Nintendo slowly crawl over the finish line

So here we are again watching these conferences so you don’t have to. Nintendo just finished it’s press conference and well, it was an extremely slow start for the big N. The conference heavily leaned towards the DS side of things but the Wii was also shown some love. Surprisingly there was not much in this conference that you wont have already known if you spend more than 10 minutes a day on the Internet. Anyway please read on for our thoughts on the conference.

• Nintendo opens show with typical Nintendo fanfare and all kinds of different people playing the Wii following the typical standard of Nintendo press conferences (oh come on have you ever seen a Wii game advertised that didn’t have random people playing the game).
• Cammy Dunaway enters on stage. She begins to pour out the stats (come on, you saw it coming) and talking about the industry and the people involved.
• Mario’s history flashes before our eyes (on screen :p). New Mario game? Lets hope so. She talks about the forth dimension?!
• New Super Mario brothers for the Wii is announced. Four people enter the stage for some multi-player Super Mario Bros (classic style). Items dispensed for all four people as the level progresses.  As a player dies its possible to save said person or keep the points for yourself enabling the players to compete for points .  A new propeller suit replaces the good old racoon suit (or cape if you were a Super Mario World Fanatic). Waggling the remote makes you hover around for a short while by spinning around in the air. The game is due for a release date within the holidays. Looks like a rehashed version of the DS version to be honest.
• She proceeds to talk about Wii Fit while showing the Wii balance board. She mentions it as a “separate platform”. Wii Fit Plus is then announced it will encompass six new activities and new training regimes.  More people are displayed happily playing the Wii (you love it) and new balance board games get shown.
• Reggie steps onto the stage, talking about the “battle plan” and the “primary weapon” (Yes the INTERFACE). Wii MotionPlus gets “unveiled” but we all knew about it anyway. Here comes the fancy “you want one of these” trailers. People playing sports, table tennis, basketball, archery, golf and so on. It then switches to gameplay transitions. Oh look at that, its Wii Resort.
• Mii sky diving is shown (looks like the intro for the game) and demoed by some random dude.
• Mii archery is shown and looks relatively entertaining….. for like 15 minutes.
• More on-stage silliness from Nintendo between Reggie and “random dude” (his name is Bill). Hold on, haven’t we seen this before?! I’m getting a sense of deja-vu. I’m starting to get the feeling Nintendo really don’t care for its hardcore audience.  A lot of mini-games but no actual representation of the sport. Typical Wii software.
• A new RPG game? Could be interesting! FF: Crystal bearers is shown and an exclusive version of Kingdom Hearts for September 29^th. Teaser ensues. Finally games we can get down with.
• Mario and Luigi 3 announced for DS. Yay! We get to explore Bowser’s digestive system *celebrates*. In all honesty the trailer does look fun. The game will be available this fall presuming you didn’t go and import it already.
• Golden Sun returns to Nintendo or at least the DS anyway. Fantastic news.
• Cammy comes back to treat us to more stats and an interactive novel game, James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club:  Games of Passion for DS. I really don’t know what to say to that so let’s just move on shall we.
• New Ubisoft DS game, COP. Loving that cut-scene art but the actually gameplay looks pretty average.
• DSi trailer begins  and of course we have people commenting on their DSi’s, mostly women and casuals. Cammy boasts about the DSi and how it’s dragging in more casual gamers. We are then bombarded with more stats. 1 million DSi’s sold. Talk of DSi customisation and personalisation follows.
• Flip Notes on its way to the States in August. A cool little doodle based video editor, nice.
• Mario vs Donkey Kong on the DS with a LEVEL DESIGN feature. User generated content, what ever will Nintendo think of next?! Levels will be uploadable onto Nintendo’s online service, which is the only place you can get this game. This is a DSi Ware game and will be available June 8^th.
• Design your own Wario Ware mini-games. Wow, Nintendo are on a user generated content spree. The game is called Wario Ware DIY.
• Social networking, gotta love it! You will soon be able to upload photos from the DSi to Facebook.
• Zelda Spirit Tracks. Choooo choooooooo. No gameplay trailer clip or anything!  Shame as this is the one game I was interested in.
• Satoru Iwata takes the stage. *mini cheer* He bores us with how many people are not playing games. Thanks dude!
• Some  new WEIRD hardware is shown, Wii Vitality Sensor. Apparently it takes the pulse of the user. What for? Nintendo, what are you doing?!
• Finally some good stuff! Mario Galaxy 2 is shown, looks as fun as ever. Yoshi will be accompanying Mario! The first was quite simply a classic and I can’t help but love the soundtrack blasting away in the background.
• Reggie acknowledges the lack of third party game quality on the Wii (no kidding Reggie!). The Conduit from Sega is shown. Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles follows and finally we are shown Dead Space Extraction. All of these games are playable at E3.
• Possible MEGATON?! New “edgy” game from Nintendo and Team Ninja. *gasp* A trailer is shown and it’s a new Metroid game; Metroid: The Other M. Seems a lot more action based then the previously adventure heavy versions. The game will be coming to us in 2010.
• Reggie closes out with a nice little speech (NOT!) about what Nintendo has done and intends to do in the future.

Now as an avid Nintendo supporter I have to say I am quite disappointed by what Nintendo showed off, I honestly expected more from them. The further they went with the press conference the more it dawned on me that they have completely forgotten about us (the HARDCORE!). I mean Wii Vitality Sensor!?! Come on Nintendo. More gimmicky hardware is not what was needed especially when you are continually losing the support of those who have backed you since the early years. As the conference went on though, there were a few highlights for us. The new Metroid is the first, the game is being developed by Team Ninja who even without Tomonobu Itagaki, are still a quality development team. The other was Mario Galaxy 2. All of us here loved the original as it represented such a unique and refreshing take on that chubby little plumber we all know and love, so the news of a follow up is music to our ears. The greatest disappointment (both personally and professionally) is the lack of no official news of a new Zelda for the Wii! Hmm, I guess Spirit Tracks will have to do for now. So there you have it. As it stands, Microsoft are currently the leaders in the press conference war as far as we are concerned anyway. Next up……Sony!

If you missed the conference please click here to watch it