E3 '08: Nintendo Press Event In Brief
Nintendo's 2008 E3 Press Event at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre was a bit of a letdown this year, with Nintendo setting a confident but odd tone by declaring that the only major impediment to Nintendo's success is... Nintendo's success.
Following the usual history lesson and statistics lesson, Nintendo did announce a few new things, but mostly kept to beating the drum of its stellar success with both the DS and the Wii.
Highlights:
- Shaun White Snowboarding: The first new game announced at this year's Nintendo E3 Press Event takes its inspiration from the high slopes of snowboarding adventure, demoed by none other than Mr. Shaun White himself. Not unlike its cement analog, Skate It, Shaun White Snowboarding uses the Wii Balance Board.
- Speaking of the Wii Balance Board, Nintendo honcho Mr. Iwata gloated over its success with the incredulity of "selling millions of bathroom scales!"
- Animal Crossing: City Folk, the adorable series' Wii debut, was introduced by series creator Katsuya Eguchi, and while the Animal Crossing world does get a considerable number of updates (and releases this fall), it was its accompanying peripheral that drew most of the attention:
- WiiSpeak: Nintendo's take on the conference call, WiiSpeak is a community microphone for everyone in the room and will accompany Animal Crossing: City Folk later this fall. It's an odd but cute idea at first thought - time will tell.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: the cartoony look of this Wii battler puts lightsabers and Wiimotes into the hands of gamers, at long last, and should arrive in time for this year's holiday season.
- Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party: Ubisoft looks to have updated its party game hand by capitalizing upon the Wii's new peripherals: surf the skies on the Wii Balance Board, or ride down some kind of ice luge with Wiimote and nunchuck - and much more, no doubt.
- Call of Duty: World At War Fight wars and shoot stuff with the Wii Blaster and demand that your boyfriend help you by wielding the Wiimote in co-op mode. Coming soon.
- Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades is on the way, and brings with it a multiplayer mode that will let gamers share songs between different versions of Guitar Hero on the DS.
- OCD card battlers, prepare yourselves for Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia which will take over the world on November 10.
- Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars brings felony to the DS this winter with a custom engine, new characters, and the same free range gameplay that we expect.
- Reggie touted the 1-to-1 motion sensing abilities of the Wii Motion Plus that, while neat, sounds a lot like what the Wiimote was supposed to do from the beginning.
- Wii Sports Resort is quite literally a day at the beach, and will use Wii Motion Plus to fine-tune mechanics like throwing a Frisbee with a virtual doggie, slaloming jet skiis or dueling with swords. Global launch next spring.
- Lastly, Wii Music brings 50 different instruments and requires absolutely no skill whatsoever to play. Shiggy himself sauntered onstage, pantomiming a saxophone with a Wiimote. Turns out you don't even have to press the buttons according to rhythm - the Wii just riffs off of your body movement. Sounds like a musical screen saver. I've been calling it Rock Band Camp in honor of my dorky band camp friends - then again, pairing the Wiimote and nunchuck with the Wii Balance Board did create an awesome-looking virtual drum kit.
tiny dancer
Posted to E3, Hot Stuff on 15 July 2008
· Comments (9)
Other stuff like this: animal crossing city folk, e3, e3 2008, grand theft auto chinatown wars, nintendo, press event, wii music, wii sports resort
Animal Crossing=mildly exciting
WiiMusic=why?
Rest of the Press Release= let-down
I'm kinda bummed.
It seems that all the announcements this year were letdowns. Nintendo being the biggest of them all.
Yea this was a huge letdown, Nintendo you have two days to make up for it, If not I will cry...
Last year they announced their "big" titles towards the end of E3 as a surprise. Heres hoping thats the case.
Yea this was a huge letdown, Nintendo you have two days to make up for it, If not I will cry...
Last year they announced their "big" titles towards the end of E3 as a surprise. Heres hoping thats the case.
I'm prolly going to be the only person that says this, but...
Nintendo delivered, but only for their intended audience of casuals. I'm not shocked to see forum/blog commenters say how much of a "disappointment" this was, but in the grander scheme of things, they announced the follow up to the most influential piece of software this generation. This is the story that will most likely get the most mainstream press. Yes, that includes Final Fantasy 13 on 360.
In my personal opinion, Nintendo hit their audience just as well (and narrowly) as Microsoft hit theirs. Neither ventured outside of their expected paths into unproven genres on their platforms, both focused on their platforms biggest strengths. Casual stuff isn't going to interest the hardcore just as Too Human will be ignored by mainstream press. (TH demo is great btw! I just wish they'd fix the sliding) To call either a disappointment is pretty single minded.
There's one thing not listed here that I thought was incredible and I was really hoping to see it mentioned here. Nintendo's results/stats on gender inclusive marketing is a great thing for this industry as a whole. Forget deals with Netflix or Blu Ray, this to me is real progress. Nintendo should be applauded for successfully seeking out and catering to what *WAS* largely viewed in this industry as a "minority" and turning into a real force to reckoned with, but I have a feeling that many here don't care much about this.
I totally agree with game-boi and Nintendo has successfully tapped in a specific section of the gaming market that has been ignored - women.
I'm a gay man, but I've been doing loads of stories for my newspaper about how moms buy this for their family and elderly senior ladies playing wii bowling.
I'm disappointed too but not surprised. I'm hoping that Nintendo pulls something amazing still in the end of E3 for their hardcore gamers like Final Fantasy XIII for the Wii or even Kingdom Hearts, which would be even better for their audience.
Egh. I'm all for Nintendo broadening the game market, but why am I(a gamer) a wii owner?
Grandmas and Soccer moms don't watch E3 press conferences...this is for the gamers...and they didn't throw gamers a single bone. it's so alienating to see that the system we invested in, which they admittedly drew us in with at the very beginning, has abandoned us to put smiles on mee-maws faces.
Animal crossing is not a hardcore game.
Who's not tired of GTA at this point?
...and coming from a musician, that wii music game is just offensively bad...that jam session was embarrassing.
@David: Animal Crossing not hardcore? It destroys lives I tell you! And dammit a communal microphone is really good idea from Nintendo. Can't think why it hasn't been done before.
I can feel myself weakening and thinking about buying AC... noooooooooo
No sorry from ms on gamertag issues i dont like the new 360 interface ffxiii? are people kidding ill be playing verses as well.
im no where near thinking about ditchin my PS3. 64 online Risistance 2 this year.in the future 256 in MAG wich looks amazing. Rachet and my fave Siren damne Sony showed just what they should have PS3 is future proof.