Nintendo E3 2012 Press Conference Round-Up

Nintendo’s press conference this year was so big they had to split it into 3. Not only did they have their Wii U conference the other night, but they also had a 3DS conference as well. But today is the big day, when they unleashed all of the games they’re working on to get the Nintendo fans excited. So the big question, as always, is: did they deliver? Does Nintendo’s immediate future look promising for gamers? Did Nintendo save the best for last?

Let’s find out.

• Mr. Miyamoto’s dressing room. A cute little intro shows him reading the script for E3 and has a bunch of Pikmin following him out onto the stage. Cue shots of Pikmin around the crowd. All of this is precursor to…
• Pikmin 3! It’s been 10 years since Pikmin debuted, so the crowd was pretty excited. You can see the tiny movements of each Pikmin, and the environments are much better looking as well, obviously. New Pikmin types introduced – Rock Pikmin. Of course, the integrated second screen can be used as a top-down map.
• Reggie comes out to talk about how unique Wii U is… again. Lots of talk about social media, entertainment, innovating the living. They are in love with this new controller. So in love they show another video that explains just how awesome it is, in case you didn’t know. Plus a new announcement – Wii U will support TWO game pads. Yay?
• Miiverse time! Your OS populates with social stuff, including the Miis of your friends, all in one area to help you communicate with other people. Pretty much a way to draw pictures at people, and send text messages. Some how Miiverse is going to make Mario better?
• Mario Bros U. 4 player co-op play, social interaction, can be transferred from the big screen to the game pad. One person can use the game pad to place helpful blocks along the way.
• Reggie announces third party titles, just like Nintendo does every year. The first up: Batman: Arkham City: Armored Edition. The predictable features, of course. Select weapons with your touch screen and use the Wii U to control batarangs.
• Scribblenauts Unlimited Wii U shows up next. More Scribblenauts, but in HD. Not a bad thing.
• Wii U montage: Mass Effect 3, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Trine 2, Ninja Gaiden 3, Aliens: Colonial Marines and such. Nice lineup.
• Now we’re talking about Wii Fit U. More Wii Fit stuff, this time with sexual tension with a young couple competing for hard bodies. Reggie even says “my body is ready”, to quote the meme.
• Next up is Sing, a karaoke game. The most memorable part is that everyone sang “Call Me, Maybe.”
• Nintendo 3DS! We get shots of another Mario 3DS game. It’s more Mario. We also get Paper Mario: Sticker Star, a new Paper Mario RPG that integrates pretty well with the 3DS. I’m a huge fan of Paper Mario, so this is pretty neat. There’s also shots of Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon, with some 3D ghost-hunting.
• Third party 3DS montage: Scribblenauts, Epic Mickey, Lords of Shadow, Kingdom Hearts.
• Lego City: Undercover for Wii U. Looks like GTA, but with Legos and such. Pretty humorous, like the other Lego games, and even a bit charming.
• Ubisoft CEO comes out to dish out some news about upcoming Wii U games. The big game is ZombiU, and no it’s not about a zombie college. The game is based on a “one bite and you’re dead” mechanic, apparently. Lots of Wii U integration.
• “Welcome to Nintendo Land.” A virtual Nintendo theme park. It seems like a collection of Wii ware type games, based on a way to cash-in on their biggest franchises. It looks about as thrilling as it sounds, although the Luigi’s Mansion based one sounds cool. One player controls a ghost from his Wii U tablet, and he’s invisible to the other players. He’s trying to go around and knock the other players out one by one.
• And yeah, they spent about 15 minutes on that last bit.

So that about wraps up the three conferences. I’ll go ahead and skip the ambiguity — I felt like this was easily the worst of all of them. And maybe even Nintendo’s worst in several years, which is really saying something. It’s pretty shocking that for guys launching a console this year, they had such a lackluster showing.

But that’s just me. What about you guys? What did you think of Nintendo’s conference? Go!