Nintendo Raises More Questions, Has an Incredibly Vague E3 Presser

Not going to post the Bingo card because Nintendo only scored one space, the touchscreen controllers.

Nintendo announced the name and some capabilities of Project Café, now named Wii U. Nintendo began the show to say that while the Wii U is part of the focus of the show, it will not be ready until 2012. They were pretty clear in this message, not revealing any games exclusive for Wii U and not even revealing what the Wii U looks like, just the controller which looks like an iPad with a Wii Classic Controller attached to it.

Nintendo addressed some of the lineup questions on 3DS, saying that 5 key franchises (Mario, Starfox, Kid Icarus, Mario Kart, Luigi's Mansion) would all be hitting store shelves before the end 2011, more or less straight out saying that they're counting on lots of 3DS systems as Christmas presents, but they're going to have to compete with the PS Vita. It's pretty obvious now why Nintendo decided to release the 3DS so early; Sony's Vita was also going to be ready this year and if both handhelds were to be released in close proximity, it might cause the same situation as the Wii and PS3 launches, except in reverse since at this point, the PS Vita is looking like the better handheld. Nintendo assured that all the big marquee titles will be available this year.

With the Wii U, a complete reversal of the PS Vita was unveiled: Start playing a game on your Wii U and you can continue playing on your Wii U controller. It is not a portable system, it simply allows you to play on something other than a television (it's assumed you need to be a certain distance from the console). The Wii U doesn't abandon motion controls, taking them to a new level, and even supports all Wii previous peripherals. The graphics were a hot-issue among analysts, with rumors that the Wii U could outdo the Xbox 360 and PS3. Those rumors were not put to rest or confirmed, just statements from 3rd part developers that certain marquee titles were going to hit Wii U, including Batman: Arkham City and Assassin's Creed: Revelations.

The Wii U controller also functions similarly to a DS second screen, displaying info that one would normally find on a DS; maps, playbooks, inventory, etc.

The word that describes Nintendo's press conference is vague. No hard dates were given, the closest being Star Fox 64 3D being released in September 2011. Although Nintendo was once again making their press conference targeted towards hardcore gamers, it was somewhat confusing to not even hear a rough estimate of when the Wii U would be in our homes. There was one surprise announcement, that a new Super Smash Bros. is in development for both 3DS and Wii U. As far as if 3DS and Wii U will have a symbiotic relationship like PS3 and PSV, that's still unknown.

Although nothing we expected happened at Nintendo's presser, it was still a very intriguing conference. I would love to give a grade to Nintendo's conference, but so much of it has a wait-and-see attitude. They did have a great presser, but they also didn't answer old questions and brought up new ones. If I really had to give a grade to Nintendo's conference, I'd have to give it a solid B. They did impress, but they could have at least revealed the specs and what the Wii U looks like. I was also somewhat disappointed to not hear an announcement (yet) of a 25th anniversary Zelda game.


At the end of the day, Sony won this year's E3, showing off an always impressive lineup of games and the capabilities of the PS Vita are incredible. Microsoft is the clear loser, choosing to focus on Kinect and 3rd party games that will be available on every other console (including Wii U). While Nintendo started motion control gaming, Microsoft has decided to bastardize it, ruining all the things that made us love the Wii. On the first party/exclusive issue, Microsoft had no announcements regarding Gears of War 3 and flat out denied that it would be controllable with Kinect, a serious mistake. The Kinect functionality of Mass Effect 3 was less than impressive and really showcased that Bioware could care less about Kinect and Microsoft has totally lost its identity as a gaming company.

At next year's E3, Sony needs to do nothing but showcase why the PS3 is still great, how well PS Vita is doing, and what games we can expect for both. Nintendo can't wait for E3 next year, they're going to have to make all their announcements at the Tokyo Game Show. Microsoft is in deep water now, having two horrific E3 press conferences in a row, without ever having a serious presence at TGS or internationally at all. Microsoft needs to announce a handheld system or a new console. It was quite clear at this year's E3 that simply announcing Halo 4 is not good enough, especially when you're busy trying to capture the casual gamer market and alienating hardcore gamers who are turning to PS3.