Southern Gamer

It hurts, Nintendo — it hurts. I raised my expectations to a degree unheard of even for me, and in so doing have had them shattered by a completely underwhelming announcement of this new “WiiU.” I’ll run over all the main points of the press conference below, but first, I just want to jump into why Nintendo’s new console just isn’t the return-to-form for which old N-fans were hoping. Nintendo is stuck on the idea of innovation. Innovation for just it’s own sake won’t move the game industry forward, and yet, I fear that is what Nintendo is doing. It’s like they all sit in a room throwing out the craziest ideas, then mash them all together and vomit out a product without focusing on things that will really bring them up to speed with their competitors. “People sit in front of their TVs with iPads, right?” I imagine them saying, “So let’s make a touch-screen controller… with motion sensing… and a camera… and a bunch of other shit!” While all of this is indeed incredibly neat, none of it is compelling enough really change the way we play games. Sure, we will play games in a vastly different way physically, but in the end, it’s all just going to feel like a gimmick – a novelty. Nintendo just needed an excuse to stay on the Wii tracks while updating it enough to compete with current-generation systems. Only, too bad that by the time it comes out, we’ll probably only be a year or two away from the next huge leaps from Microsoft and Sony.  I have no doubt that Nintendo’s first-party offerings will be captivating, (I mean, the tech really IS amazing) but adding another layer of weird new complexity along with graphics parity isn’t going to bring in the 3rd parties, no matter how much Nintendo convinced them to pay the WiiU some lip-service in that short video.

Okay, so I’ve let off some steam… now let’s hit the conference talking points:

• The conference started with a long video showing clips from all of the Legend of Zelda games throughout the year, culminating with Miyamoto-san arriving on stage to talk about Link’s Awakening coming to the 3DS eShop and The Ocarina of Time remake for 3DS being released next weekend. Also, on the DSi, players will be able to download a copy of LoZ: Four Swords Adventure for free in September.
• Skyward Sword is getting a Holiday release (and as was shown later on in the conference, appears to be upgraded vastly for the WiiU’s HD graphics). There will also be a special gold Wii remote released along-side it.
• Starting this fall, Nintendo will be putting on Legend of Zelda Symphony Orchestra shows in every region of the world, although no details were announced. Also, two CDs of Zelda music will be released. The first one, an Ocarina of Time soundtrack, will be available for free on Club Nintendo to the first few (hundreds, thousands) people who register the Ocarina of Time 3DS.
• Next, Iwata-san took the stage to announce a new Mario Kart, Star Fox, Super Mario, and Luigi’s Mansion (as well as showing more Kid Icarus) for the 3DS.
• Mario Kart looks pretty much the same, only now there are under-water parts and times when your kart transforms into a hang-glider. They also showed a kart customization feature.
• Star Fox 64 is being ported to the 3DS with tilt controls. A multiplayer mode will show your friend’s faces in the boxes instead of the normal characters’. It’s releasing in September.
• The new Super Mario 3D is coming before the end of the year and looks really spectacular, having both 3/4 type 3D views of the world as well as 2D segments. Also, as has been teased, the Tanooki suit is returning.
• Kid Icarus is also coming later this year and will have 3-on-3 multiplayer and an Augmented Reality card-fighting game.
• Finally, Luigi’s Mansion 2 was shown, but did not have a release date. It looks to be on a mostly 2D plane.
• They also showed videos for 3rd party games including Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D and Resident Evil: Revelations, Mario and Sonic at the London Olympics (or something like that…), Ace Combat 3D, Tetris, Cave Story 3D, Driver, Pac-Man and Galaga collection, Tekken and Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D.
• Next they spoke about the eShop, which launched for the 3DS yesterday. It will have trailers, demos and information on games and a Virtual Console starting with Gameboy and Gameboy Color (emphasis on ‘starting with.’) Excitebike 3D – a remake of the 27 year-old game, and the Pokemon Pokedex 3D will be available to download for free.
• Then they finally announced the name of the new console – the Wii U. It’s new ground-breaking feature is a controller with a built-in 6.2 inch touch-screen display and it will be backwards compatible with all Wii software (and I’m guessing, Gamecube). The controller features two circle pads, not sticks, (so I’m immediately thinking that will be a problem) forward-facing camera, face buttons and two triggers. It really seems like the lower screen of a DS just blown up to complement your TV as the larger ‘upper’ screen – making the Wii U a strange conglomeration of console and hand-held.
• After going over the features and showing several innovative ways games could be played, such as moving the controller screen in front of the TV screen to zoom in on areas of play, laying it on the ground and hitting a golf ball off of it with a Wii remote and even holding it sideways to ‘fling’ throwing stars off the small screen and onto the TV, they announced that Smash Bros. will be coming to both the Wii U and 3DS and will work together “in some fashion,” as Iwata-san put it (which just makes me cringe.)
• There aren’t any ‘real’ games on the show floor, but there are 8 prototype experiences, such as a New Super Mario Bros. game with Miis in it, Chase Mii – a game in which people run away with the Wii remotes on the big screen as someone with a Wii U controller has a bird’s-eye view of all of them, and Shield Pose – where you move the controller in front of the screen to block arrows flying at you.
• Reggie also announced that Lego City Stories will be coming to the Wii U and 3DS exclusively as an open-world Lego game.
• They then ran a reel of footage showing people like Peter Moore and Ken Levine saying how excited they were for these new Wii U capabilities. Throughout these short talks, it was revealed that games such as Darksiders 2, Tekken, Batman Arkham City, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Ghost Recon Online, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Metro Last Light and Ninja Gaiden 3 will be coming to the Wii U. All graphics shown looked just like Xbox 360 or PS3 renderings (and probably were at this early stage.)
• Finally, John Ricitello of EA came out to mention that 3rd parties, especially EA, really are excited for Wii U. He asked the audience to imagine the system with an open online system… so, no real details.
• Reggie ended the conference by asking the audience to think of Nintendo as having four viable platforms, the DSi, 3DS, Wii and Wii U (really, this just seems like 2 to me, with the others being upgraded versions of the former). This harkens back to them saying that DS was just a “third-pillar” before they realized it would really take off and replace the Gameboy Advance… so, seems to me they’re just covering their asses in case any one of the products fails.

So that’s that… the Wii U looks… strange, but at the same time, interesting. I still don’t think that this was ostensibly a “right” move for Nintendo, but they will no doubt be successful with it anyway. Hell, I’ll probably buy a Wii U just so I can have my Zelda Skyward Sword (or was that an even newer Zelda in-development they showed?) in HD. I’m just tired of the gimmicks Nintendo.

Here’s to hoping that in five years or so, we get a true return to old-school roots (maybe even calling that system simply the “Nintendo” as a lot of people predicted this time.) I can see them on-stage now, talking about how all those wacky Wii and Wii U experiments were fun, but now here’s the next-next-gen system with a nice conroller, good online and abundance of Marios, Zeldas, Metroids, etc. One can only hope…