announced or small Eshop-type projects that are just stopgap measures until the full releases come out for NX. At this point, as disappointing as it is, I feel it's almost best to just forget the Wii U even existed and try to have a very strong launch lineup ready for the next system. You don't want to have another situation where it's crippled by weak hardware and a launch lineup that only has a NSMB game and the continuously delayed Wii port of Pikmin 3 (which turned out fine, just extremely late to release).

 

[EDarkness]

That's assuming that pissing off the dedicated few who actually still bought the hardware isn't going to bite them in the arse even more.

Either they need to do something wii remote level revolutionary again or they're going to be even more screwed by this.

There is no way around this. They can't wait until 2017 to release a new system. There is no way the the Wii U is gonna last that long. On top of that waiting for them to get some kind of 3rd Party support on the the Wii U is pretty insane at this point. The Wii U is gone and we need to accept that. Looks like Nintendo has as well. It'll get it's 5 years, but I think that it'll share it's last year with the NX. They're losing mindshare as it is and if the bleeding continues they'll be made completely marginalized in the overall scope of the game business and it'll be a serious hole do dig themselves out of. If they release the NX late next year they can possibly build on some publisher goodwill with a fresh new start and that'll buy them some time until the rest of their software lineup is ready.

If they go into the NX with guns blazing and a console at least as powerful as the PS4 (if not more so), then they can ride the "most powerful console card" for a little while to gain some traction.