Nintendo ditches main E3 conference, still there with games, press events, N-Direct

Quadraphonic said:
It's hard to find all the titles at E3 by walking the show floor. A company's press conference serves to give you an idea of the main headliners to look for. It also serves as a grandstand for you to boast and draw attention AWAY from other companies.

Not just for gamers and the press, but DEVELOPERS, PUBLISHERS, and RETAILERS. You know, the people you get your games FROM. E3 is where places like Target, Wal-Mart and Gamestop (Aside from Gamestop's own annual party in Texas) talk to companies about what to order, stock and such.
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That's why there's an event just for distributors.
 
ArkkAngel007 said:
Other than air time on Spike, what is Nintendo missing out on? Most people who sit through those long, increasingly embarrassing conferences are the same people who take an active interest on this hobby and have dozens of other news sources, such as Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and 4chan, if not dedicated gaming news outlets.
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Yeah, because the best way to get your message out there is through 4chan. I mean why bother with any semblance of control behind the focus of your messaging when you can just let 4chan get the message out for you.

They had something that pretty much any marketer in the the world would kill for in hundreds of thousands of the people most likely to buy your product actively seeking out the conference and listen to every word said straight from Nintendo's mouth. Not some third party who may or may not be critical of Nintendo's showing, but Nintendo.

Seriously, outside the Super Bowl, can you even think of a single other instance where people are actually excited for what amounts to a freaking hour long advertisement? How could you pass that up?

Sure they are doing something instead of that, but do you honestly think they will get as many people as excited for that?
 
Elwood Blues said:
Do E3 conferences capture viewers who are not only gamers? They air in the middle of the day on Spike TV.
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Hasn't Microsoft been the only one of the big three to normally broadcast their conference on Spike?

Also, I think this excerpt is important.

Also, I would like to use this opportunity to talk about this year’s E3.

In the past we invited reporters, investors and analysts, industry partners, such as software publishers, and distributors who attended E3 to our large-scale presentations. We also used them as a communication tool in which we broadcast our presentations on the Internet to reach out to video game fans around the globe. I believe that many are expecting us to host a similar event this year.

On the other hand, since we set out on new endeavors such as Nintendo Direct two years ago in October, we have been paying special attention to the fact that different people demand different types of information from us. For example, as video game fans are looking for information about games, it seems that they are less interested in sales figures that investors and analysts on the other hand attach much greater importance to, and distribution partners are looking for information on how we are going to market our products in the immediate future. At previous financial briefing sessions we announced information about our products, showed videos and even uploaded the recording of these events onto our website, but given that we now have an established method such as Nintendo Direct, we feel that we will be able to deliver our messages more appropriately and effectively by doing so individually based on the various needs of different groups of people.
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It seems as though, rather than trying to fit all of this information in an hour-long conference (I mean, most of us didn't want to hear sales figures during E3), they can target specific people with specific information. Like I said, it's disappointing that we might not have a bang-up live presentation to comment on, but I don't see this as a sign of giving up from Nintendo.
 
In this thread:

People get upset that they will be watching a stream of a company presentation on one site instead of another
 
Toparaman said:
If you have reading comprehension issues, sure. To anyone else, it's fairly clear that Nintendo is shifting their strategy from showing and telling to actually getting peoples' hands on the Wii U. They've realized that the only way people are going to "get" the Wii U is if they try it out for themselves.

I guarantee you this is the new direction Nintendo is heading. The commercials haven't worked. The press conferences haven't worked. Word of mouth from Wii U "converts" is all that can save the console now.

This is far from a surrender. It's probably the smartest move they've made in the past year.

If I'm wrong, and Nintendo simply sticks to the same strategy, just minus the press conferences, feel free to mock me.
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A lot of people, as evidenced in this thread, don't read. They see no conference, and that's it. Fine-print doesn't matter. The media knows this, and they'll put out headlines like "Nintendo opts out of largest gaming event" or "Nintendo cedes the floor to Sony and Microsoft".

Thing is though, who the hell cares outside of communities of gaming? Mainstream will remember it for a couple of hours and than move on to whoever could be the next Belieber.

Not sure if I'd call it smart though. Yet.
 
Quadraphonic said:
If you think E3 is only for the press and core gamers, you're sadly mistaken. A huge amount of publisher/developer meetings happen at this time. GDC has them, as well, but trust me, there's a LOT of suits getting deals done at E3. It's rare to have companies, developers and publishers, all in the same place for a week.
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Quadraphonic said:
It's hard to find all the titles at E3 by walking the show floor. A company's press conference serves to give you an idea of the main headliners to look for. It also serves as a grandstand for you to boast and draw attention AWAY from other companies.

Not just for gamers and the press, but DEVELOPERS, PUBLISHERS, and RETAILERS. You know, the people you get your games FROM. E3 is where places like Target, Wal-Mart and Gamestop (Aside from Gamestop's own annual party in Texas) talk to companies about what to order, stock and such.

If a Nintendo Direct was enough to work around E3 time, then they'd just make a Nintendo Direct the same week as E3. They chose not to. Or maybe it's because out of desperation with the last two Directs they don't have enough to show to fill 45 minutes.

Or maybe it's because their usual presenter, Reggie, is on his way out.

Or maybe they saw the futility in trying to compete with the new juggernauts.
Heck, all Sony and Microsoft need to do is show a 2 minute trailer and publish a pdf with the specs on it with launch date and price.
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Erm, you do realize that Nintendo is exhibiting at E3, will have an event for distributors, and will have an event for the media giving them hands-on experience ... yes?

People act like Nintendo is diminishing their presence at E3, when they're just breaking up the big presentation into smaller, targeted ones.
 
Solid SOAP said:
Does anyone remember Brawl's reveal? It was shown at an event behind closed doors, not at the actual E3 conference. The hype behind it was insane though, and Nintendo didn't need a huge show to prove it. Sites everywhere blogging:

"New Smash Bros. shown... trailer revealed"
"Mario and friends fighting"
"Graphics look great"
"Pit revealed"
"..."
"Snake wtf"

Everyone went insane because the trailer was just fucking awesome, not because it was shown off in a huge conference. I think that Nintendo have the potential to do the same this year, perhaps differently though.
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Nintendo had also just had a packed public press conference where they showed off the Wii. Excitement was high for Nintendo.
 
outunderthestars said:
Maybe they simply don't want to be seen as trying to compete with Sony and MS's massive E3 conferences this year. Nothing Nintendo can show would trump the new hardware from MS/Sony.


Makes sense to change formats this year in order to try and avoid direct media comparisons.
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Easily this. And bravo. This is a smart move.
 
Karkador said:
In this thread:

People get upset that they will be watching a stream of a company presentation on one site instead of another
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I seriously don't get it. Is it because they won't get to hear a crowd of people go "oooh" and "ahhh" when the new shinies are introduced? This doesn't change the fundemental purpose of E3 for gamers at all. It's not like they're going to be demoing games from the trunk of a fucking car at some abandoned warehouse. They're just changing things up a little to suit their current strategy. What difference does it honestly make?
 
thepotatoman said:
Yeah, because the best way to get your message out there is through 4chan. I mean why bother with any semblance of control behind the focus of your messaging when you can just let 4chan get the message out for you.

They had something that pretty much any marketer in the the world would kill for in hundreds of thousands of the people most likely to buy your product actively seeking out the conference and listen to every word said straight from Nintendo's mouth. Not some third party who may or may not be critical of Nintendo's showing, but Nintendo.

Seriously, outside the Super Bowl, can you even think of a single other instance where people are actually excited for what amounts to a freaking hour long advertisement? How could you pass that up?

Sure they are doing something instead of that, but do you honestly think they will get as many people as excited for that?
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You're missing the point.

No one except for people who play games really pays attention to this. I don't buy that Sally Salon Sue cares that Nintendo is on CNN or that Microsoft is on Spike.

All this seems to be is a lot of people who should know better than to focus on the spectacle are only focusing on the spectacle. A spectacle that was probably nonexistant in comparison in the first place.
 
BigJonsson said:
They really need to do more to market their products yet won't do a big thing at E3, I really don't know what is going on with Nintendo anymore, reeks of weakness IMO
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The only real marketing that comes out of E3 is what the press ends up reporting. The same people that watch E3 are the ones browsing Kotaku, IGN and other gaming sites for the most part.
 
ari said:
E3 is hardcore..and NINTENDO IS NOT NEGLACTING THE PRESS..READ OP.
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I did read the OP, I super double promise. If E3 only reached the hardcore, it would not exist. Simple as that.

ArkkAngel007 said:
I keep seeing this, but I have yet to see any evidence that this is actually a significant factor considering most seem to get news through aggregates/communities, and that it's never had much of an impact before.

Regis and Kelly did more for the Wii with the mainstream audience than E3 ever did. If we're talking about the average COD playing mainstreamer, they have 4chan, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever, which is likely to have the same news that the gaming media is posting.
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When I say mainstream, I mean even more mainstream than COD players. I mean your mom. I mean people who read HuffPo and watch the Today Show. I certainly don't mean anyone who even knows what 4chan is.

mantidor said:
But there is going to be mainstream coverage, or you think CNN E3 report only happened because there was a live conference? The press will be there, at their own event, the announcements will be reported in the same way, only the articles will change "at the main press conference" for "at their closed event".
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I think CNN wants to be able to put together a nice reel of interesting video to run. You need to feed them a little zazz to get them to run with things.

I certainly don't think that this decision dooms Nintendo or anything, but it is a risk for Nintendo when the Wii U is already in a precarious position. Nintendo needs to give people confidence in their future, and not having a big showy keynote is going to be perceived as a sign of weakness, rightly or not. If they would have tried this when they where on top of with the Wii people would perceive it as a sign of strength. Optics matter.

It would be like a presidential nominee forgoing his convention speech in lieu of a pre-produced video and a hand shaking photo op tour of local Kiwanis Clubs.
 
I don't know why people keep insisting on somehow giant massive events revealing the new hardware from Sony and Microsoft at E3 when they had done (or are going to do) those big announcements outside of E3.

There is not going to be a big Sony reveal of the PS4 simply because it already happened.
 
JrBaconCheeseburger said:
Why would they ditch the press conference?

All gaming media will forget about nintendo and Microsoft and PS4 will steal all the attention.
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I definitely don't agree with everything Nintendo does these days, but this makes a lot of sense to me. Why in the world are companies spending a small fortune on a big E3 presser, when that's the only time of year they have to share the limelight with a couple of dozen of other publishers? It just makes no sense to me.

The E3-concept was born in a pre-connected world. It was the cheapest way for publishers to present their line-ups to the press, which in their turn, presented it to their readers in the coming months. It was a mutual beneficial relationship. Publishers did not need to go out of their way to get to the press and the press had to just visit a single event to pick up on all the news.

In most ways, things haven't changed for E3, but the world did. Publishers don't really need press anymore to get the word out on new product. All of their customers are online. They're able to control the flow of information and the timing of it. Both Sony and Microsoft chose to present their new hardware on a separate event, and rightfully so, and Nintendo's been unveiling software in Directs for months now. All of them had a couple of days at the center of attention. Meanwhile, E3 gets treated like most trade shows, minor announcements and a way for people to go hands-on with their upcoming line-up. It makes perfect sense to me.
 
Sophia said:
I think they should have waited to solidify their plans before announcing this. Get into more depth as to what they plan to for their smaller events. Right now there's a lot of overreacting and overwhelming negativity that could have been avoided on Nintendo's part.

Announcing this, with the state they're in, just seems like horrible planning on their part.
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Are people brain dead today? They did exactly what they anounced they were going to do 2 weeks prior. They held a Nintendo Direct providing updates on upcoming products and services as well as anouncing some new games. Immediately after they let the press play upcoming games they wanted to showcase. Next day, we got impressions and videos uploaded of the games they played. They'll do this a few times a year.

royalan said:
What.

Why on EARTH would any consumer champion a company blocking the media and keeping a strict hand on the perception of their products and how this information gets to the consumer? This is completely backwards.

Oh, I forgot, it's because Nintendo is the "honest" games company. They would never present their products to the consumer in a slanted, biased way. That's only something the "evil games media" does.
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Lol. What are you even talking about? This is the exact same thing Sony and Microsoft do. They hold a conference and anounce what they want to say and then let the press play the games they want to showcase. Only difference is now instead of relying on tweets from press people to get details on what was anounced we can view it for ourselves.
 
mantidor said:
I don't know why people keep insisting on somehow giant massive events revealing the new hardware from Sony and Microsoft at E3 when they had done (or are going to do) those big announcements outside of E3.

There is not going to be a big Sony reveal of the PS4 simply because it already happened.
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It's called the price and possible worldwide launch.
 
Mushroomer25 said:
And saying the E3 showing was the reason for the WiiU's weak sales lineup is pointless. It failed because of the games, plain and simple. The biggest WiiU announcement so far (Bayonetta 2) didn't even happen at E3. It was at a random WiiU event in August.
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Actually Bayonetta 2 happened as the "one last thing" in the August 2012 direct as I recall, and it made about as much impression as an E3 reveal might of done with people cheering and/or wailing and gnashing teeth over it.

I'll miss the fun moments like Miyamoto coming out in some kinda garb, sudden run up to that surprise reveal and the occasional E3 where Nintendo really hit it out the park, but I equally won't miss waiting for reels of business chart talk to get to the good stuff and painfully awkward attempts to live demo a game or appeal to casuals,

Nintendo direct has shown a lot of the humor, scripting that usually went into E3 pressers has been moved over there, and the Iwata related skits have been on a whole a lot more funny and well put together. I'll take random shots of Iwata with fruit any day over the awkward wii fit/music demos of the past
 
ArkkAngel007 said:
You're missing the point.

No one except for people who play games really pays attention to this. I don't buy that Sally Salon Sue cares that Nintendo is on CNN or that Microsoft is on Spike.

All this seems to be is a lot of people who should know better than to focus on the spectacle are only focusing on the spectacle. A spectacle that was probably nonexistant in comparison in the first place.
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It filters through to mainstream media, you can guess what they will write right now its going to write itself, meanwhile nintendo didnt have a big conference this year casting doubt on the future of the company and its failing wii u games machines.
 
mantidor said:
I don't know why people keep insisting on somehow giant massive events revealing the new hardware from Sony and Microsoft at E3 when they had done (or are going to do) those big announcements outside of E3.

There is not going to be a big Sony reveal of the PS4 simply because it already happened.
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WHAT? All they showed was the controller and some footage. They didn't show the system, what the actual launch lineup will be, price, launch date etc. etc. It was more of a big teaser and an outline of their vision going forward. The big PS4 reveal will be at E3 make no mistake.
 
mantidor said:
I don't know why people keep insisting on somehow giant massive events revealing the new hardware from Sony and Microsoft at E3 when they had done (or are going to do) those big announcements outside of E3.

There is not going to be a big Sony reveal of the PS4 simply because it already happened.
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wat
 
The only thing I really miss about E3 is the sheer amazingness that was Konami's 2010.

Now that is something that you can't get anymore from prerecorded video.
 
BlastProcessing said:
I certainly don't think that this decision dooms Nintendo or anything, but it is a risk for Nintendo when the Wii U is already in a precarious position. Nintendo needs to give people confidence in their future, and not having a big showy keynote is going to be perceived as a sign of weakness, rightly or not. If they would have tried this when they where on top of with the Wii people would perceive it as a sign of strength. Optics matter.

It would be like a presidential nominee forgoing his convention speech in lieu of a pre-produced video and a hand shaking photo op tour of local Kiwanis Clubs.
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Nicely stated.
 
ArkkAngel007 said:
You're missing the point.

No one except for people who play games really pays attention to this. I don't buy that Sally Salon Sue cares that Nintendo is on CNN or that Microsoft is on Spike.

All this seems to be is a lot of people who should know better than to focus on the spectacle are only focusing on the spectacle. A spectacle that was probably nonexistant in comparison in the first place.
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So what? People that play games don't buy video game consoles?

Yeah, people are coming for the spectacle. Again it's an advertisement, you want as many people to come as you can, for whatever reason. It's actually probably a good thing if people walk away only remembering that the Wii U E3 thing was a spectacle. That's exactly the type of connection between a product and a feeling that you want from an advertisement.
 
nubbe said:
Nintendo Direct's just preaches to the choir and we know that choir ain't big anymore.
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And the conferences are what, exactly? The presenters are the same, the content is the same, we just won't have Geoff Keighly telling us how to feel immediately afterwards.
 
nubbe said:
Nintendo Direct's just preaches to the choir and we know that choir ain't big anymore.
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Are there seriously millions of people who watched Nintendo's past E3 conferences live and won't be watching "Nintendo Direct E3 Presentation"?
 
madmackem said:
It filters through to mainstream media, you can guess what they will write right now its going to write itself, meanwhile nintendo didnt have a big conference this year casting doubt on the future of the company and its failing wii u games machines.
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Exactly and this is what will be written in articles on CNN and WSJ which way more people read and trust more than a gaming forum
 
Anticitizen One said:
WHAT? All they showed was the controller and some footage. They didn't show the system, what the actual launch lineup will be, price, launch date etc. etc. It was more of a big teaser and an outline of their vision going forward. The big PS4 reveal will be at E3 make no mistake.
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That still took them over 2 hours. People were pretty done by the end.
 
Are they fucking serious? Horrible idea if their planning on doing a Nintendo Direct over an E3 press event. Seriously that's about as insular as you can get, no one outside of Nintendo faithful really follows or cares about Nintendo Direct.

They need to attract a NEW audience not stroke their egos appealing to an audience that loves everything they put out.
 
BlastProcessing said:
I did read the OP, I super double promise. If E3 only reached the hardcore, it would not exist. Simple as that.



When I say mainstream, I mean even more mainstream than COD players. I mean your mom. I mean people who read HuffPo and watch the Today Show. I certainly don't mean anyone who even knows what 4chan is.
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As I said, shows like Regis and Kelly, The Today Show, and Late Night shows did more for the Wii than E3 did. The floor demos did more than the press event.

In all my years paying attention to the event and interacting with the general populace afterwards through several jobs in just as many areas, I have yet to see an E3 press conference do more than maybe clue in someone that there's a new system or maybe their kid mentions a new game of a sort that they easily can see from Reddit or Twitter.



I think CNN wants to be able to put together a nice reel of interesting video to run. You need to feed them a little zazz to get them to run with things.
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Other than console announcements, I don't remember any other news reaching the CNN frontpage that was game related (outside of shootings and COD being the biggest money-maker that is). CNET will have things, but I doubt those who go there don't also go to other sites with the same/better info.
 
BigJonsson said:
How does Nintendo not have way more than enough money to have a press conference?
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Because they probably don't have enough to show to justify a press conference.

They've already shown the next years worth of 3DS stuff and they can't have much more than a handful of Wii U games that we haven't seen before. They have no third party software to show, no new platform, no awesome sales to show off pie charts for.

They have the money, they just don't have enough content to justify it. Imagine how awful it's going to look when MS and Sony announce how much software they have coming for the first year of their new platforms and Nintendo show off the five Wii U games they have planned for the rest of the financial year. Best to keep it low key to stop any unflattering comparisons.
 
Konami actually did this in 2011. Does anyone else remember that?

They did a Konami Direct, before Nintendo Directs existed. Just a pre-recorded video, no conference.
 
Dr.Palutena said:
That really doesn't make much sense when:
1) They advertised this event for 3 weeks
2) The live attendance and number of press invited for the event was larger than their E3 conferences.
3) It got 3 million unique views and at certain points 300k+ concurrent views on streams, far more than E3 conference streams get.
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They did a good job of getting attention, sure, but I bet that both Sony and Microsoft's E3 keynotes do better numbers than that. The fact that even after Sony was able to generate that level of intrest themselves, they are still having an E3 keynote should tell us something about how Sony views the value in it.

Also the platform holders having giant E3 keynotes help draw attention to E3 in general, which helps 3rd parties. I would argue that it is part of the responsibilities of a good platform holder. Something that Nintendo has never really excelled at.
 
Based on the length of this thread, I'm going to assume it's pretty controversial. I'm pretty happy with the decision to be honest; I think it's been a long time coming. E3 conferences are a balancing act in which both sides are continually adding more weight, and they never please anyone these days, as a result.

This seems like a confident step towards far less unwanted extravagance and other bullshit, and that can only be good thing.
 
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