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Nintendo began this year’s E3 similarly to their opening act of E3
2006. While Reggie Fils Aime’s “Kick ass and take names” statement
has become somewhat iconic in our industry, Nintendo of
 America’s
Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Cammie Dunaway, had
a more conservative approach, which is less likely to resonate
within the minds of the hardcore gamer. It’s long been thought – and
especially noted by
Electronic Theatre – that in order to
grab the mass market appeal that films and music take for granted,
the videogame’s industry needs celebrities. With Shigeru Miyamoto
being the most reclusive of developers, and Satoru Iwata having seen
little appreciation outside of Japan, it’s left to the money men at
Nintendo to stand-up and be counted. Reggie has the hardcore, and
now Dunaway seems to be Nintendo’s answer to their new market –
family gaming.
Dunaway opened with a story about taking her kids snowboarding.
Seemingly going nowhere to all but those in-the-know, it wasn’t long
before Shaun White was brought on stage to unveil Shaun White
Snowboarding for Wii. Looking almost identical to the GameCube’s
1080 Avalanche, Shaun White Snowboarding is a
multi-format title, for which the Wii version has been “developed
from the ground-up” for use with Wii’s Balance Board. From the
on-stage demonstration it appears that all movement –
including jumps – is facilitated on the Balance Board, whilst tricks
are controlled via the Wii Remote. As interesting as the title
looks, we here at
Electronic Articles – and no doubt many of
you reading this – are disappointed by the lack of a Wii follow-up
for the 1080 series.
Satoru Iwata was next to take the stage, leading with a series of
predicted back-patting slides and talk of Nintendo new marketing
strategies, with titles such as Wii Fit and
Dr.
Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?, of course,
taking the limelight. A brief mention that new Mario and
Zelda titles are in the works for Wii is passed-by rather
quickly, before moving back to Nintendo’s new market.
Iwata eventually moved-on to the unveiling of a handful of new
projects, beginning with Nintendo’s answer to the industries current
hot-topic; user created content. That that answer comes in the form
of a new Wii version of Animal Crossing won’t be a surprise
to too many. Animal Crossing: City Folk was introduced in
video format by Katsuya Eguchi – the series creator – and
concentrated on the social aspect of the title. You can find out
more about Animal Crossing: City Folk by clicking
here.
Wii Speak was announced inline with Animal Crossing: City Folk.
Rather than being a headset or handheld unit, the Microphone instead
sits atop your Television alongside your Wii Sensor Bar. The idea of
the unit is that which allows an entire room to speak, rather than
an individual, and the demonstration shown was certainly impressive.
However, whether or not the final build will perform as strongly in
everyday surroundings remains to be seen.
Next it was the turn of the big man himself, Mr. Reggie Fils Aime.
Taking the stage with a priority for market trends of both Wii and
NintendoDS, figures were thrown around with abandon. After a lengthy
percentages rundown – which Reggie promised would be kept brief – a
note was made that’s likely to be scare and intrigue Nintendo’s
hardcore fanbase; “The truth is there’s no way today we can give you
even a quick glimpse of everything that’s on its way. So instead,
we’ve chosen to limit our preview to just three new games...”. While
it may be so that Nintendo have an array of titles in development
for their hardcore gamer audience, with only
Star Wars: The Clone
Wars: Lightsaber Duels, RayMan: Raving Rabbids TV Party
and
Call of Duty: World at War on display, none of which are
in-house creations, it would be hard to blame such an audience for
being a little concerned.
The attention turned to the NintendoDS for a few minutes, before
coming back to Wii with a feature that will be pleasing to all the
hardcore hoping for more from their Wii. Wii Motion Plus is a
small unit that plugs into the port on the tail-end of a Wii Remote.
Using the device supposedly increases the accuracy and scope of the
Wii Remote exponentially, and alongside was announced Wii Sports
Resort.
Wii Music featured as the final unveiling, with Shigeru
Miyamoto taking the stage to join a drummer on his Wii Remote
saxophone. A tidy demonstration of various instruments gave way to a
live presentation of the Super Mario Bros. theme with the
Wii Music software.
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