E3 ‘07 Nintendo: How to NOT Embarrass Yourself
- Scribbled on July 13th, 2007 by Mitch Dyer
- Filed in E3, Grinding Gears, Nintendo Wii, WTF
Nintendo’s press conference was, in a word, abysmal. The main event was a Boogie-Board, preceded by an old peripheral with a new look (Zapper) and… another old peripheral with a new look (Wheel). It was, overall, disappointing. On top of this, here are the main reasons Nintendo failed, and what could have been done to impress the crowd.
1. Animal Crossing Wii: Really? Nothing? Not even a muttering of a single word about it. The last Nintendo spoke about this game was with its movie release in Japan - “See you soon on Wii!” the post-credit notification declared. This was many moons ago. Granted, Nintendo does have a metric assload of blockbusters this year, and Mario Kart looks to be heading off 2008, but wouldn’t it have at least made sense to announce something? Damn, this game is still on the top 5 selling, and top 5 Wi-Fi-Connected games on Nintendo’s list. What gives? It would have made an impression, and maybe saved us from seeing as many Nintendo commercials as we did.
2. LESS COMMERCIALS: How many self-supporting ads did we see? Four? Five? Am I exaggerating? Not in the least folks - Nintendo’s shameless self promotion was a shill to end all shill’s, showcasing random tidbits of Nintendo praise, and while it’s well earned, we all know it and don’t need to see it. Who cares what random woman/man have to say about the awesomeness of the Wii? I don’t want to see punk-kids singing a stupid song about it either. News articles and viral video’s were more abundant than decent Nintendo presentation at this year’s E3. What. The. Hell?
3. Better Focus: Instead of focusing on Wii-Fit, and your godawful new peripheral, why not present more about Mario Galaxy? “Yeah, November…” was all we heard about it. Same with Super Smash Brothers: we got a solid release date but nothing confirming any cool new characters or levels. Come on, you know Solid Snake’s addition caused a stir… just confirm Sonic the Hedgehog and make all the fanboys happy. Mario Kart Wii should have definitely been the focus, over all. The game is a ways off, but all we saw was lame footage, a mention of an online mode, and a crappy wheel. Hell, Microsoft’s new stuff wasn’t this bad. Being E3 and all you think that maybe you should… you know? Cover games.
What do you guys think? Did Nintendo do it for you, or are we missing about 14 more reasons? Let us know.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:21 am
My theory? I don’t think they really care. They’re at E3 because they have to be, but does it matter?
Personally, I don’t think anything they showed off (any of the groups) couldn’t have been done better utilizing some hype, and exclusive videos on the Web in HD like on gametrailers or something.
On top of which, it’s really a boring year because we don’t have any super secret hype about a next-generation console design since they all just released last year or so.
So, were they pathetic? Yeah, a bit. But they WHERE NOT pathetic when it counted…last year. Look at their sales now! This years E3 won’t impact Wii sales in the least.
July 15th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Derrick, this is supposed to be E3, not the CES. Toys go to CES.
July 18th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
[...] Microsoft’s Corporate VP of Global Marketing, Jeff Bell — you might have heard of him. No? Look to the right—-> Yeah, there you go. If you tuned into the Microsoft E3 2007 Press Conference, horrible memories of a robotic-sounding PR-bot who claims to be Reggie Bush’s personal friend are probably flooding through your cerrabellum faster than Nintendo lost the harcore gamer. [...]