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

Sony and MS are not going to follow suit anytime soon, those kidding yourselves that Nintendo is 'leading the way forward' are just spouting damage control tbh. E3 is still relevant and this isn't a good idea on Nintendo's behalf.
 
Seems like throwing away money cant buy advertising, E3 always gets mentioned on morning talk shows. Seen it here in Australia and on the USA ones.
 
They probably know that their show won't even be in comparison with Microsoft and Sony so instead of being the weakest link, they're not doing one to dodge bad press I imagine.

It's still embarrassing, just not as embarrassing as it would have been.
 
Nibel said:
There were bigger news in the last 3 ND's than in the last 2 E3 Nintendo press conferences, I don't know why people think that you need Usher on stage to have a important presence

The info is still coming just in a different and more focused way, that's it
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The stage is a symbol of importance. Big news calls for a big stage.
If Nintendo didn't do NDs, they wouldn't be able to perpetuate silly terms like Year of Weegee.
 
daycru said:
Nintendo Direct only speaks to the Luigi Hats, E3 is covered by legitimate media which is consumed by actual customers. But hey, it's their company.
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The media still get their slice, but in a much more focussed manner, through hands-on experiences and smaller events throughout E3.
 
Nibel said:
There were bigger news in the last 3 ND's than in the last 2 E3 Nintendo press conferences, I don't know why people think that you need Usher on stage to have a important presence

The info is still coming just in a different and more focused way, that's it
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About Usher or any other kind of guest / event during conferences... Do we have sales numbers for Dance Central 3? Or for Rock Band: Beatles (Paul McCartney and Ringo Star being on stage for MS) or for the Tony Hawk title requiring the Skateboard (TH himself on stage)?
 
Remember when E3 was more than three stage shows? Like they had these booths that people played games on for days. What happened to those?
 
Somnid said:
Hah, I called it! Now maybe people will shut up about "bringing it" at E3.

The writing was on the wall, E3 was providing less value than Nintendo was getting out. Spotlight sharing, unnecessary competition, dudebro culture (gets worse every year), and it's never been a great venue for demoing games. Especially if they don't have some new hardware they need to spotlight it's just not important anymore. Nintendo Direct is the way of the future where they can decide when and how they want to present things without needing to go through the gaming media filter. Also like the 3DS event last week there's better ways to get people hands on than a noisy, time-constrained venue where journalists need to pick and choose what they see and are exhausted from writing articles.
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This so much.

I dont know what people want here. Think from Nintendo's perspective.

You guys want Nintendo to have a conference in which they feel is siding with Sony and MS?

You want Nintendo to have a conference even though you consider the Wii U a failure and or last gen and cant compete with sony or ms?

You want Nintendo to have a conference simply for the hoopla?

Most of the people saying Nintendo has thrown up a white flag or something are the sameones saying Wii U is dead. Why go about a normal why of doing things to what you guys prefer if you dont even care?

I still would like a conference for the hoopla personally but Nintendo is doing something different and its just not for no reason.

And if you think Nintendo has a lack of software or something thats pretty foolish. Mario Kart, X, SMTXFE, 3D Mario, Zelda WWRemake, (ZELDA tba my guess), Retros game, Bayonetta 2, The Wonderful 101. Thats not embarassing software if it is then I dont know whats a good software lineup.
 
Duffyside said:
If you own a platform, you have a big E3 press conference just before E3 starts. That's the way it works.
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Of those that were released, how many of the big titles announced at E3 last year went on to turn a profit?

What if 'the way it works' doesn't work?
 
Tobor said:
If they had enough content to fill a full conference, they'd have a full conference.
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That's never stopped them before.


I can definitely see how someone could interpret this as Nintendo conceding defeat acknowledging that they won't (can't?) compete with Sony and MS for the attention and hype and popularity among enthusiasts and the enthusiast press.
 
Nibel said:
There were bigger news in the last 3 ND's than in the last 2 E3 Nintendo press conferences, I don't know why people think that you need Usher on stage to have a important presence

The info is still coming just in a different and more focused way, that's it
Click to expand...

There's also another difference: The mass media is covering events such as E3 and Gamescom. I've yet to see them cover Nintendo Direct announcements. But I guess as Nintendo is more and more focussing on the hardore Nintendo fans, Nintendo Directs are sufficient means of communication.

If you want to expand your audience as they did with Wii, you better make sure there's amazing marketing when the product launches. E3 might not be too important for that either, but it can make a great splash as evidenced by the Wii or by Kinect.
 
I don't like it, but I can understand their reasoning.

They just can't compete with these behemoths announcing/showing their new consoles and its games.

Everything they'll show won't look as good. And I mean actually look as good. It's best if they could give hands on showings of the titles...
 
Officerrob said:
Whether they watch it live or watch it after work when they get home, people are drawn to watching E3 press conferences because they are a huge event in the gaming industry. When you take away the "event" you lose a big part of the audience
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My point was that I don't think that the general gaming public ever watches E3 at all. I think they hear the info from whatever news outlet they already use and never actually bother watching the conference.

Its only really important to people like us who spend all day rounding up every little detail of video game news right when it happens. If people are just going to rewatch things later then whats the difference between an on stage press conference and one pre prepared? Are you really not going to watch a Nintendo Direct full of upcoming games just because Usher wont be there dancing and there wont be flashing lights and shitty dubstep montages?
 
Why would Nintendo announce anything in the midst of the MS/Sony shitstorm when they can just do a Direct in the run-up and then hands-on events? This makes sense. They've had more success with Nintendo Direct recently than with past conferences.

Zen_Arcade said:
My point was that I don't think that the general gaming public ever watches E3 at all. I think they hear the info from whatever news outlet they already use and never actually bother watching the conference.

Its only really important to people like us who spend all day rounding up every little detail of video game news right when it happens. If people are just going to rewatch things later then whats the difference between an on stage press conference and one pre prepared? Are you really not going to watch a Nintendo Direct full of upcoming games just because Usher wont be there dancing and there wont be flashing lights and shitty dubstep montages?
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Yep, yep. The same thing applies to people questioning why MS is doing the Xbox reveal at 10am. "Everyone is at work!!" - well, duh. Everyone's at work when Apple announces new stuff, too - it's not for that audience, really. It'll trickle down to them and means it makes the next day's news and whatnot.
 
Dynopia said:
Sony and MS are not going to follow suit anytime soon, those kidding yourselves that Nintendo is 'leading the way forward' are just spouting damage control tbh. E3 is still relevant and this isn't a good idea on Nintendo's behalf.
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having a personlised interaction with your customer is not as important as an overblown, pretty much the black eyed peas level of stretched out super bowl half time show?? e3 presentations, for the most part, are painful.
 
*During the Sony presser:*

Nintendp during a Direct: Hey guys! Smash Bros Trailer!

*Sony presser views drop 50% instantly.*
 
duckroll said:
Strong statement from Nintendo. It says to me that they don't feel that their lineup at E3 will be compared favorably to MS and Sony's offerings by the press, and so they are trying to artificially create a situation where they cannot be compared. If they feel their lineup is weak, I wonder what we'll feel after seeing it. Lol.
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They're still going to show it to the press. Will the press react differently to it and report it differently if they know we aren't watching them? The experience will be similar to them, sitting in a room while things are presented.

If anything they might get some more work done with live blogging and what not, that is not so necessary when their audience can be viewing it at the same time.

Thought we might be watching a Direct with similar information at the time we can always multi task and read about what they're seeing during the lows.
 
Ever since that attempt to scale E3 to an "industry professionals only" event back in like 2007 or 2008 that tanked hard, E3 just hasn't felt the same to me. So I'm not too upset about the change.
 
APZonerunner said:
Why would Nintendo announce anything in the midst of the MS/Sony shitstorm when they can just do a Direct in the run-up and then hands-on events? This makes sense. They've had more success with Nintendo Direct recently than with past conferences.



Yep, yep. The same thing applies to people questioning why MS is doing the Xbox reveal at 10am. "Everyone is at work!!" - well, duh. Everyone's at work when Apple announces new stuff, too - it's not for that audience, really. It'll trickle down to them and means it makes the next day's news and whatnot.
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Like forreal does MS not count here. This thing is at 10AM on a tuesday. l
 
APZonerunner said:
Why would Nintendo announce anything in the midst of the MS/Sony shitstorm when they can just do a Direct in the run-up and then hands-on events? This makes sense. They've had more success with Nintendo Direct recently than with past conferences.



Yep, yep. The same thing applies to people questioning why MS is doing the Xbox reveal at 10am. "Everyone is at work!!" - well, duh. Everyone's at work when Apple announces new stuff, too - it's not for that audience, really. It'll trickle down to them and means it makes the next day's news and whatnot.
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Because there is an almost zero chance that any Nintendo Direct will get the kind of mainstream media exposure an E3 conference will get, it's preaching to the choir and right now, for the Wii U, that choir is too small to even qualify as a barbershop quartet.

They need mainstream exposure, E3 conferences provide that, Nintendo Directs will not.

Personally I think it's hilarious.
 
JAYSIMPLE said:
having a personlised interaction with your customer is not as important as an overblown, pretty much the black eyed peas level of stretched out super bowl half time show?? e3 presentations, for the most part, are painful.
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Has it gone over your head or have you not noticed that the last few years E3 has been aimed at the masses, the far far far larger group of people to appeal to than gamers on the internet that actively look for news.

They'll have little to no presence now in the media now.
 
I'm more hyped for a new 3D Mario from EAD than anything that is currently expected from E3. A trailer, a ND demoing the game would be amazing in my opinion. This is why I feel this is such a good idea.
 
Kinda makes sense

1) Conference is costly
2) Nintendo Direct does the job quite well
3) I'd rather many Nintendo directs throughout the week than a one hour or so conference
 
Apart from concern in terms of execution I'm left wondering whether a lot of the kneejerk reactions are in due part of personal investment, not being able to cope with a shake-up from the status quo of press conferences and/or using the mass media coverage as some sort of scapegoat for the bigger picture.

In the case of the former, the same people who would log on to watch a stream of Nintendo's conference are the same people who would log on to watch a Nintendo Direct. There's really nothing different in segregating the news to give individual people the thing they yearn for, and what they yearn for is certainly not 30 minutes of Wii Fit or Wonderbook.

The case of the latter is purely debatable, because it's established that Nintendo are going to hold pressers for the journalists. I legitimately believe that there's no saying that there'd be a lack of attention purely on account of minimizing things to a more intimate level, and if the casual audience is that interested and know what E3 is then nothing is stopping Nintendo from slapping an E3 logo over their presentation because they certainly wouldn't be on the press floor watching it, that's for certain. The other news will be available where it's always been available, at specialist news sites, getting the attention any announcement of it's kind would have always had.

The real problem that one can feasibly consider them to falter with is that execution-wise there's a lot of blank spots that EatChildren eloquently listed a ton of pages back. I think it's the real thing worth debating here. I'm truthfully interested in how this goes, and E3 has desperately needed a shake-up. It's also been said earlier but I do believe that Nintendo would know one thing or another about mass awareness what with them having rented the Kodak Theater of all things on multiple occasions and storming with the Wii into public light.

Is it unconventional? Yes. Could it not work out well? Possibly. But the truth is Nintendo wouldn't be bringing in anything different for E3 if they were on another massive show floor. Everything that was going to be there then is going to be there now, in a different set up. The presence will be clear hopefully, and I think Nintendo might be able to pull it off. E3 is big, but not so big that it isn't allowed to be compromised with. Of all the things that's doom and gloom with Nintendo these days, this is one of the things I'm less concerned about.

And yes, I know we'll all miss "my body is ready" and multiple segments of hype bombs and audience reactions, as well as good old Miyamoto jumping out with a shield and a sword. But you'll probably get Miyamoto vacuuming gifs and Luigi and Mario fighting over dice in return, so it all balances out
 
Well, it's nice to get small pieces of cake with such conferences as Directs, but I prefer big blowout-events personally.

Anyway, they talk just about this year.
 
The best alternative is to announce a smash bros tiimed demo they show is available to play during the Microsoft and sony conferences, but not after. Viewership would drop through the floor
 
Meccanical said:
It was fun to see GAF pass through all the stages of grief,though many are still at the denial and bargaining stages.
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Most are stuck in an insane "denial/bargaining" loop, avoiding the acceptance stage at all costs. (And will likely never reach it :P)
 
Osiris said:
Because there is an almost zero chance that any Nintendo Direct will get the kind of mainstream media exposure an E3 conference will get, it's preaching to the choir and right now, for the Wii U, that choir is too small to even qualify as a barbershop quartet.

They need mainstream exposure, E3 conferences provide that, Nintendo Directs will not.

Personally I think it's hilarious.
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That's a great point. CNN and USA Today will be writing articles about the E3 Conferences. In years past, I remember people explaining Nintendo's poor conferences on the past with this very logic. "it's not for us, it's for the mainstream media".
 
Barrel Cannon said:
The best alternative is to announce a smash bros tiimed demo they show is available to play during the Microsoft and sony conferences, but not after. Viewership would drop through the floor
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No it wouldn't. There are evidently more people interested in Nextxbox/PS4 than WiiU.
 
Barrel Cannon said:
The best alternative is to announce a smash bros tiimed demo they show is available to play during the Microsoft and sony conferences, but not after. Viewership would drop through the floor
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Yeah, all those WiiU owners would jump at the opportunity and nobody would be left in the whole world...

Osiris said:
Because there is an almost zero chance that any Nintendo Direct will get the kind of mainstream media exposure an E3 conference will get, it's preaching to the choir and right now, for the Wii U, that choir is too small to even qualify as a barbershop quartet.

They need mainstream exposure, E3 conferences provide that, Nintendo Directs will not.

Personally I think it's hilarious.
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They're still providing things for journalists at E3, read the thread title would you?

If anything they might have more to write knowing their readers haven't actually already watched everything they saw (even if we get similar information from the Direct, surely some differences will apply).
 
Dynopia said:
Has it gone over your head or have you not noticed that the last few years E3 has been aimed at the masses, the far far far larger group of people to appeal to than gamers on the internet that actively look for news.

They'll have little to no presence now in the media now.
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You mean except for the fact that they said they were holding special meetings with the press specifically to focus on getting the information out there?
 
Osiris said:
Because there is an almost zero chance that any Nintendo Direct will get the kind of mainstream media exposure an E3 conference will get, it's preaching to the choir and right now, for the Wii U, that choir is too small to even qualify as a barbershop quartet.

They need mainstream exposure, E3 conferences provide that, Nintendo Directs will not.

Personally I think it's hilarious.
Click to expand...
There's still a press event conference involving extensive hands on demos.
 
Zen_Arcade said:
You mean except for the fact that they said they were holding special meetings with the press specifically to focus on getting the information out there?
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Oh, either way they're screwed with the press this year, they're just not gonna bother talking about Nintendo.

They would be less screwed with a big conference though, it's harder to ignore and at least gives them something to evaluate, a presence.

I can see mainstream press not giving a crap what Nintendo show them, it's gonna be some already announce games (for WiiU) and it'll pale immensely in comparison to whatever MS/Sony show.
 
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