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Thursday, April 28, 2016

Nintendo's E3 2016 Might Be Good!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - There is nothing incompatible with Nintendo's plans for E3 2016, and E3 2016 being good.

You've probably heard about what Nintendo is planning to do with their E3 2016 (June 14–June 16, 2016). It's not the full set of details, but according to Nintendo's press release, here's the gist of it
E3: Nintendo changes its approach to the show every year. This June, Nintendo will focus its attentions on the upcoming game in The Legend of Zelda franchise. The Wii U version of the game will be playable for the first time on the E3 show floor, and it will be the only playable game Nintendo presents at the show, in order to provide attendees a complete immersion. Additional information about Nintendo’s E3 plans will be announced in the future.” 
The same source says, of the NX,
“NX will not make an appearance at the upcoming E3 video game trade show in Los Angeles in June and will be unveiled later this year.”
A lot of people are upset with Nintendo after yesterday's massive news dump, relating to the NX and The Legend of Zelda's new Wii U release year. (Coming out on the NX at the same time, as well.) Some people misread and thought that because the NX will be releasing March 2017, that The Legend of Zelda is dated March 2017 as well. That is a guess, and not a fact. The Legend of Zelda is only dated for 2017. That's as specific as we'll get, for now. But we WILL know more about it from E3.

People think this E3 idea is fated for disaster. But I see several reasons how this disaster can be averted, and I'll list them. You can disagree if you want (and make those known in the comments) but at least consider my points. ...Yes, this is a bit leaning on the speculation side (which I don't usually do on this site), but I'll try to be reasonably factual here. I also will discuss what makes an E3 good.

GameFAQs poll of the day how do you feel about Nintendo's decision to not show the NX at E3 this year The Legend of Zelda 2016
Although the poll is still going on as of writing, we can see the feelings of the GameFAQs respondents are quite negative.

Remember last year's E3 for Nintendo? It was not very good when we live-reacted to it, and we graded it low in the post-E3 wrap-up.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata listened to us, and many other Nintendo fans, and apologised for E3 2015. This was the last thing we heard from him before his untimely passing. He wanted to better meet our expectations. I strongly have good faith that Nintendo will try their best with what they have. They will honour Satoru Iwata.

Nintendo, as we know, has more in the pipeline than just The Legend of Zelda. While it may be the only thing they show in a playable form on the show floor, I strongly doubt it will be the only game mentioned in however forme they showcase their event. Nintendo has unannounced projects they can show. There are games that we really need to know more about, such as Paper Mario: Color Splash, which we only have one trailer to go off of.

They can easily just announce MOTHER 3 as a Virtual Console game sometime during E3, just as they did with EarthBound Beginnings. And they'd already win E3 just from that for a lot of people, wouldn't they? Or be pretty close.

So here's how I see it: Nintendo has their presentation, whether it be live or pre-recorded. They have footage from the show floor for the rest of E3 showing The Legend of Zelda on Wii U, possibly with Treehouse and/or Nintendo Minute people. They will have their whole booth be themed in The Legend of Zelda, and just the interior design would tell us a lot about what the game is like. There will be a lot of demo options for it, so there is enough to talk about it for the week.

Link The Legend of Zelda Wii U NX official artwork bow
Artwork of Link from the Wii U version of The Legend of Zelda provided by Nintendo.

Nintendo then continues their partnership with Best Buy. While that partnership had dismal results last year because, face it, Super Mario Maker wasn't what people wanted to go out and see, The Legend of Zelda is very different. It would get numbers similar to Super Smash Bros. For Wii U where the line to play extended out the store. They can give out awesome free swag, too.

Alternatively, they could have games other than The Legend of Zelda playable. I could see the play sessions be inadequately short to fit all of the demand in the Best Buys. The Legend of Zelda isn't exactly an appropriate franchise to play a short demo of since it's so immersive and involving. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker worked in 2013 because only a few people were picking it. Why? The point of the demo was to show off how beautiful the game looked, not for the gameplay. Everyone knows how the game plays because it was out for 10 years beforehand, so you only need one or three dudes to play it and everyone present could watch.

...I like the idea of Nintendo saying, “Screw you, gaming journalists! You want to see our other stuff? Well, you can report on Zelda and THE PEOPLE can play our other games!” But the people might want to play Zelda most of all, so maybe not.

Here's the point: How does it affect YOU as to what videogame journalists attending E3 get to play? Nintendo has been disrespecting (rightfully so) the gaming journalists for years now. They're not doing what the other companies are doing, treating them like gods and getting all cozy with them.

Personally, I'm fine if all the NX details are revealed some other time of the year. E3 has all of these other companies sucking up the oxygen. If Nintendo makes some event for it in, say, August or whatever, they will be the only ones in the news during that time. Sounds better than sharing the limelight. There's the fact that they can better position themselves versus Sony and Microsoft after the fact. Sony and Microsoft will reveal all their cards this June — Nintendo will still have their card hidden, and have the time to properly play it at the best moment. I mean, when it's E3, KoopaTV has so many articles out during that time that it's hard to focus.

Yes, that's sort of an “E3 is obsolete” argument. I don't want to think that way, since E3 has always been this awesome period of time for myself and people in the gaming community, but that's slowly becoming the conclusion over the years. The presentations matter — that's why the PlayStation 4 is beating the Xbox One. But what happens after that does not.

Nintendo is in a fantastic position to have a great presentation focusing on games. That makes sense, because games are what matters the most to us. New consoles are hard to explain and tend to kill the mood, especially if they're different than before, as Nintendo's tend to be. You'll get a lot of naysayers and worried people if you reveal the NX, and that'll take away from Nintendo's gaming lineup. People freaked out when they saw the Wiimote. Heck, people freaked out when the NINTENDO REVOLUTION was renamed the Wii. (...I still think Revolution is the cooler name.)

E3 2005 Satoru Iwata Revolution black box reveal
“You want a Revolution? Well, we got one.” - Satoru Iwata

Iwata literally held up a generic black box and the crowd went crazy. We had no idea what the black box could do, or how to play games on it. It was just a black box that ate discs and had backward compatibility and had a Virtual Console. IGN published a “hands-on” with the Revolution, which reads like a technological porn article:
“Some people can take part in a revolution, but how many can say that they actually touched one?”
No information about the games or anything of use. They're getting excited about a black box, and drop their excitement and proclaim Nintendo's doom once there are game-related details. That doesn't do anything for us, the consumers.

What's the point?

The best way for an E3 to succeed is to have a hype-inducing showcase of games. Nintendo is poised to do that, and has many opportunities for that.

I can't wait.


Ludwig really hopes he can go to Best Buy again this year, meaning there has to be an event for it. Stay tuned to KoopaTV for all of the awesome E3 coverage! Just wait for the middle of June. Do you disagree with Ludwig's optimism and outlook on E3? Let him know.


Ludwig went out of his way to similarly defend the Nintendo 2DS when everyone was trashing on it, and that sort of turned out alright.
Ludwig was quite negative about E3 2015 right before it started. He'll probably drop the positivity from this article by June and revert to that state.
KoopaTV ultimately rated Nintendo's E3 2016 pretty highly. 
The big reveal of the Nintendo NX in other parts of the year happened in October.
There isn't anything people really want to see in 2017 that won't be there, so there's no controversy.

10 comments :

  1. I don't mind them not showing the NX at E3, although releasing it in March, nowhere near the holiday season, seems like it could go bad.

    However...

    "How does it affect YOU as to what videogame journalists attending E3 get to play?"

    Because when people play games at E3, they share impressions and sometimes even videos. People like me read those impressions and watch those videos to learn more about the games. For example, if Color Splash was playable at E3, journalists might play it and write about what its battles are like and whether they got to see story content, giving us a better idea of what it will be like.

    (As long as Treehouse plays more games, that mitigates my concerns somewhat.)

    It also gives Nintendo a stronger presence at E3. E3 is important, and they should want more people seeing more of their games. Sure, that doesn't affect me directly, but I want Nintendo to do well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The March thing is weird, but there is probably a good reason for it. After all, Nintendo has been releasing gaming consoles longer than anyone else in the industry. They're going to be aware that the NX will be missing the holiday season.

      Truth be told: I didn't look for anyone's impressions on any games ever since Nintendo Treehouse Live was a thing. I just watched that and eventually got sick of them playing the same games over and over since I already got the idea of what it's like. I'd rather watch Nintendo's dudes play it than have some knuckleheads from IGN do it.

      Hey, if Color Splash gets to be playable at Best Buy among other things and I have to choose among games, I'll pick Color Splash. :)

      It's possible that playable to the public and playable to Treehouse are different things. The public/journalists can be fully immersed in Zelda and all, but maybe on the last day of E3 Treehouse can run through everything else in a corner.

      It's possible!

      E3 is important, and I kind of organise my whole year's planning around it. Most people don't do that, and there's always a lot of casuals who I mention E3 to and they don't know what it even is.

      Delete
    2. I appreciate your optimism and wish I shared it. I'd love to think Nintendo has a master plan they're ready to release.

      Maybe they're going to have SO MANY FANTASTIC ANNOUNCEMENTS, no one will care about how many playable games are there.

      Delete
    3. ...YEAH.

      Seriously, Nintendo should have some sort of master plan. It's not like they just sit on their butts and do nothing. They want to succeed even more than you want them to succeed.

      Delete
  2. Nintendo has lost all of my trust. 2017? Who do they think I am? Nobody should have to wait all these years for one game. This. Is. Bullshit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do you prefer KoopaTV's announcement style instead, where we announce the game's existence the day it's released?

      That way, you don't feel like you waited for anything.

      Delete
    2. But you wouldn't know the starting point.

      Or would you just assume it starts when the previous game was released?

      Delete
    3. I would see it all over the Internet.This isn't the only website in the world you know?

      Delete
    4. Huh?

      How would other websites know about something that hasn't been announced?

      Delete

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