The first official day of E3 showcased not one, but two press conferences from heaver hitters Nintendo and Sony. Both companies had a lot to live up to after Mocrosoft's slick and content heavy presentation. Today I'll Focus on Nintendo's money train parade with news on the Wii.
Nintentuesday:
I'm going to be honest:I had little interest in watching the Nintendo conference. I was disappointed with last year's conference and though I had a feeling this year would no doubt be more exciting, I didn't feel it was going to be something I really wanted to see. After reading the recap I'm glad I didn't waste my time with it.
The low of the conference from what I have gathered was the introduction of the Wii Vitality Sensor. This device will hook into your Wiimote where your nun chuck traditionally attaches. The peripheral itself seems wacky, but the craziest thing about the announcement of the vitality sensor is that nothing was shown using it. The device recognizes your pulse and that will somehow help you relax when and if somebody develops technology for it. My biggest problem with this is that if you're going to make an announcement of a future product, why not give something more than a speech of what it has the potential to do. What was presented seemed that it would be more appropriate in an internal development meeting than a public press conference. I've made the mistake of doubting Nintendo before, but I'll stick to my guns and say this isn't going to have a big impact on gaming.
The conference wasn't all bad; the Wii Motion Plus was demonstrated for the second year in a row and all signs are pointing towards a more accurate Wiimote being beneficial for developers on the Nintendo's tiny sales titan.
The sizzle reel for the Motion Plus showed athletes in what appeared to be a holodeck straight from Star Trek with various people playing real sports and doing real activities with the Wiimote and Wii Motion Plus taking the place of their physical tools. This lead into a second year of Wii Sports Resort at E3. The sequel to one of the best selling games of all time will feature table tennis, basketball, samurai swod play, archery, Kaiyaking, firsbee dog action and the return of golf. The game looks fun and will sure to be a sales monster.
Other announcements showcases Nintendo's main man Mario in two all new Wii titles: New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Mario Galaxy 2. NSMBW is a four player cooperative side-scroller in the same vein as Zelda Four Swords Adventures, while SMG2 is a direct sequel to arguably one of the Wii's greatest titles: 2007 release Super Mario Galaxy.
Nintendo continued its appeal to the core gaming audience with trailers from Sega's The Conduit, Capcom's Resident Evil: the Darkside Chronicles and EA's Dead Space: Extraction. This was the real meat of the press conference, but unfortunately these were only represented by trailers and no live game play was shown.
Big N ended the conference with the first glimpse at the new Metroid: Other M, which being developed by Techmo's Team Ninja. The trailer showed fast paced game play and a very Japanese art style to one of Nintendo's most hardcore franchises. Team Ninja is know more for big boobs and blood, so it's going to be interesting to see what their take on a Nintendo icon will be once it's in our hands come 2010.
The press conference wasn't so bad, but the lack of live demonstrations outside of a few first party titles was a letdown after Microsoft did so much the day before. This was a definate step up for Nintendo and the highlights of the conference reached great heights.
Stay tuned for Sony as I finish the big three conferences.
[ Nintendo Press Conference @ Gamespot.com ]
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