Oh, Nintendo. They try so hard to please their fans, but after a lackluster presentation and very little new information from all of E3, I’m left feeling very disappointed. It’s true that Nintendo beat out Sony and Microsoft at this year’s E3—but is that really saying a lot when the other two big companies had presentations that were monotonous and even boring? Still, this article isn’t to gripe. I want to highlight something that Nintendo did right this year that no one else did: they focused on games, they thought about their consumers, and they showed continuing support for all of their products.
Nintendo gave fans the luxury of not just one presentation, but three. They gave one presentation prepping for the show which allowed at least Ubisoft to show off their games rather than explain the functions of the Wii U. The second focused on the Wii U, and the third focused on the 3DS. These different showings reflect Nintendo’s dedication to every facet of their company—they respect third party companies (or at least the large ones), they respect gamers who can’t always attend large and expensive conventions like E3, and they respect the people who have purchased their products and continue to support with.
In example, the Balance Board was released a while ago to little fanfare and received very few games supporting it. Those who do own one for some reason now have an even better reason to keep it instead of pawning it off—the new Wii Fit U supports it and incorporates it into many different activities within the game. While it’s definitely old news, the Wii U’s strong support (and even requirement) of old Wii controllers will make it easier for families who need multiple controllers to upgrade to the new system. Granted, more than one Wii U controller would lower the frame rate, but choosing to incorporate the old controllers instead of limiting the system to two is very clever of Nintendo.
Moving away from its projects, Nintendo also took care to stream gameplay of E3 floor demos online to people watching at home. They did this specifically so that the gamers who watched the stream would be able to see the new kinds of gameplay the Wii U offered. The conference itself spawned one of Nintendo’s greater memes—the now-infamous banana shot. It isn’t often that a company takes into account all the people at home who have to tune in if they want to know what’s going on. Nintendo actually went out of their way to present something to those people at home who spent Monday and Tuesday refreshing to keep their stream caught up.
Finally, they split their show into two so that both the Wii U and the 3DS could be given the spotlight. While the 3DS show had nothing new to display—perhaps a little gameplay, for people who didn’t scour youtube for videos straight from E3—it still showed Nintendo cared equally for both projects and still has a lot of faith in its handheld. While I wasn’t too impressed by the actual presentations, Nintendo’s character and charm keep my faith in gaming companies alive. It’s clear that the people who work there—all the way up to the executives—are gamers at heart. They might not know how to present, but they do know what to bring to the table.
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