We Talk Over the E3 2018 Nintendo Press Conference

I love that the archive starts with lockdown, it makes me feel like i didnt miss out of the live show

Thanks for the quick turn around on posting this.

As someone for who the Switch was the first Nintendo console, this presentation actually made me wanna sell it. It felt like there were like 3-4 games. And I find it incredibly disingenuous about 0 mention of Nintendo Online, especially when some of the marquis titles presented here were heavily online focused.

Something huge must have fell through. There's no way they planned it this way from the start.

As a non-smash player, this was the most disappointing presentation of E3.

Smash is a huge seller for them, it almost always ends up being one of the most-anticipated games on their given hardware, and it's one of their biggest games for getting out into the larger zeitgeist around games.

I get they probably lingered on some of the details a little longer than they needed to, but I think the level of shock people seem to be having seems a little over-hyped, especially considering they did show other new games prior to the big ol' Smash info-dump.

This sucked. Watch the first bit until they get to Smash Bros. and then go do something else, unless you're way into Smash Bros.

Smash is not a fun game.

Fire emblem looks good though.

Fuck man now i hate Smash even more. Goodjob Nintendo.

Still didn't answer my question if it comes with a "how do i treat women at tournaments guide".

context

That was - without a doubt - the most disappointing show of E3 2018. Nintendo REALLY had nothing to show after 15 minutes! That was 30 minutes of Smash, and it's overly detailed and worst of all: too familiar. I love smash, played the shit out of the first 3 games (Smash4 I didn't have a lot of time for), but this presentation DID NOT hype me at all; it made me tired.

Where is Prime 4? How about releasing a new F-zero? How about releasing a new Advance Wars?

I'm sure others can just add more games to this list.

@pontoon_yacht:

I'd agree with you, but that crowd is going to buy that game anyway and they did nothing to get someone new on board with this demo

I hate to keep posting this because my post history is now mostly just me complaining, but can someone in production check your HDMI levels!

All of GB's studio feeds have been going out in limited HDMI levels, 16-235, which is bad enough, but you're also piping in the conference feeds as limited as well. That means they're getting double limited! So instead of 16-235, it's more like 31-216. It hurts my brain!

I'm not as down or angry about this as everyone else seems to be, especially Jeff, but it is weird to just not show anything from games that have been announced before. Not even a developer diary type video or anything. This still got me interested in Smash, which I haven't played since Melee. Last year's E3 is what got me to jump on board and actually buy the Switch, so this one is definitely a disappointment compared to that, but also they just released a mainline Mario and Zelda in the same year, so I was kind of expecting this to not be as big a year for them.

@kubqo: I think there's probably a lot of people who skipped out on buying a WiiU who are now considering getting back into the Nintendo infrastructure with the Switch, and for a pretty good number of them, Smash is going to be a real big selling point.

There are still holdouts, and this was pointed at them. Especially with the game launching during the holiday shopping buildup, I would not be surprised to see a bigger spike in people buying Switches just to get back in for Smash -- because by that point, there's already a nice cushion of other games you can use to justify the purchase.

I totally agree it was probably a little too detailed, but they did show new stuff as well.

I'm happy for Smash fans but I'm so sad they didn't announce Animal Crossing. Was so hyped to finally see AC Switch, especially since the mobile game came out and usually after a mobile version a full on switch game comes out or gets announced, like it was with Mario and Fire Emblem.

Got the kids a switch for Xmas, they're jazzed for Smash but even they were hoping for something besides that long assed video. Jesus that was disappointing.

Waypoint namedrops

No Metroid Prime 4 but like an hour of Smash? Got it, don't care, bad conference.

Remember how Nintendo started with a cool looking mech game, then ended with three days of Super Smash Bros. Arcade Edition? Imagine if Capcom tried selling Super Street Fighter 2/4 as an entire new game, or Ultimate MvC as a new game.

Smash ports being the showstopper sure is a thing.

Make a new F-Zero you cowards!

Man, that bumper song has been very good to me.

The Mech Thing + Fire Emblem look great. The new Xenoblade 2 expansion thing looks cool too. Everything else is a bit of a wash although everyone should get Hollow Knight if you haven't played it already.

Kind of a shame none of the easy pick-ups were in this. Xenoblade 1 + X as an HD version seems like an obvious pull, as does any of the Mario ports that could happen. At least while there's a big space in the calendar waiting for something new.

No sign of the rumoured Xenosaga HD Collection either (Dark Souls Switch was in that same conversation)

Man watching the Giant Bomb reaction to the press conferences & this one in particular has really cemented the way I've begun to feel about the site in general. It's been fun Giant bomb but I think I've outgrown you.

Xenoblade DLC looks pretty rad. I'm always up for a good origin story.

has fire emblem had actual units of troops before? that seems new?

I like Smash, but that was a bit much given how much is still unknown about Nintendo's lineup and upcoming services. They can continue to coast on ports and indie games for the most part, but it's a little crazy we don't have an even a hint at a major release in the next two years.

Smash Bros. is one of my favorite series ever. I wasn't too excited for this new one until now. This direct was very clearly directed at hardcore Smash fans, which is a lot of Nintendo's audience. Bringing back EVERY character was completely unexpected for me and every change they went over looks great. For Brawl and Smash 4 they had the daily Smash Dojo/Miiverse updates for like 2 years, and this direct basically collapsed that into one video. It's very likely that I'll buy a Switch for this game.

That being said:

The rest of the direct felt barren. I could give less of a shit about anime stuff but some Nintendo fans eat it up. A lot of ports, which is to be expected. Mario Party is Mario Party.

Where was that Yoshi game? Where was Metroid Prime? Where was Mother 3? Obviously Smash is going to be the big game, but not seeing that stuff is worrying. Weird choice not to even mention them.

Oh boy, this was a terrible E3 conference. Spending more than half of your conference just reading patch notes of a port is absurdly bad, no matter how big the game might be. I hope Smash fans are happy, but if someone owns a Switch and was looking forward to new games and some surprises, this was a letdown.

Jeff's shirt pretty much sums up this whole conference: super dry.

Other than EA this conference was definitely the most lackluster. THAT SAID, they are Nintendo. And they come out with Nintendo directs like 3 times a year at least. Smash is the E3 reveal. Later this year will be more games. Bummed it wasn't today, but they've already shown that their rule about E3 is there are no rules.

I fucking love Smash but that was a little much even for me. All they had to do was say that every character is returning - even Solid Snake, who is being held hostage at Konami - and then show off a bit of footage to showcase that every animation is being redone and I would have gotten the gist. That was too much of an info dump.

In Nintendo's defense, didn't they say that Smash was going to be the focus? They warned us.

@ayopch: That was a TON of Smash, but if you take a second to think about it, Hollow Knight, Paladins and goddamn Fortnite are all out today. They confirmed DBFZ (this is Important news) and they showed a ton of Fire Emblem. Plus, you know, a new Mario Party (this is Massive news).

They could have milked the announcements they did make a ton more, but... this had things in it I'm excited for.

Before this E3 I was worried that I'd regret spending close to a thousand dollars on soon to be delisted Wii Virtual Console and Williams/Bally Pinball Arcade tables in the last few months

I do not.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but while it was talking about "every previous fighter" for Smash, all I was thinking about was, well, this. Sure do hope that Smash 5 turns out better than MK7...

I'm just happy for Mario Party.

Yeah I was expecting that we'd see something from Bayonetta 3 or the online or Metroid or Professor Layton or Rhythm Heaven or an Animal Crossing or something, and really it seemed like there were very little games from 3DS teams on the Switch, and not really that much news on games that I expect to be in the works. Like... What is Retro one of my favorite studio's doing at the moment?

Killer Queen Black and Daemon x Machina seem cool though.

Overall it felt super weird. I will play Hollow Knight and Killer Queen on my Switch and I guess we'll see what is going on sometime later this year?

What was Jeff referring to at the very end about what they showed? Is he just talking about the like 20 minute Smash coverage?

The reactions to Mario Party were so fucking good

Its turn based again so we need some confirmation that theres 50 turns so we can book Drew's flight.

Also I think "how do they follow up Zelda and Mario?" is a weird question to ask when its clearly Smash. Smash has been for the past few generations like THE system seller, and I think they focused so much on it because they wanted to make it clear that it was more than just a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, even if its not a full on "smash 5"

I hoped there would be a N64 Classic Edition :D

That Mario Party reaction shot.

As a Smash player and fan... I'm really sorry to everyone else that this presentation catered to none of the rest of you. I'm hyped about this, but this went on way too goddamn long. This should have been 6, maybe 7 minutes to say "The graphics are slightly different, all the characters are back, we've made 10,000+ changes, it's called Smash Bros Ultimate and you can play it on December 7th" and then move on to something else. Tell us about this Pokemon game you're allegedly working on, outline the online mode a little, explain why I cannot message my friends at all on Switch and have to use a fucking phone app, SOMETHING.

Also, glad to see Gannondorf finally use his sword to attack with, rather than just look at it in a win pose. Yay, Smash.

Nintendo somehow turned me, as a non-Smash fan, around on that by just showing _so much_ of it. At some point (around the time "Stages" showed up), I was just so delirious about Smash that I was just like "Screw it, man! Keep going!".

I think the biggest problem with showing that much Smash is that it just highlighted how little else they said. Even if they don't have anything else to show, they could at least spend a few more minutes on the games they _did_ show.

I will say though that _this_ is how you do a deep dive on a game, rather than what Sony did. I'd much rather have this, that tells me about the game, than just showing an extended trailer.

@rasrimra said:

Exactly this. I really thought that in unifying home console and handheld development we would see a lot more first party Nintendo releases. I know the switch has gained better third party support than the Wii and Wii U, but Nintendo consoles live and die by the Nintendo first party library of games. They should be using their extra development resources to double down on their key franchises and develop more smaller titles the way they are doing with Pokémon.

For sure it was going to be hard to follow up the insanely strong year they had in 2017 but boy was this event pretty horrible.

@ape_dosmil: They literally put out the big mario game and the big zelda game (even if that was a wii u port) in the first year, and are having smash the second year. Keep in mind that when you have certain games/devs on handheld forever, having the first "real" console game is a big deal (presumably that main pokemon game is going to be their major focus next year). It's the same reason we haven't seen much of SMTV since it was announced.

That... was underwhelming and disappointing.

Hollow Knight, Paladins, Fortnite, and DBZ have been out for months on other platforms. I guess it's neat they are coming to Switch, but there are better places to play them, especially the online games.

Fire Emblem was cool and I'm glad they showed a bit of it. Mario Party games are terrible and always have been.

@stordoff: I'm not sure this was better than what Sony did. I did not like Sony's conference and some of those trailers/demos were lackluster to say the least, but they all felt new. Smash felt like more smash. Presentation matters so much. This is like in games when they have a mediocre mechanic and then drive it into the ground over several hours until you hate it with a passion. Keep it short and hit the highlights. The people who are interested will seek it out rather than most of your people being burned out already.

That's why I think Xbox's approach this year was ideal. It does what Sony did a few years back with nonstop trailers, but still makes time for some talking heads to put it all in context and for a few demos here and there. Would I care about Gears Pop? Nope. Gears Tactics? Maybe, but not just 10 seconds of it. But those two together with a good chunk of Gears 5 makes that whole package a fantastic conference triple reveal.

Nintendo has SO MANY new games it could have featured instead. They could have added in more quirkiness or a skit or two. Even EA's strategy of interviews with devs just teasing their games would have been preferable to the equivalent of an hour on the minute jetpack physics of Anthem. I just don't get it..

Square outdid EA for the worst conference. Nintendo... hold my beer.