When observing these conferences, one must remember the context of the viewer. Some people look at a conference for games… specifically the games they want. Other people look at a conference for technology… of what games might be. Still, others look at the conference for drama such as for a ‘megaton’ or trash talk. Then, there are people like me who look at these conferences purely in the business context. Ultimately, the business context is the one that matters since these are trade shows, not tech shows, not hardcore gaming fiestas.
Being the Malstrom, the Nintendo conference becomes a surreal experience. It is the feeling of writing down hundreds of pages of what will happen and then, sitting back, and like magic see what you write appear before your eyes.
-This is the first time Reggie did not mention ‘disruption’ at an E3 since 2006 (though my video streamer was coughing so I might have missed it). However, Reggie used very different language describing Nintendo. It was that Nintendo was ‘attacking’ the game industry. The Wii-mote was now described as a ‘weapon’. If you’ve read my article, written a year ago, called “Finding Nintendo’s Sword”, this language makes sense. I can’t wait to see how other observers will be flummoxed by the imagined pacifist Nintendo, who just wants to make puppy games and ‘expand the audience’, suddenly begin talking about ‘attacking the games industry’ and saying their controller is a ‘weapon’. What is disruption if not attacking the games industry?
-Note that what Reggie says is very important if you are an Xbox fan. The reason why is what Reggie says at E3 will be quoted in the Microsoft Conference years later. What Reggie said at E3 2006 was said, verbatim, at the Microsoft conference in 2009. So if this is any guide, in 2012 we will be hearing how Microsoft is ‘attacking’ the games industry.
-Some people say the worst mistake Nintendo ever did was the Virtual Boy. Actually, the worst mistake was allowing what built and defined Nintendo, 2d Mario, to be entirely abandoned. Readers will know I have been constantly calling on a new 2d Mario for the console over and over and over. The sales numbers are there. 2d Mario reaches all audiences. New Super Mario Brothers helped catapult the DS. The sales numbers for NSMB are self evident. At one E3, Miyamoto, when pleaded by a game journalist to make another 2d Mario, said that the sales guys at Nintendo were pressuring for one to appear. In NSMB, there is a mode called ‘Mario VS’ which is a multiplayer 2d Mario with Mario versus Luigi. It is one of the most addictive things I’ve ever played. On this blog, I said they should even build a game around Mario VS, it was that good! And so, NSMB Wii is coming. Yay!
-Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a sequel that should properly be called: “Galaxy: The Lost Levels.” There is no reason why this sequel should exist. This confirms to me that there is a gulf between developers at Nintendo, including Miyamoto, and the customers concerning Mario. The reason why there has been no new console 2d Mario in like two decades is because Miyamoto just didn’t want to do it. Granted, Miyamoto is given tons of leeway due to how much he contributes to Nintendo. But he should have been over-ruled on this. The fact that there is no 2d Mario on the N64 or Gamecube was criminal. With N64, a 3d console, it made sense that Super Mario 64 was made. But that game never took off as the 2d Marios did. Super Mario Sunshine lit no fires. Miyamoto thought that 3d Mario was ‘too complicated’ and Super Mario Galaxy would ‘fix’ the problems. Super Mario Galaxy didn’t really excite anyone except the hardcore.
-Super Mario Galaxy 2 will flop (flop in relation to how a Nintendo game flops. A Nintendo flop’s sales would be considered good to a non-Nintendo game’s flop). NSMB Wii will easily outsell it and Super Mario Galaxy combined over its lifetime. I know people who refuse to buy a Wii unless a new 2d Mario appears. I can relate. I bought NES, SNES, and Gameboy for 2d Mario. I also bought a DS for 2d Mario. The addition of Virtual Console 2d Marios made the Wii very tempting to buy (note that 2d Marios still outsell everything else on the service).
-The only reason why Galaxy: The Lost Levels is being made is because of developer vanity. Galaxy 1 did not perform well enough to warrant such a sequel. Wii Sports did. Wii Fit did. Galaxy? No. Time would have been better spent on bringing another franchise to the Wii such as Starfox or Donkey Kong or F-Zero. Those who did not like Galaxy 1, which are many, are not going to get Galaxy: The Lost Levels.
-Galaxy: The Lost Levels does not match the Nintendo philosophy of ‘Everyone’s Game’. One might say, “But Malstrom, this game is made for the hardcore.” That is not Nintendo’s strategy with the hardcore. Expanding the audience is a priority. But for hardcore games, they are being made more and more with motion controls to convert the core gamers into becoming expanded gamers. There is no point in making a traditional hardcore game. Nintendo developers are breaking Iwata’s “Heart of the Gamer” promise to make games for consumers and not for themselves or other developers.
-We had to wait 18 years to get another console 2d Mario. They could have easily made a 2d Mario incarnation on every console like how Mario Kart is. Instead, we kept getting 3d Mario. One problem with another 3d Mario on a console not even three years old yet is that it feels like Nintendo is ramming 3d Mario down our throats. Spherical gameplay was weighed, measured, and tested with Galaxy 1 and found to be lacking. (Galaxy 1 was supposed to make 3d Mario as popular as 2d Mario, as stated by Miyamoto. Nope!) In this case, the younger developers at Nintendo were right about 2d Mario. Just like a new incarnation of Mario Kart, people do want a periodic incarnations of 2d Mario.
-Unlike E3 2007 (“Wii sold out!”) and E3 2008 (“Let me read you a letter from my kid,”), the tone of the E3 performance was right on and matched that of E3 2006. If I had a hypothetical question to ask the execs, it would be, “When you are on stage, what do you represent?” They could answer “Nintendo.” They could even answer, “The game industry,” since they are market leaders. But the answer, of why people are viewing the conference, is that they want to see them represent something else: “The Future.” People are watching because they want to see the future. I thought the performance exuded class. There was, thankfully, no one coming on stage with a cowboy outfit. As a salesman myself, I know there are times it is best just to let the products sell themselves. I thought everyone did fine.
-For some reason, I like watching Bill Trinen on the stage. Maybe his ‘average joe’ ness reminds me of myself. “Oops, I missed in the archery! I better do it again!” hahaha. He’s entertaining to watch.
-The one thing this conference did that is a big reason why it is the best since E3 2006 was the philosophy. As Microsoft demonstrated, competitors are willing to steal Nintendo’s own lines. Unless Nintendo defines themselves and their ‘mission’ with the Wii, the competitors will do it for them. At E3 2006, Wii wasn’t just announcing the games and hardware, they were framing everything in a context, in a purpose as to WHY they were going the way they were. The interludes explaining why and where the Wii was going such as from Iwata were very helpful. This… philosophy… of the why is what provided E3 2006 with the gravity that it did. Instead of “Look, another console launch!” it was “The Wii has a special mission that no console has had before…” Explaining the philosophy also differentiates Nintendo from Microsoft and Sony (the competitors do not have any philosophy aside from copy Nintendo and claim they invented it first).
-Note how Iwata’s discussion was about what the Wii will do now, i.e. Second Phase. They have put out all the software they had cooking prior to the launch. Now, they have to build on what they started. They have to examine how the audience is interactive with what has already been released to push back the boundaries of ‘non-gaming’. I thought there would be more motion plus software. I’m not sure about Other M, but Zelda Wii will be motion plus.
-The Wii Vitality Sensor was the weakest part of the show. The way how it was announced was poor because the image and device came up before it was given any context. It was only until Iwata said the interesting thing of software that can reduce stress or software that can make you go to sleep that it became intriguing. Iwata should have mentioned the stress decrease or go to sleep, of the benefits to the consumer first, and then show off the crazy device. It was done in reverse and so people are coming away with “OMG that is crazy” instead of being intrigued. There was no software attached to it so I’m puzzled why it was even shown. Showing hardware that has no software, no date of release, and of what it *might* do is no different than Microsoft or Sony’s crazy motion controller displays. Disruptive literature says that products are ‘tools’ for people. Before you display the ‘tool’, you need to display the problem that is to be solved. Only once the problem for the customer has been displayed does the tool make sense. It is like Iwata displaying a strange new handyman tool and everyone is going, “What is that!?” while he speaks and only mentions the problem to be solved (or job it is to do) at the very end.
-The Woman’s Murder whatever book game was, to me, the most interesting thing I saw at the conference. Why? While it is clear the game is to sell to women, to get women into gaming, I believe there is a huge white space between video games and novels that has not yet been fully explored. Or, rather, it has been explored only in part with the adventure games decades ago. I have been asking myself if games have lost something as they rushed into the technological upgrades, and this is beyond nostalgia. There have been video games that rivaled novels in sheer content. And I mean content, not in an overflow of words, but in dialogue and crafting a richly textured world for the player to roam. These games that rival novels would include classics such as Ultima 7 (which was penned by a playwright) and Star Control 2. Games such as these are revered and played constantly even today (they would become evergreen titles). Their time of rich story crafting has been left behind as games marched into 3d technology and, especially, the cinematic style. I recall Gabriel Knight games, which were penned by a female novelist, did well enough. Now, there is nothing like them on the market. These type of games could provide a very useful ‘shot in the arm’ of new content and ideas into the industry. Aside from board games, and Dungeons and Dragons, novels were one of the main sources the original developers used when making the first games (Richard Garriott could not have made anything Ultima without Lords of the Rings as a source). This available white space between novels and games won’t be open forever. As devices like Kindle get better and better, they will arrive at that white space eventually. Hopefully that Woman’s Murder game is successful enough to encourage more of these novels-to-games.
-I said the Nintendo E3 Conference seemed surreal to me. By surreal, I do not mean it as any criticism, just more of a sense of dazzle as if it seemed as if something that was said here, on this crazy site, was being responded. In three distinct moments of what Dunaway was saying did it seem surreal.
1) She mentions that “some analysts have even compared Wii Fit as a platform to our competitors.” She is referring to comparisons of Balance Board’s installed base to rival the install base of the PS3 or Xbox 360. I admit I pay less attention to the analysts these days, but I don’t recall them ever comparing Balance Board as a platform in comparison to, say, the PS3. The only person who really did that was me and some others on the message forums. I had a tongue-in-cheek comparison of Wii Fit sales versus PlayStation 3 sales with a picture of a hardcore going crazy.
2) Dunaway, after talking about user-generated content, starts saying that “we can’t go overboard on user generated content. We must also have professional content as well.” It seems surreal to me. Anyone reading this blog knows I have been a huge critic of Nintendo’s embrace of ‘user generated content’ on the grounds that games are in the content business and there is no such thing as ‘user generated content’ in other entertainment fields. A writer is not going to get away with selling blank paper and say, “It is a user generated novel! You buy it and write it yourself!” People exchange their money for games based entirely on content. To the consumer, they aren’t buying a game, so much, as they are buying content. World of Warcraft’s massive subscription base depends on Blizzard’s content output. It is the only reason why people keep paying $15 a month. Once they run out of content, they quit. Also, no one can point to any user generated content game as a great best seller. The only one I can think of is Pinball Construction Kit which came out, maybe, 1983. It was very different which is why it sold. All the sequels bombed to it though. And games relying entirely on user generated content, without having any central content, don’t sell no matter how hyped (Little Big Planet comes to mind and that was a 2d platformer!). I don’t care what Will Wright says. User generated content is not the future. While he might think it was the cause of Sims’ sales (it wasn’t), let us remember the massive disappointment that was Spore. Spore was like giant cotton candy. Sweet, at first, but then it collapsed as if it was full of air. This is what happens without substantial content.
3) Another thing I have been railing on, again and again, so loudly I was sick of saying it, was how criminal and stupid Nintendo was for never putting out a 2d Mario since… 1991!!!! 2d Mario was HUGE. It built Nintendo! 3d Mario was never huge. I could never understand why Nintendo abandoned 2d Mario. I had some guesses. One was that Nintendo, unlike consumers, did not see two different series of 2d Mario and 3d Mario. They just saw Mario. It seemed like Miyamoto thought people bought Mario games because they liked Mario. This was not the case. People bought Mario games because the games were good. Mario just happened to be in them.
Super Mario World was rushed so it would be completed for the SNES launch. At the time, Super Mario World was seen as a disappointment (unless you were younger than ten, of which case, you wouldn’t know any difference). Super Mario World did not have the same breadth of content that Super Mario Brothers 3 did. It was a good game, but it seemed a lesser experience than SMB 3. This opened the door to competitors to attack the 2d platformer such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Bonk. If it were not for Donkey Kong Country, the SNES would not have been on top that generation. The point is that many, many consumers devoured 2d platformers. When Nintendo stopped making 2d Mario, many people, including myself, saw no reason to buy Nintendo consoles anymore. 2d Mario is that big of a deal.
It was a shock, and very surreal, to hear Dunaway say that not everyone wanted 3d Mario and then announce NSMB Wii complete with a montage of the classic NES games on up to the present. It felt like someone at Nintendo finally woke up (maybe the NSMB DS sales woke them up).
Nintendo, for the love of God, you put out an incarnation of a franchise almost on every console. Every console has a Mario Kart, for example. Is it too much to ask to have a 2d Mario, at least one, for every Nintendo console? It sells gazillions. It hits a very wide net of consumers including females. And if Nintendo ever wanted to make it really interesting, use 2d Mario as a launch title for a new console. If NSMB Wii was a Wii launch title, the Wii eruption would have been bigger (I know people can’t imagine it being bigger, but it could!). I know Miyamoto didn’t want to make this game, but the sales will speak for itself.
-The DS news was all fine and good. I don’t understand why a Virtual Gameboy has not been announced for the DSi. There is still a market for people to want to buy old Gameboy games. Link’s Adventure and Donkey Kong’ 94 would be well received. Nintendo removed GBA compatibility from the DS and Gameboy and Gameboy Color from the Micro. Some of these old games deserve to sell forever and can show what consumers might be craving a new version of (somewhat like how 2d Mario dominates the Virtual Console list).
-Metroid- Other M? It was a good way to end the show. I know I will get hate mail for saying this, but Nintendo is increasingly breaking the old tradition of bringing over each franchise with at least one game. Do we really need another Metroid game on the Wii? There are other franchises that can be pulled over that aren’t represented yet on the Wii. No one guessed a Other M because everyone thought Metroid franchise had been brought to Wii, and it was done. Everyone was guessing Starfox or F-Zero or another series.
-I was startled that the show ended because I was expecting to see either Miyamoto appear or Pikmin 3. “Huh? It’s over? Where is the Pikmin or Miyamoto?”
-The conference was good based on several things Nintendo did that they didn’t do previously:
1) They expressed the philosophy and context of why they were doing what they were doing. Nintendo needs to do this at E3 because very few people understand what Nintendo is doing. E3 is a good place to do it.
2) After framing the context, Nintendo execs just stepped aside and let the games speak for themselves. There were many games and it was nice to have a brisk pace from one game to another to another. It is annoying when a conference hangs on a game (such as Rock Band Beatles which went on for like 12 minutes at the Microsoft Conference).
3) The old game industry, meaning the core industry, had E3s where speakers would try to act like Entertainment Class stars, wear blue-jeans, and openly do trash talk (Microsoft Conference is a good example of this). This type of presentation was fine… for the old core industry whose customers were high testosterone young males. E3 2008 seemed like Nintendo was pandering too much toward a female or untraditional crowd (which didn’t impress them or Nintendo fans). 2009’s style of dressing slick and more classy with a more toned down presentation (come on, E3 is only once a year! I can’t respect a salesman who won’t dress nice) contrasts heavily to Sony and Microsoft who seem stuck in the old E3 ways.
-I have to laugh at those who thought Reggie and Cammie did ‘horrible’ presentations. Gentlemen, what is the purpose of a conference? “It is to entertain game journalists!” No… “It is to put up celebrities on the stage so you can pretend you are hip with Hollywood!” No… “Skits and tricks like a circus. No. The purpose is to sell the games and to sell the company. The best way to sell the games is to let them sell themselves (through video or through playing them live). The best way to sell the company is to talk about its mission. The last time the mission was really discussed at a Nintendo conference was at E3 2006. If Nintendo doesn’t define what their mission is, a competitor will.
“Why do they sound like marketing drones?” Probably because you didn’t understand what they’re saying. I get hit with the ‘marketing drone’ myself for the words I write here because people can’t handle the content. They don’t like the business context. When you can’t understand something, it is much easier to say ‘marketing drone’ to excuse yourself.
One thing I am certain of now is that much of the ‘anger’ people have at Dunaway is the treehouse syndrome (“What! An intruder is in MY treehouse? Out, woman!”). She is the only woman executive on stage from the hardware companies. Even when that Japanese translator came on the Microsoft stage, boy, those hardcore boys just went crazy with comments over her. The other woman that followed, same story. Dunaway could be announcing Halo 4, and there would be guys out there who would still hate her. I think it is the nature of her presence, just a female executive being on stage of video games, which is the cause of the hatred. It isn’t the content of what she says or how she says it that is driving them batty. Interestingly, many comments are: “Everyone that spoke at Nintendo was bad!” meaning they hate the content of the conference. I’ve noticed that “Nintendo sucked” coming at every E3 since 2006. Guess they don’t like industry change.
My favorite comment came from a guy who said that all Iwata does is go out and give the same exact speech year after year. It shows these folks aren’t even listening. Nintendo’s strategy is not some super secret code at ninjas on hire from Yamauchi know. Nintendo’s strategy is in plain sight. But since everyone refuses to look at what Nintendo is saying in a business context, it probably does sound like marketing gibberish to them.
While I thought E3 2009 would be pretty boring all around with no counterattacks from anyone, this was because I didn’t see Microsoft or Sony serious in responding. Despite the tech demos they showed, they still do not have a serious response. Serious marketing, maybe. But not a serious response. Imagine if Sega were still around. THEY could give Nintendo a serious response? Microsoft and Sony? Pathetic.
-One last thing: re-examine E3 2008. I described it as Nintendo’s pre-emptive attack to a counterattack that did not come. E3 2009 with all the motion controller nonsense should illustrate why Nintendo had to show off Motion Plus. I thought, and I’m sure Nintendo thought, Microsoft and Sony would show some motion controller at E3 2008. Remember, there were tons of rumors beforehand.
E3 2008 may not make sense. But if you look at the larger picture, of E3 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, it fits in a greater scheme. You can see how Nintendo was preparing in 2008 for what occurred in 2009.
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