@Grumblevolcano Seriously.... I still see it as protectionist 1st party policy. Hide Fighter Z and Guilty Gear (hey, remember Guilty Gear is coming to Switch? Anyone?) because it competes with Smash, the cash cow. Hide Ys, Shining Resonance, Vespyria, they compete with Xenoblade/Torna. Hide Digimon, it competes with Pokemon. Hide Valkyria, it competes with Fire Emblem and Kingdom Battle/DK. It feels like they're doubling down on "please buy Nintendo for Nintendo games, plus maybe there's other stuff you'll like." Inside, no doubt that's how they want it to work, but as a platform holder it can't work like that. And even back on the SNES era they made more money on licensing than they did on 1st party games....3rd party was the main business.
I can't see them not having a September direct or Mini-Direct covering the details and policies of NO. I can't imagine them blind launching it without trying to hype it, especially if everyone's online games will turn into pumpkins instantaneously if they don't pony up cash.
And your "a better way" E3 lineup sounds ok, and still skips half the actual releases on the platform from that time forward!
What 3rd party publishers heard: "We'll put your game in our E3 Direct with Pikachu."
What Nintendo really said: "We'll put your game in our E3 Direct and peek at you."
@electrolite77 You mean Reggie fondling his Pokeball while giving a Pikachu driveby without much information, 3:00 of 3rd party content delivered as strobe effects, and then Sakurai verbally reciting the Smash 4 changelog from his desk until the credits rolled wasn't perfectly suitable for an E3 presentation following Microsoft's 300x200ft stage in a building they own? You must be a Sony fanboy! All aboard the Nintendo hype train, choo-choo!
@MisterPi Why push the serious fighter from Arc that's kind of dominating the fighting world right now when your only major first party game is a party fighter that it competes against? You know they'd be singing Fighter Z from the rooftops were it not the year they have Smash.
@Knuckles-Fajita I thought you didn't like most of what Sony makes either
@Grumblevolcano I have this feeling, also, that NoA, and Treehouse in particular puts their own biases in their presentations far, far too much, and it explains a lot of history at Nintendo. Trinen and Armtower in that interview with NL made no secret that the whole of Treehouse have been smash nuts for decades. Granted, so was Iwata, he co-created the thing, but I feel like Treehouse thinks it's the greatest game ever therefore everyone thinks it's the greatest game ever and was to be given 100% of the showtime. They also seem to emphasize their belief that competitive Smash has been a design from the start. Almost simultaneously with Sakurai pretty much saying the polite Japanese version of "competitive Smashers go screw off." There's a stark contrast in the NoA presentation of Smash and the NCL presentation.
@NEStalgia I don't like most of what Sony makes. In fact I think I like less there. But for the sake of what works in my life games on Switch work better given I'm up and around a lot.
Now Playing: Mario & Luigi Brothership, Sonic x Shadow Generations
Now Streaming: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
@Therad Agreed! Iwata was the Direct, and without him and the sort of "corporate comedy video" it's merely an advert.
@Knuckles-Fajita As Nintendo is fond of telling us, sometimes what people think they want isn't what they really want. People wanted less fluff and more streamlining. But what they really wanted was more actual content in general.
The whole joy of the Direct was instead of the old way of "check corporate website, read list of titles in coming soon section and view a trailer or summary" it was this entertaining presentation of being shown games by Nintendo itself. Keyword, it was entertaining. You watched a Direct to be entertained in equal measure with being informed about products you're interested in. The new Directs are just the old corporate website in an animated format. Flash sites for the Youtube age. They aren't entertaining, it's just an ad in list form, like those infomercials that run on continuous loop in front of the magical pet stain remover in Costco/Sam's/ASDA/Tesco/whatever it is on your side of the pond. I don't even get excited about watching them anymore....they're no more interesting, and less convenient than reading the summary on NL afterward. They're just not entertaining now. Which is bad since Nintendo is an entertainment company according to their charter....
@Therad Yep. Memorable moments: Iwata & Miyamoto with the vacuums. Mario & Luigi costumed characters with Iwata in gloves. Banana. Iwata in front of the big MK8 track. Iwata presenting Codename Steam patch. Iwata introducing the Digital Event from the boardroom. The Reggie Yokai skits. Of course the Reggie vs Iwata E3. Rooster Teeth E3. Regginator E3.
Post Iwata? Koizumi as Mr. Magician at the Switch Launch event. That was a spiritual successor of Iwata presentations. After that? Not a single thing. I remember nothing about a single direct and can't even place when they occurred. Not true. E3 2018. I remember a horribly paced E3 with a strobe barrage of 3rd party games followed by snoring through hours of Smash. Is that fame or infamy? I guess it's better than Shaun Layden in the commentators booth while unsuspecting journalists are shuffled out of a cramped church set they used for 10 minutes and featured a really really badly mic'd Gustavo Santaolalla followed by 10 minutes of uncomfortable torture porn? At least it's all better than Wii Music...
@Grumblevolcano The surprises are also leaked by the internet but a lot of that is because it takes Nintendo so long to announce things. Meanwhile MS managed to keep all their studio purchases ttally secret.
1. It's incredibly obvious that the Smash Bros obsession at E3 was an attempt to recreate the success of the BOTW E3 2 years prior.
2. No one outside of Nintendo's hardcore fans (and honestly a niche within those hardcore fans) care about the personalities. I miss it, but it makes zero difference to anything ever.
Though I do agree with your general point of Nintendo missing the relevance of putting out an entertaining event, especially at E3.
@kkslider5552000 I don't think they were explicitly trying to recreate BOTW through focusing on Smash. They didn't do that with Odyssey last year, and it should be obvious to all that BOTW was huge because it was a major shakeup and modernization of a known franchise and got tons of press coverage for it, was a launch title without many other games, and because it was delayed for years. Smash is kind of a safe expected iterative game with more of an MK evergreen appeal to a casual audience than an "dominate E3" kind of presentation. Plus, they've painted Smash into the be-all-end-all before with the Iwata vs Reggie as the big opener, so it's not abnormal for them to put such importance on it. BOTW was a launch title where there weren't many games to pick from, they had to have a one trick pony. This year even Nintendo has a diverse lineup to showcase....I can't imagine even they're that dense to not understand the difference....BOTW year had no 3rd party list to read off!
The personalities specifically may not mean much outside the core, but keep in mind Directs really only reach the core to begin with. Plus no matter who the personalities are it should at least be entertaining. That was the main takeway. Nintendo is a company about fun, and their infotisements were fun. If they're not going to make them fun, why do them at all? Just post a coming soon list on the website and be done with it.
@kkslider5552000 I think rather than trying to recreate what happened with BotW 2 years ago, they were instead trying to prevent what happened with E3 3 years ago. At E3 2015, they let Smash DLC be its own Direct before E3 and was left with a disappointing main event in terms of games. This time they let the Smash content be over half of the main event to try and avoid creating a disappointing main event.
@Grumblevolcano And in the end they focused too much on Smash after reflecting that Smash should have been in the main event last time it was relevant to the point people complained.
Now Playing: Mario & Luigi Brothership, Sonic x Shadow Generations
Now Streaming: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Being honest, despite some effort to do otherwise, I felt like Mario Odyssey was in fact, the only thing that mattered at last year's E3. Kirby was just Kirby, Yoshi was kinda interesting, Meroid Prime 4 was a title, Pokemon Switch wasn't even that, and nothing else new AFAIK.
The fact that they changed up how blatant they were about it doesn't really change my opinion.
@kkslider5552000 E3 in general is just pointless for everyone now. Microsoft just shows third-party games and """exclusives""", Sony is just showing the same games over and over while having no idea how to properly show games between PSX and E3, and Nintendo just treats it like a Nintendo Direct. And there's a bunch of leaks that always happens right before E3.
We're only paying attention to E3 because it's pretty much tradition at this point.
@MisterPi So far only 1 of them is 1st party and would've been unsuitable for E3 (Labo Toy-Con 03). Nintendo probably isn't ok with the concept of a 3rd party focused Direct.
I can't be the only person here playing the Valkyria Chronicles 4 demo, right? This game is absolutely gorgeous. You can tell it was smartly optimized to run well in handheld mode, because BOY is it sharp on the tablet! I was worried for nothing.
They definitely doubled-down on the design philosophy of the original game (which isn't a bad thing, btw). It's almost identical to the original game in terms of the gameplay so far, although I suspect they've likely tweaked it here and there. Thankfully, the original was a smartly designed game, and that carries over to this as well.
@Knuckles-Fajita Pokemon counts as 1st party but you know what I mean, apart from the Nindies presentations all of those games are (or were at the time) Nintendo exclusives (DQXI 3DS is different enough from DQXI PS4 to count as Nintendo exclusive). Meanwhile all the 3rd party games missing from the E3 Direct are multiplatform.
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