NINTENDO E3 REVIEW
NINTENDO’S TOP FIVE E3 MOMENTS
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA When Zelda boss Eiji Aonuma announced the next Zelda game would be an open- world, Skyrim-esque HD adventure, Twitter pretty much exploded. The game doesn’t even have a title and isn’t due until 2015, but it was enough to whip fanboys into a frenzy.
AMIIBO
Nintendo had been accused of cashing-in on the Skylanders craze with this toy line, but in truth this was quite a different offering. Amiibo products with multiple games and – as of now – don’t actually require the toys to play. The figures are really good looking, too.
Super Smash Bros is Nintendo’s big release at the end of the year
thing is that you can keep re-using Amiibo in multiple games.” And rather than rival Skylanders and Disney, Nintendo views Amiibo as a product that sits alongside them, making Wii U a home for the genre. And Pearce hopes that it will take Nintendo back into toy retailers, too.
SEEKING MOMENTUM Nintendo’s E3 showcase was filled with games. There were new Mario tie-ins, multiple Zelda projects, new IP Splatoon, games starring Toad, Yoshi and Kirby, and a lot more. But many of these trailers were followed by the date ‘2015’ and the earliest some of these titles will hit is this Q4. Only last month Mario Kart 8 sparked renewed interest in Wii U, so surely it’s a concern that there’s nothing coming sooner to build momentum? “We are expecting Mario Kart
to sell strongly consistently,” explains Pearce. “We had a great first week and second week and we have a
www.mcvuk.com
campaign that will keep running until the end of the year. Mario Kart will be one of the games that will keep Wii U buoyant and that’ll blend into Super Smash Bros in Q4. “But you’ve seen in the show,
there’s wealth of content. Miyamoto is working on a series of projects that really show off the GamePad, and the Splatoon reveal went really well.” For all the excitement
surrounding Nintendo’s E3 line-up, there were still some questions left hanging. How much are Amiibo figures? How will Nintendo release Miyamoto’s mini-projects? Is Splatoon a boxed release or a small download? And many of these titles, although interesting, hardly looked like system sellers. Nevertheless, Nintendo did something at E3 it has largely failed to do over the last three years: impress its fans and silence it critics. And that’s a huge step in the right direction.
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Mario Kart will keep Wii U buoyant and that’ll blend into Super Smash Bros in Q4. Shelly Pearce, Nintendo UK
SUPER SMASH BROS This game pretty much dominated E3. Taking over more than half of Nintendo’s booth, there were eSports- style tournaments, a US-wide promotional push in Best Buy stores plus a number of characters and modes announcements. Nintendo is going big on this.
SPLATOON
Nintendo announced a number of new IPs at E3, including Captain Toad plus some new projects from Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto. But the most interesting product was the online co-op Wii U game Splatoon, where teams must out-paint their rivals.
CODE NAME: S.T.E.A.M 3DS did get some attention at E3, too. There was Pokémon, and Smash Bros is also coming to the platform. Yet the best announcement came two days into E3. Code Name: S.T.E.A.M is an entirely new steam-punk strategy game from the makers of Fire Emblem.
June 20th 2014
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