The Official NINTENDO Thread

Congrats to @dialthedude on winning this year's Nintendo portion of the E3 banner contest! This was the first banner submitted in the whole contest this year too. kone came in at a very close 2nd place with their Vinny/Dan/Abby/Jeff banner. And indiana (who already won Bethesda) came in 3rd with the sad Brad Labo banner.

The Official NINTENDO Thread

E3 is the place for announcing never before seen games. It's exciting, fast-paced stuff and we're all enthusiastic to start talking about all the new toys. But, please keep in-depth discussions about specific games in their respective forums. For more information about how to help us keep things organized, go check out the E3 2018 and You! thread.

In an attempt to keep the E3 shenanigans organized, the mods institute these official discussion threads for each conference so that everybody has a go-to place to discuss them before, during, and after the show.

Despite the chaos of E3, keep in mind that the general site rules still apply. So, don't be a dick. If you need a refresher on to conduct yourself like an upstanding citizen of the Giant Bomb community, check out the FAQ.

Keep Discussions On Topic

This thread is exclusively for the general discussion of the Nintendo press conference. Discussion involving the other company's conferences should be taken to their respective threads.

Specific Announcements

To help you get where you need to go to talk about anything announced or shown during this press conference, we have created a list of them right here:

• Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
• Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy
• Daemon X Machina
• Dark Souls
• Dragon Ball FighterZ
• FIFA 19
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses
• Fortnite
• Hollow Knight
• Killer Queen Black
• Mario Tennis Aces
• Mega Man 11
• Minecraft
• Octopath Traveler
• Overcooked! 2
• Paladins
• Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu!/Eevee!
• Starlink: Battle for Atlas
• Super Mario Party
• Super Smash Bros.
• Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido
• The World Ends with You
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Where Can I Watch?

Tuesday, June 12 @ 9:00 AM PDT (Your Local Time)

• Giant Bomb Chat
• Nintendo
• Twitch
• YouTube

Given that this is Nintendo, I’m predicting at least 3 new 3DS games announced for some strange reason. That includes stuff already announced for Japan and games coming to both Switch and 3DS, but there will be at least one thing that will make me go “welp, need to keep this thing out for a little longer”

The conference will actually just be Nintendo destroying every copy of Mother 3, to ensure the West never gets their hands on it.

I need some cute Nintendo stuff after the murder party that was the Sony press conference. I mean, I love violent video games, I'm a big Doom II fan from way back, but I need some stuff with color other than blood red and mud dirt brown. :)

As for specifics, I really want to know more about the new (or remade or whatever) Smash. Also, I am holding out hope for the return of a proper story mode in it a la Subspace Emissary, which is probably my favorite thing on Wii ever.

Out of left field, maybe we'll see some actual game type stuff for the new Metroid game? I don't know, I am saying that as a totally out there prediction. But I hope it's more than just a title card and "We'll show you more later" type of thing.

I just want Nintendo to surprise me. Announce something or show something completely bonkers. I'm down for that kind of magic today.

how long is it, an hour?

"SUPER Mario Party?!?!" - Dan

What the fuck was that? Like half an hour of Smash Bros. content and some short snippets of a handful of other things? Nintendo seriously has nothing other than Smash Bros. to show off?

I'm a little miffed at this whole thing. That much attention on Smash Bros. was just a boring drag.

That was insulting.

That wasn't the worst E3 conference I've ever seen, but it sure was the most boring one.

Well that sucked.

I guess all of the time on Smash means they don't have anything else releasing for the next six months. Unless they do what they did last year and stealth announce a game on treehouse.

Not an outright bad E3, but not a particularly good one either.

Super Mario Party was a nice surprise. Glad they're going back to actual boards and not that dumb train that was introduced. And the mini games looked fun and customizing them will add some spark.

Overcooked 2 will be a blast for my gf and I when we get to it. Though kitchens that change in the middle of the level are gonna be a freaking nightmare XD and Hollow Knight's surprise release for today is awesome.

Fire Emblem looks bold and different despite the delay, but I personally prefer the 3DS style to this new one, so not really called to pick it up ASAP. Maybe one day down the road.

Smash looks more like a 'best of' game than a true 'OMG NEW SMASH' game. I was glad to see a bunch of my old favorites like Pichu, Young Link and Snake come back. Every single character is certainly ambitious and it still looks like a lot of fun. Sadly though, I don't have the amount of people willing to come over and play that I used to, and online gaming sucks 99% of the time (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a rare gem), so despite the appeal, I don't have much of a reason to actually get it.

Nothing else of note really. FighterZ is a nice port, but once again I'd need actual people to play with.

Since 2017 was such a slam dunk, I wasn't expecting a repeat, especially after all the big Nintendo franchises I love were covered that year, but I was hoping for at least one big announcement to get me hyped. Shame it never happened.

I guess when they only had a logo of Metroid Prime 4 to show-off last year, it would've been silly to expect much. Even a cgi trailer would've been better than nothing, though.

Other than that...boy, what a poor showing. I guess I'll finally grab Hollow Knight at some point, otherwise I don't seem to have a reason to start up my Switch for the rest of the year.

The end of the GB stream might be closest to my reaction. Just mega weird.

At the very least they could have went "YO TENNIS" and showed some of the new Mario Tennis, but they didn't even do that. What a bizarre thing they had.

Daemon X Machina might be good, who knows. At least it's a new game. I do have to admit that Mario Party on a portable console might be alright, and I'm half thinking about buying in.

And that Smash Brothers segment. I've never really liked the game, but that first introduction of "hey it's all the Smash characters in one package" started to get me thinking that I might want to give the game a new chance. I was almost ready to buy my first Smash game ever. But then the thing kept going on and on and I slowly started to remember the reasons why I don't like the Smash Brothers. During those 20 minutes they sold and then unsold me on the idea of Smash Brothers. Oh well.

And it's not a good look that they had so many no-shows. Metroid, Bayonetta, Yoshi etc. are all essentially M.I.A.

It's worth keeping in mind that Nintendo generally doesnt mind keeping to their own schedule with announcing and showing things through themed directs lately. Just cause it wasn't here doesn't mean they wont show something a month from now in a random direct nobody knew was going to happen. They don't seem to place as much stock in e3 aside from using it as a platform to demo their immediate next big title (in this case Smash). This was for all intents and purposes a Smash Bros direct that happened to line up with e3.

Well, this one has even less to talk about than I expected... and my expectations were already pretty low. The cold open was a bit odd and felt very unlike Nintendo. Did we ever actually get an intro?

Daemon X Machina was up first. This thing looks promising. Never really played many mech games but this seems like it might be up my alley. An expansion for Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was then announced. Pretty excited for this. Am most of the way through the main game and have really enjoyed it. First one in the whole series I have played.

Recap of some of the Pokémon stuff that was announced a few weeks ago. Love the Pokémon games so am keen to check this out... though I must have missed that this isn't a "typical" Pokémon game, that will be next year. I am very glad Dan is excited for Super Mario Party, because I am super not. Well to play it at least. If it leads to another Mario Party Party then I am all in.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is up next. I love Fire Emblem games so will definitely be getting this one. Fortnight on Switch... nothing else to say here. A few other highlights of Overcooked 2, Killer Queen Black, Hollow Knight and Octopath Traveler… man this game has a look to it.

Finally we get what felt like an hour on Super Smash Bros Ultimate. I guess we now know that it’s a new game with every single character from the past games… with a couple of additions. I loved Smash on the 64 but never fell in love with any of the sequels. This looks like they are building on top of the previous title, which I enjoyed, but it didn’t blow me away.

Overall I was a little disappointed by Nintendo. Pretty light on things to show but they are usually pretty good with announcing things throughout the year so its not that big of a deal. Hard to believe that technically this now marks the actual start of E3. Can’t wait to be able to watch the Giant Bomb night shows!

I recently sold my Nintendo Switch and am boycotting them until Animal Crossing is announced and has a release date.

"Fucking What The Fuck"....fades to black

@jeff I couldn't have said it any better myself.

I was okay with this conference. (Direct? Whatever they're calling it.)

Nintendo's biggest stuff hit last year very quickly after the Switch launch, and I already got at least 500 hours out of those games between Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, and MK8 Deluxe, so that has more than covered the cost of entry for the Switch. Meanwhile I have a gigantic pile of games waiting for some love on my Xbox and Steam accounts, so it would be frankly improper for Nintendo to rob me of another 500 hours of my life at this point. Smash and the other things they announced will do fine for the near future (honestly I worry I won't get around to even what they announced), and they have enough in the pipeline that I don't worry about the future of first party Nintendo at all really.

I do want them to finish porting Wii U treasures over, though. Mario Maker is the first to come to mind.

Smash Bros Ultimate looks great. I still have to hope that they go in a direction with my mainstays that feels good (they went in a good direction with Yoshi in 4, hope they don't fuck it up), but otherwise this is an insta-buy for me. I don't understand the animus against Smash around here, the games are built around having stupid fun with an all-star cast and the mechanics always felt good to me.

I'll buy into Fire Emblem. I agree that a Wars would be more fondly received, but FE scratches a similar strategic itch. (I do miss clogging narrow passes with disposable units and the like, though.) I'm not sold on the look of new FE, and I'm sick of how FE fetishises royalty, but those things won't stop me from getting my fix of simple, well-delivered turn-based strategy.

I might try the new Pokemon Let's Go game. The first 151 pokemon are my jam, and I always wanted a less "contrived" 3D experience out of my Pokemon games, which this might be? I'll keep an eye on it. Not being able to evolve your Eevee companion is stupid, though.

As for the things they didn't talk about:

• No way they were going to talk Metroid Prime 4 today. They probably had the early talks and maybe some early exploratory design far enough along last year to drop a title card, just to shut up the rabid fanatical haters who rampaged all over that DS game they put out. MP4 is probably still another 3 years out at the least, since 1) most AAA games take at least 3 years to make; 2) games that aren't direct engineering follow-ups to something made by the same studio (Nintendo allowed the original Retro MP devs to scatter to the winds) tend to take longer; and 3) this is a Nintendo AAA game, which means it'll probably stay in the oven longer until it's just right. In some ways it's crazy that they're bothering to re-amass the tech and the talent to make this thing at all, because the Metroid Prime trilogy is a very difficult thing to follow in the shoes of when you don't have that team ready to go anymore. I'll hang out for gameplay 2 years from now, and be pleasantly surprised if it comes earlier.
• I guess Bayonetta 3 could've been on-track for detailed dive now? nfi.
• What else were we expecting? We won't hear about Mario or Zelda for a few years yet. Something unannounced? These aren't rhetorical questions, I'm genuinely curious as to what kind of thing people were hoping to see here.

As someone who hasn't touched Smash since Melee, this prolonged look at the new one actually made me think I might dip into it this time. However, would have really liked some Animal Crossing news, even if it was just a logo like Metroid last year.

Mediocre conference for those wanting to be enveloped by all things Smash, which I enjoyed heavily, but yeah overall it was pretty poor. That's a shame I've been devouring Pocket Camp lately and I haven't been more hyped for a new Animal Crossing in awhile.

Nintendo kinda shot themselves in the foot this time. Heavy look at Smash would be disappointing for some people, but less so, if they haven't announced Bayo 3, Metroid Prime 4 and Yoshi before that. Knowing about those titles made it feel very incomplete.

It was okay, but and Nintendo definitely knew that it didn't have enough. It would be one of the shorter Directs if Smash announcements would be quicker, which is why we got tons of info like "ROM has an almost-invisible meter on his side!"

Of course, it's Nintendo, so we'll probably get 3-4 directs until the end of the year, and those always have a surprise or two, so I'm not too worried.

Out of things that weren't announced but are very likely, there's still Animal Crossing and Retro-developed game(s). Many were also hoping for Odyssey DLC. Also I'm not following that game, so I might not know something, but SMT5 seems not that far off.

I only really wanted to see 2 things and that was Smash and Killer Queen Black and I'm glad I got to see those. However, thinking about how Nintendo has announced games like Metroid Prime 4 and Bayonetta 3 and not giving any update on those at E3 is disappointing. They also didn't make that many big 1st party announcements besides Daemon X Machina, Super Mario Party and Fire Emblem Three Houses. It feels like Nintendo didn't prepare very well to continue the momemtum the Switch has now with to my knowledge 3 entirely new 1st party games for the Switch are releasing this Fall. Granted Fortnite is out now and its always a good get to bring the most popular game out there on your system and the Nindies looked good, but Nintendo's first party lineup leaves a lot to be desired.

But also, all that time on Smash could have been cut down to make way for potential announcements for footage of other games. Is Super Mario Odyssey DLC not actually in the works or will that be revealed in another direct? While the Animal Crossing announcement would just be a logo like MP4 last year, at least lots of people would get excited about it coming. Also where was Travis Strikes Again? It felt like Nintendo could have done a lot more to get people excited about the Switch this year. I mean, I'll still buy Smash and likely will get Tennis Aces and Octopath, but the lineup feels weak when compared to last year wuth games like BOTW, Splatoon 2, Odyssey, ARMS, Xenoblade 2, Mario + Rabbids and more.

I know a lot of people love Smash Bros. but I just don't get it so what a bummer that it took up most of that show. At least that new Fire Emblem looks cool and kinda different and Octopath Traveler comes out next month. Plus Super Mario Party actually looks okayish.

I’ve kind of regretted my Switch purchase for a while but over the last few weeks I’ve started to get a lot more use out of it and the pending release of Mario Tennis Aces had me pretty excited for the future. This conference completely took the wind out of my sales though. After Tennis there is now absolutely nothing that looks likely to bring me back in the near term which is a real shame.

I was hoping to see more of their portable franchises make the jump to Switch. Stuff like Super Mario RPG, Wario Ware, Animal Crossing, real Pokemon, and Pushmo. Also, good ports of the Galaxy games (unlike those silly ones for the Wii U that still required motion controls on a system that didn't ship with motion controllers). Maybe some new smaller first party games for the Eshop. They could also have a new Mario Maker, or a new Mario Kart. It's been quite a while since those came out on the Wii U.

They had such a good launch last year and they've followed it up with nothing but Smash Brothers. I get that they can't make a new Mario or Zelda every year, but they need to put out more than one big game per year. My Switch has largely been gathering dust since February when I finished Xenoblade.

Hmm. Maybe not expecting but what they could have and should have shown because wtf are they even doing.. F-Zero. The actual Pokemon game. Maybe a new Wave Race. New Metroid. Maybe a new Pilotwings games? I dunno. Nintendo doesn't really have much stuff I'd be interested in. Endless Ocean was great and I don't think on other hardware.. Not sure if thats something only they can do. I'd so much rather see it on a proper console with good visuals etc anyway.

The Pokemon game is what I really just want. And I am 100% expecting them to disappoint me with whatever it ends up being. I randomly, out of sheer boredom, started watching some of the Pokemon Sun & Moon cartoon on Netflix. Last game I played was Pokemon X or Y. I thought since I don't know anything about Sun & Moon it'd be interesting to see the show.. and it kinda is! I started getting all these ideas of how they could make such an incredible massive Pokemon RPG (I'll save you from me typing out all these ideas) and then I keep reminding myself that Nintendo is always does the wrong thing and never learns from any other games out there have done. They operate in a bubble.

I felt like Nintendo was the most disappointing of all the conferences. Because they played too safe and spent too much time on Smash. I get that they have such a head start having the amount of success the Switch provided, but you have to give something to fans to talk about, at least I tease or something on what's the direction of the company after Smash. But I guess with all the directs they have through the year, they don't really care that much about E3 being any bigger then any other time during the year to announce something. I just had hope

@seikenfreak: Nintendo isn't directly responsible for the design decisions on Pokemon. Gamefreak is. Also, saying Nintendo always does the wrong thing and doesnt take inspiration from outside sources rings a bit hollow when we're coming off the high year they had on Breath of the Wild. A critically acclaimed game that takes a very outside of Nintendo open world structure to one of their flagship series and makes it interesting with their own style.

I wonder if people would feel better about Nintendo's showing if Smash Bros was a September release as was (reasonably) speculated instead of December. It's bad if you aren't interested in Smash, but even if you are there isn't much for most of the year.

Obviously I was hoping to see Metroid Prime 4, and I honestly thought we'd see that rumored Star Fox racing game. It seemed to be following the same crazy rumor trajectory as Mario & Rabbids did last year, and that ended up being real. I also completely forgot about Bayonetta 3 until someone mentioned that it was absent; that's a peculiar omission too.

@mezza: Extra note: Breath of the Wild was my biggest disappoint that year. It's an okay game. If that sounds like madness, you can read the details in my GOTY list :P

And honestly, if I sit and think about it, I would believe that Nintendo did the open world thing entirely as their own idea and did not look for inspiration in other games. Did you know Mario Kart 8 doesn't have customizable controls? It'd be nice if I could make it work the same way every other racing game has in the last 20 years.

But yea, I don't think too highly of Nintendo. Ever since the Gamecube I think they've just been wasting potential. They could be doing so much more with their hardware, games, and IP.

@seikenfreak: They have literal towers that you climb to reveal parts of the map. They looked at or were at least aware of other modern open world game design by that point alone.