Nintendo no longer a big player in the game
E3 has reached dizzying heights this year, with platform holders and third-party publishers finally able to fully expose their plans for the next-gen future. The first few days have delivered some incredible moments, none more so than the scenes at Sony's press conference, where the audience stood to applaud the company's PlayStation 4 policies for a full five minutes. However not everyone has enjoyed a successful E3, as it looks like Nintendo's decision to skip a full-blown conference in favour of its Nintendo Direct broadcast could come back to haunt them.
We all knew that this would be a major gamble for Nintendo and the struggling Wii U. Standing to one side and letting Sony and Microsoft battle it out for the attention of the mainstream was a calculated risk, one that was reached after considering they have no new hardware to show off. What we didn't know was just how much excitement the PS4 and Xbox One could muster up, and how Nintendo would be left looking like an also-ran in the race for public affection.
Compared to the high profile, evidently expensive conferences that Nintendo's rivals produced, their broadcast felt like it had been prepared by teenage amateurs. As usual we had Satoru Iwata on our screens, or did we? I - and judging by the reaction on Twitter, many others - had continuous problems with the stream, which led to me missing the first seven minutes of the show. Not to mention the constant buffering that kept occurring during every game announcement. Technical problems are inevitable in life, but you know what doesn't stop to load every five seconds? A live conference in front of thousands of games industry specialists.
When the show finally kicked into gear there was some interesting stuff, predictably Mario-centric. The new Mario 3D game looks fun, and incorporating multiplayer into it could be a great feature. Of course, a new Mario Kart was always going to generate interest, even if you haven't owned a Nintendo system in years. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze was a nice surprise, although there was some disappointment that this was the mysterious game that Retro Studios had been working on. And they saved the best for last, with the long awaited announcement of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS - now with added Megaman.
But while these first-party titles are great for Nintendo fanboys, are they really enough to draw outsiders in? There was an amusing moment during the broadcast where Iwata reeled off a list of third-party games that were heading to the Wii U, but most are heading to current-gen platforms as well. The exception is Bayonetta 2, which looks superb but is it a system seller? EA has previously said that they have no games in development for Wii U at this time, while even Ubisoft - a big supporter of the Wii U originally - is starting to voice doubts about the low install base of the platform. If Nintendo doesn't get the big publishers on board in the next year then it won't be good news for their future as a console maker.
Of course, the big executives within Nintendo claim that the future is bright, and you'll hear nothing but enthusiasm from the likes of Reggie Fils-Aime, who said this year was all about showing off new games. But those games are all the same. Yet another Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong, but this time they were shown off to a much smaller audience with much less fanfare. Meanwhile Sony announced a competitively priced PS4 and Microsoft showed off plenty of gorgeous looking Xbox One exclusives. Nintendo remains such a big influence that you can never count them out, but unless something drastic happens then they'll be relegated to the second-tier of gaming within the year.