Naturally, Nintendo led off with the Wii title The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, bringing out Miyamoto himself to demo the game in person (with some technological hiccups due to wireless interference). The graphics are realistic with a nice cartoon sheen to them, and the Wiimote controls your sword with Motion Plus 1:1 movement, while the Nunchuck controls your shield. Holding your sword up to the sky charges it with power to shoot force beams. Enemies will defend themselves in unique ways, forcing you to use your sword in very specific fashion to defeat them. The menu has also been redesigned, where you hold the B button down and move an on-screen hand with your Wiimote to select the item you want to use. The slingshot no longer requires you to aim directly at the TV, and bombs can be tossed and rolled like Wii Sports bowling. Just like the bow and arrow control like they do in Wii Sports Resort. And the Beetle, one of the new items, works like the plane from the same game, and is a remote control grabber that you can fly around to reach items in distant spots. It looks like you could also use it for recon, which might be helpful. A whip can be used to cut grass and grab items, and obviously, also disarming enemies. The on-screen HUD, while transparent, is a little obtrusive. Hopefully that's just for the demo, and maybe the first area of the actual game, and then will go away. Unfortunately, Skyward Sword isn't going to be out until next year...

Next, Reggie moved on to sports games, talking about realistic versus arcade, which all led into Mario Sports Mix, which contains games like volleyball, ice hockey, dodgeball and basketball, all with that unique Mario feel! Then they brought out Wii Party, which is an online party game with 13 game modes like Board Game Island and Balance Boat, and 70 mini-games. All featuring your and your friends Miis. Wii Party is due out this holiday season while Mario Sports Mix isn't out until 2011.

Oh, and then there's Ubisoft's Just Dance 2, which expands upon the surprising Wii hit by adding a Just Sweat mode and Dance Crew Face-Offs with up to 8 players. They showed a trailer for Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, which will be hitting DS's this holiday, but other than just looking awesome and using both screens for some of the more epic battles, no real info was leaked. The next trailer was for the Wii remake of the incredibly popular N64 title GoldenEye. With a ton of multiplayer modes, and Daniel Craig standing in for Pierce Brosnan as the current James Bond, this looks like a no-brainer.

Then Warren Spector and Adam Creighton came out to demo some gameplay from Disney Epic Mickey, a Wii exclusive that looks fantastic. Exploring Wasteland, you will encounter various characters from Disney history that have been forgotten. During one dialogue, it turned into a cutscene with the most beautiful animation style. Mickey's paintbrush affects the world, either erasing or drawing, and your gameplay style will affect how the game plays. Erase too much, people won't like you. Then they demoed a side-scrolling level based on the classic Steamboat Willie cartoon, and it was a perfect recreation. Unfortunately, there was no release date given.

They're revamping Kirby again, this time with Kirby's Epic Yarn, which sees the little pink blob transformed into a twisty curl of pink yarn exploring a fabric universe and fighting enemies made of yarn and string. You know, like Paper Mario, but with fabric and yarn. It looks incredible in motion, unzipping backgrounds to open up new areas and such... It's scheduled to release this fall.

Next, Reggie talked up the sales figures for Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, but it's coming out next month, and everyone already knows it's gong to be awesome, so there wasn't much of a reaction. There was also only a light reaction to the gameplay footage of Metroid: Other M, since there weren't any new reveals. It still looks good, with the frenetic action, and is due out August 31. Kind of lame box art, though. Oh, and they're bringing back Donkey Kong with Donkey Kong Country Returns. It's the same 2.5-D platforming action, just in polygons this time. Although there was one level shown that was all silhouetted and looked rather different and cool.

The grand finale was the revelation of the Nintendo 3DS, and president and CEO Satoru Iwata himself came on stage to talk it up. The 3DS has improved graphics hardware that takes it almost to Wii-quality graphics in the palm of your hand, and a "slide pad" above the D-pad for analog controls. A slider next to the 3.5" widescreen 3D display lets you control the amount of 3D effect, even turning it off if you so choose. Though why you'd want to do that is beyond me! Fully compatible with the DSi, it has a camera that faces you and then two camera lenses on the outside that let you shoot your own 3D pictures! The other big revelation was that the hardware can actually display 3D films, and Hollywood studios like Disney, Warner Bros. and Dreamworks were name-dropped. But the crowd really went wild when footage from Kid Icarus Uprising was shown. The flying sequences are going to look even more impressive in 3D, though as I said, the graphics are already phenomenal for a handheld system. While Miyamoto is working on a 3D Nintendogs that also includes cats, Iwata made sure to confirm lots of third party support for the system, including a new Professor Layton, Kingdom Hearts, Resident Evil and Metal Gear in 3D, amongst others. Next came a video of developers praising the innovative 3DS, and a trailer of Iwata and Miyamoto being sucked into the 3DS while Reggie was burned by a Bowser that emerged from the 3D screen. Quite amusing. To conclude, a phalanx of female models (no male ones, sadly) emerged with 3DS systems strapped to them to allow the audience a chance to see the astonishing no-glasses 3D effect for themselves. But since the crowd was insane, and I had this article to get up, I figured I could wait a few hours for my personal Nintendo appointment later today. So look for that impressions article later on!