Nintendo’s E3 press conference - everything that happened |
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| BY Rain Anderson Jul. 15th, 2008 | More on: |
Nintendo has been very quiet on their plans for the rest of the year, and this press conference is something Wii owners have been looking forward to like a wide eyed child waiting for his next bed time story. Will Nintendo announce anything new, anything for the hardcore gamer, a new Zelda, WiiSports 2, or just get through it with a smile on their face? Time to find out!
- Reel runs, showing a lot of happy people of all ages having fun with the Wii and the DS.
- Cammy Dunaway takes the stage (no Reggie?) to open the conference
- Shaun White on stage, showing off his snowboarding game using the balance board
- Dunaway tries the game too, doesn’t completely humiliate herself (j/k)
- Satoru Iwata takes the stage, talks about change in the global gaming market, how Nintendo has expanded into the casual market, breaking down the wall between gamers and non-gamers
- Katsuya Eguchi reel runs, shows off Animal Crossing Wii. Talks of new communication method and introduces WiiSpeak, a microphone. Game will be out this year.
- Reggie takes the stage, says they’re pleased, talks of sales numbers, shows with graphs that Wii rules all. Starts talking about software and “veteran gamers”.
- Reel starts, shows Star Wars: The Clone Wars with MotionPlus, Rayman Raving Rabbids TV party, Call of Duty World at War.
- Dunaway takes the stage again, starts talking about the DS, and the success it’s had. “DS appeal is universal.” Reel runs, showing Guitar Hero OnTour Decades, and Spore.
- New Pokemon game announced (sarcastic “yay!”)
- Grand Theft Auto for DS announced, set in Liberty City, new engine, same free-roaming gameplay.
- “DS may be tranforming itself”, Reggie takes the stage, talks of MotionPlus, announces WiiSports Resort (basically WiiSports 2).
- WiiSports Resort comes packaged with MotionPlus. MotionPlus being demoed on-stage, looks much more responsive than the regular Wii remote. Three Resort games (”a small taste”) demoed.
- WiiMusic demoed, Miyamoto makes an entrance, 50 different instruments in WiiMusic (drums, sax, piano, guitar etc etc), balance board usable as drum pedals. Miyamoto and co, put on a WiiMusic performance.
- Reggie and Dunaway close the show by going over everything they’ve presented “more smiles to more faces”
Whew. Next up - Sony’s press conference!
July 15th, 2008
at 11:52 am
Despite showing off alot of stuff, I still feel like it was kind of a deflated show. Not much new was shown. And I think that the “new” stuff that they DID show like WiiMusic and Wii Sports Resort is just another recycled version of the same formula they’ve been using since day 1. They talk alot about changing the industry, but what about changing their own lineup?
July 15th, 2008
at 12:18 pm
Okay I guess. I was looking to hear the introduction of an addon hard drive or something. Although a good conference, I like MS conference better.
July 15th, 2008
at 12:31 pm
You need to fix your article… you said GTA coming to Wii, but it’s actually coming to the DS.
July 15th, 2008
at 12:49 pm
Whoops, thanks Brian.
July 15th, 2008
at 1:00 pm
as a fan of nintendo, i was looking forward to them stealing the show and really showing wii off as both a competitor in the core audience market as well as remaining a leader in the casual market. when they announced wii motion plus last night, i was super excited.
i expected that at the VERY least we`d get to see pikmin 3, animal crossing, and kid icarus. perhaps a new zelda game would at least be announced with a trailer. instead, they decided not to even through their patiently loyal fans a bone– there wasn`t a single announcement pertaining to the core gamer other than that mario and zelda teams were `hard at work.`
furthermore, animal corssing–a title i was secretly hoping would blow me away–looks like a port of the ds game with the shops moved to a town and a microphone device that i don`t even care about. they couldn`t even give a good example of what people would even do with each other when visiting towns; you can basically talk to each other and walk around.
wii music looks extremely lame, and will never compete with something like rock band 2.
the wii sports sequel looks like it could be a pretty fun budget title. otherwise, there was nothing for me in this conference… nothing for anyone, really. it was simply a lot of numbers and boasting and talking about a future that doesn`t even seem like it will bloom. i`m going to buy an xbox 360.
July 15th, 2008
at 1:16 pm
the worst… now we know for what they were searching for ppl to work with USB…
thy now a wireless headphone?
where is the games?
sigh…
July 15th, 2008
at 5:27 pm
I thought it was a decent conference, the only thing missing was the announcement of a more typical Nintendo game like Pikmin or Starfox.
MotionPlus looked amazing, and clearly demonstrated its true 1:1 ability. The potential for this peripheral is enormous. For me it’s like the Balance board x 100.
Animal Crossing plus voice chat will be huge, and so the exclusive Star Wars game this Christmas.
GTA on the DS was jaw dropper too.