Back in April, Nintendo announced that the company was going to put all of its attention on the upcoming Zelda game at this year's E3. The announcement stated that the Legend of Zelda for Wii U would be the only thing playable in Nintendo's E3 booth, and in place of the usual "Nintendo Direct" video, the company would instead do a day-long Zelda stream. It did also say that Nintendo would release more info on its E3 plans later, and today they've done exactly that.

Though there still isn't going to be a traditional Nintendo Direct, the company is expanding their E3 streaming coverage with a couple of its Nintendo Treehouse streams. The first stream starts at 9 AM PT on June 14, and will still largely focus on the Wii U's Legend of Zelda but will later include live gameplay of Pokémon Sun/Moon.

At 10 AM PT the next day, Nintendo Treehouse will start the stream with a Q&A with a Pokémon GO developer and then go on to show off "upcoming releases for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, including Monster Hunter Generations, Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past and Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE."

I'm pretty curious to see each of these (and whatever else Nintendo ends up bringing), but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'm most interested in Tokyo Mirage Sessions, which is the Shin Megami Tensei/Fire Emblem mashup that Nintendo and Atlus announced back in 2013. As a JRPG set in modern times and with a real focus on youth culture, creativity, and J-pop, it's just about the furthest thing from what I thought that combination of franchises would bring. Also: The heroes draw on their "performa" for "sustenance and power," and the Performa/Persona pun is just stupid enough for me to love it.

You can watch these Treehouse streams on Nintendo's official YouTube and Twitch channels, and head to the company's E3 page for more details. Plus, you'll be able to watch us as we watch (and chat about) the early parts of Nintendo's Zelda stream bright and early on June 14 at 9 AM PT.

Someone at Nintendo just realized they should probably try to sell some of the 3DSs and WiiUs they've still got in the warehouse.

Here's hoping we also get some more info on Rhythm Heaven Megamix. Dying to at least get a release date on that.

@roc_553 more like "hey maybe we should shoe some games comming out this year instead of this one that is not comming out this year!"

I still don't know whether I expect them to announce something we haven't already heard of.

Seems unorganized.

Dragon Quest is the only reason I'll be watching.

Like. There was NO way they could just stream nothing but Zelda... but like... this seems last minute as fuuuuuck.

Let me only say that yes, a lot of Nintendo's E3 planning is last minute as fuuuuuuck.

The nintendo hate train continues unabated..,

Picross 3D 2 or we riot.

It's better than just Zelda at least.

This would all be great if Monster Hunter, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, and the Dragon Quest VII remake weren't already out in Japan. I kinda already can know what those games are about if I look them up on the YouTubes. Zelda and Pokemon are still the only things of substance they're showing at E3.

Nah, they already made their shoe announcement.

:P

yeah Tokyo Mirage Sessions might be the best game of the year that very few will buy it, also the name of the game is TMS ( SMT backwards ) good job Nintendo/Atlus on the name

@bbalpert: Oh, well done.

I'm so excited for Tokyo Mirage Sessions! I don't know why. I got halfway through Fire Emblem Awakening and that's been my experience with that. It may be the art style, or just my hankering for something to dive into on the Wii U. We're only 3 weeks away!

It's a bit of a shame, isn't it though? It makes this E3 a little less weird.

Shouldn't they also have that new Kirby game there? That's not out yet.

So they looked at their floor plan and figured out that they couldn't use Zelda for the entire show? Shocking.

Woah!

Not gonna lie, I'm as hyped about TMS as I have been about pretty much anything to come the Wii U. It appears to have the right amount of ridiculous style with solid rpg mechanics I can get behind. Also I'm on Pokemon kick right now and am maybe unreasonable excited about the new Pokemon gen. I'm hoping these games will be more content packed than the previous 3DS titles like the Black/White generation was.

The expanded streaming games don't seem very exciting, ill probably play both, but htye are out the same month or the month after.

Performa? c'mon Japan, that's not a word you can create!

@coffinvarnishh: So there's no mention in the press release of their floor changing, just their streaming show. Don't anticipate more than Zelda to be on the floor!

"Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE" was originally known as "Fire Emblem x Shin Megami Tensei" right? Or that was a codename or something?

I only heard about the name change earlier this week. (The whole TMS being SMT backwards is a real nice touch though)

POKEMON HYPE! ROWLET BEST WAIFU 2016!

Love me some Nintendo, but unless Pikmin 4 is unveiled, I'm taking my focus elsewhere. Again.

Good to see Nintendo remember they still had some games coming out this year, maybe they forgot because most of those games came out in Japan a while back? Sounds like we might actually get a solid release date for the Dragon Quest 7 remake, which came out in Japan back in 2013 and is a complete rebuild of that game with great looking 3D graphics and a complete rework of that game's structure to solve the "40 hours til it gets good" problem of the original game.

Called it! No way Nintendo was gonna just show off Zelda throughout the whole E3 when it has so many other games to demonstrate too.

Also, good to know that Austin has good taste in Pokemon. Rowlet is radical and adorable.

I wonder if Tokyo Mirage will be good enough to get past all the Anime that scares me, like Persona. Wait and see mode engage.

This was what I expected. Good to hear that it's now official. Tokyo Mirage Sessions hype!

@ragingflower: Sharp FE looks to be significantly more steeped in anime tropes and Japanese pop culture than Persona. The game's premise is basically that it's a J-Pop industry RPG. The poor Japan sales of the game has been joked as "the game is to Japanese for Japan." (Simpler and more correct answer is that the audience was not there for the game on the Wii U.)

I hope Sharp FE will gently ease-in the anime-averse, but I'm seriously doubting it.

@engineno9: The reviews for the game are already out for Planet Robobot. I'm guessing that's why they won't be streaming it. Actually, I think Lets Plays of the game are already on Youtube.

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is the craziest video game name of all time.

@austin_walker said:

Why you got to tease me with a description like that?! You just described the The World Ends With You. I'm now now much more interested in Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.

But at the same time that deep wound SE made when they faked us out on a TWEWY sequel for an ios release is still raw.

Rowlet is life.

Always find it weird when people are showing games coming out a couple weeks later or less at E3, but that's cool. Still feel like some of Treehouse's decisions on changes seem pretty dumb for TMS. That fucking weird "hip" outfit to replace a bikini in one part is some 4kids level of nonsense. Still getting it, but man that and Amazon screwing me on my Special Edition have made me less hype for the game.

not a rpg guy so still a big fat 0 for me on the big n at e3.

Good thing someone at Nintendo remembered they have two whole non-Zelda games coming out.

Let me turn off the music in FE and P5, and we will be good.

WHY would you ever want to turn off the music in a persona game...? Wow... I have no interest in the dance persona game as a game since I don't like rhythm games (and I am terrible at them) but if I had the money for the vita I might seriously buy it just for the music as the music in the game is incredible.

That's a relief! A bit more excited to see their stuff now!

I still refuse to acknowledge the existence of Tokyo Mirage Sessions.
...
Goddamnit.

If this bassline makes you want to turn off the music in the game, then you will be anything but good

@zaldar: I liked the music in the first two games and Original Sin. I can't focus on anything else if there are lyrics in a movie or game, and especially if they are Engrish rap over a big band/metal jpop schizo fusion. I preordered P3 back in the day, when I was managing my own game shop. No one in the shop had any idea what the hell it was because Halo or something. I was so happy when it came in, that I put on the soundtrack disc that came with it. I'm still trying to forget it. Just...the most tonally dissonant (as far as the game's content is concerned...if I am blowing my brains out to summon demons to do my bidding, it better not be whilst this absolute garbage is playing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jwRkJV4CQY

Let's compare that to the battle theme from Innocent Sin....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x53T7qW2S6w

The second one sounds like Persona to me. The first sounds like Street Fighter 3's opening, except worse.

As someone who gives zero shits about Zelda but loves Pokemon, I welcome this news.

I don't think I want to see a lot of the new Zelda game before I play it myself.

Dragon Quest VII is actually coming over, my heart skipped a beat. Finally time to invest in a 3DS

Thanks for the write-up, Austin.

I kinda think I like how Nintendo just doesn't give a fuck about E3. If I was nintendo I wouldn't care much about E3 either. The last 5ish years or so the western audience has been really hostile to Nintendo as a whole (eventhough there have been some great games) that it seems the market might as well just wait for the NX. Nintendo will reap very little benefit from showing up at E3 and should probably just skip it, leave the people craving more instead of showing up to be laughed at.

People don't need to witness the last death throes of a failed platform.

I guess if you want to get technical, Zelda is the only NINTENDO game shown at E3.

I'm interested in how they're going to show off Pokèmon. Everything else besides Zelda is already out in Japan so they probably have free reign to show off whatever. Not so much with Pokèmon, though, and they've only shown 5 Pokèmon so far.

As someone who has played every Fire Emblem available in English (and a Binding Blade fan patch), I just wish Nintendo would let Intelligent Systems make another real Fire Emblem game on console. It seems to be a recurring issue with Nintendo, that they're so risk averse that they only allow spinoffs and crossovers of some of their most successful handheld franchises on console (looking at you, too, Pokemon). I have a feeling their mobile efforts are going to turn out the same way.

@caleb1915: goddamn that's a great song. This soundtrack is going to be kickass.

@freedom4556: I don't know about intelligent systems, but the lack of console pokémon games probably has more to do with game freak. This is the company that put out Black & White 2 for the DS when the 3DS was still trying to get off its feet.