What E3? Nintendo isn’t bothering with an E3 presentation this year. I’d imagine the only reason they’re doing that is because they have nothing substantial to present.
Never under-estimate Nintendo. Nintendo is doing what I would do: lower expectations for E3. The expectations will be very high for Sony and Microsoft. Console launch news also tends to dominate as well.
The last Nintendo Direct has made me wonder whether Nintendo is waking up. Releasing Gamecube sequels is not going to get anyone excited about Wii U, and Nintendo may be realizing this. After all, why make sequels to games that couldn’t sell a console of the past? It’s like making sequels to Virtual Boy games.
Even if Nintendo realizes this, they may still be too far along in their game development to change those plans.
2004 is when I think the Awesome Nintendo surfaced in its thinking. 2004 was Nintendo knowing the Gamecube was a failure. 2004 was also Nintendo scrambling to save their handheld market from Sony with the PSP. This was the unveiling of the DS and the Awesome Nintendo that emerged at that point.
2008 is when Nintendo went to crap. They got very arrogant with their DS and Wii successes. “We must not become arrogant,” Iwata once said. The Wii started to get a ton of crap from Nintendo such as Metroid: Other M, the announcement of Pikmin 3, and Wii Music. Virtual Console was abandoned. This left a very sour taste in many Wii owners who sensed what Nintendo was doing. The only true bright spot was NSMB Wii that came out in 2009 which Nintendo was blown away by the market response to that game (yet rejected the context that the market preferred Classic Nintendo instead of Only-3d-Gaming-Is-Awesome Nintendo).
We got the 3DS which blew up in Nintendo’s face. Nintendo had to sell the system at a loss and really do massive damage control for it. The Wii U blew up in Nintendo’s face as well but Nintendo doesn’t have the money to spend on damage control for it.
I’m pretty certain Nintendo doesn’t want a repeat of the 3DS and Wii U. I expect them to wake up one day. After the Virtual Boy, I was expecting Nintendo to ‘wake up’ for some time. It took much longer than expected. Only after the humiliation of the Gamecube did Nintendo ‘wake up’. But now Nintendo is back to sleep once again.
There are two consoles Nintendo has to study for success: the NES and the Wii. I have no idea why Nintendo keeps throwing so much money and resources into games that don’t sell the hardware like Pikmin, 3d Mario, Aonuma Zelda, etc. I can understand Smash Brothers or Mario Kart. But Pikmin? Why is that game even being made at all? Is there anyone out there saying, “Yeah, put out Pikmin 3, and I will rush to buy the Wii U hardware!” Those masses really can’t wait for more Pikmin. And in HD! What’s next? A remastered version of Wind Waker in HD?
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