Reggie sat down with Matt from IGN to talk about the shape of the Wii, the PS3 Move and Natal among many other things. Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, the NOA exec was not very forthcoming with Zelda news even with Matt’s best attempts at trying to squeeze info out of him. E3 can’t come round quick enough.
Interesting read though.
IGN: So — you got anything that can compete against Sony’s revolutionary Move controller and sub-controller?
[Reggie leans back in his chair and laughs for several moments.]
Reggie Fils-Aime: So, if imitation is the most sincere form of flattery then I am blushing I’m so flattered.
You know, I didn’t see the announcement. I did spend some time at the booth and saw some of what they were demonstrating and I think the question isn’t how will we react — I think the question is, so what is it that’s going to be compelling to the consumer in what they’re doing? From our standpoint, motion control is core to what we do. We believe that we’ve brought a range of different experiences that utilize the motion controller and we pride ourselves on being innovators in the space and we’re going to continue to innovate. I think the key question is, how will they respond when we continue to innovate if this is their best effort?
Nintendo of America exec Cammie Dunaway (above) has been very vocal recently about Nintendo’s current position in the market and she is understandably excited about this years software line-up for both Wii and DS.
Venturebeat had a recent interview with her where she talks about all of these subjects in more detail including “Metroid: Other M“, Mario on Facebook, digital downloads, E3 and Wii price drops.
Dunaway on the appeal of Metroid: Other M…
“Well, you can’t get access to Samus and the Metroid franchise on the other platforms. And this experience isn’t about the graphics at all. It is a shooting game. But it is a much more emotional experience with story to it.”
Over 245,000 visitors of the trade and public last week have made the Gamescom games conference a huge success thanks to the organisers in Cologne, Germany.
As you would expect they are very happy that the show went so well and with lots of positive feedback from the industry and show-goers alike, Gamescom could even become the years premier event for gamers, possibly taking E3’s crown. Or maybe not. Time will tell.
This years E3 show in Los Angeles was one of the biggest in many years. Not only was the show back to the physical size and capacity of E3 of old, but Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft had some massive announcements at their respective conferences.
While Microsoft wowed crowds with Project Natal and a string of AAA titles and Sony showed of their motion sensing tech along with quality games, Nintendo looked overshadowed by both. True Nintendo had a much better conference than the previous year, but one of the biggest talking points came from a single piece of Zelda artwork which wasn’t officially even supposed to have been shown!
Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata realises that they need to do better in future:
GoNintendo managed to grab an interview with Denise Kaigler, Vice President of Corporate Affairs for NOA. This is the Nintendo executive that took a lot of flack after last years E3 conference for smiling too much and concentrating too much on the casual gamer! While the Nintendo conference itself was very poor in 2008, that should hardly be blamed on Denise.
The GoNintendo team certainly think that the negative criticism she received was unfair and I’d have to agree as from what we’ve seen of Denise, she is very passionate about Nintendo, her job and the industry as a whole. The interviewer even thought their time spent with Kaigler was their highlight of the show!
Here’s a snippet of the interview.
I was surprised to see no WiiWare titles shown during Nintendo’s E3 press conference. WiiWare wasn’t even mentioned. What’s up with that?
We are pleased that there’s been so much buzz about some of the games. …We only have an hour…there’s so much information to put on that state. There’s only so much that we can… You guys see every Monday that we have the Nintendo Download.
Sticking with WiiWare, I really stressed how important I believe advertising is. Print ads, and even commercials that showcase 15 games in a 30 second spot…I think all of these things could be great. Will we see anymore bigtime advertising for WiiWare, and DSiWare?
There are opportunities to do all of that. We never say never. We understand that WiiWare is a really big opportunity. We understand that there’s a pent-up demand and longing for that (type of advertising).
Nintendo seems to be taking what works on DS, and moving it over to Wii. New Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart DS, Animal Crossing: Wild World. All of these received/are receiving Wii versions. Is it Nintendo’s intention to bring what works on DS over to Wii, while keeping the approach of the DS titles nearly the same?
What we do is look at games that make sense to apply to Wii. Same thing can be said of Virtual Console games. We’re always looking at ways to make the experience more fun and more compelling for gamers. If we look at a DS game and see that a Wii version…experience can be enhanced, then that’s what we do. We don’t just do it for the sake of doing it. If we can make that experience more fun, more compelling, more immersive…that’s what drives that decision.
Joystiq have managed to grab the video that will be uploaded to the Nintendo Channel next Monday for the new ‘Tales Of Monkey Island’ game heading soon to WiiWare and PC. Dave Grossman from Telltale games gives away a bit more information about what to expect from the game.
We already knew the game will be released on WiiWare as five episodes over the course of five months, but Grossman says the game is a true sequel to past games despite the new 3D look and also that the story is said to be “more of an epic saga”.
Let’s hope they manage to maintain all the insults and humour that the original titles had while trying to defeat the evil pirate LeChuck.
The game is out July 7th on PC with the Wii version following shortly after with Episode 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal.
According to research company, Nielson, Wii Sports Resort is one of the top three most desired games from E3. A survey conducted after the show found that 45% of people would be “definitely or probably interested” in buying the game upon release next month.
This is probably not surprising and the game will likely go on to sell many millions of copies. It will be interesting to see just how many compared to the two most desired games from the survey which were ‘Halo: ODST’ on Xbox 360 with 53% purchase intent and Sony’s ‘God Of War 3′ with 49%. You can see the full 12 most desired games after the break.
On a seperate note the most talked about game of the show, according to Nielson, was ‘New Super Mario Bros.’ on Wii with “4.6 percent of E3 buzz”. Read more…
Destructoid managed to sit down with ‘A Boy And His Blob’ developer Wayforward Technologies, at E3 a few weeks ago to show their platform/puzzle game in action.
The video shows a developer tour of the Forest level demonstrating how the blob characterhelps with the completion of levels.
Three of the Internet’s biggest gaming websites have all agreed that ‘Scribblenauts‘ on DS was the best of the show at E3.
IGN, Gamespot and GameSpy have never chosen a portable game as the best of the show before let alone a a third party title, but it wasn’t just those sites that were impressed by the game. A lot of the buzz around the show floor was aimed towards Scribblenauts too.
The game is a puzzler where you write in the name of an item which then draws itself on the screen and you can use to play with or solve puzzles.
Well done to 5th Cell, the developers behind Scribblenauts on your achievement not just with this ambitious games but with the reception it got at E3.
There’s a second video from the show floor after the break.
So hands up who doesn’t enjoy blasting zombies, vampires and other nasty creatures? See, only two of you. Well that’s good because High Voltage announced their second FPS for Wii, ‘The Grinder‘ just days before E3 which has plenty of the undead to pulverize.
Destructoid managed to grab an interview with the developers about The Grinder and what features they have in store for us. You can see some new footage of the game and we must say it’s looking very tasty.
Gamespot caught up with everyone’s favourite NOA exec, Reggie Fils-Aime, at the E3 expo last week to find out what he thinks about Nintendo’s current state of affairs including their upcoming games, Sony and Microsoft’s new motion hardware and all the usual corporate babble that you would expect from someone in his position.
The BBC had a chance at E3 to ask Shigeru Miyamoto what he thought of the competition now Sony and Microsoft have both announced motion controls for their respective consoles.
More precisely Miyamoto was asked if Nintendo were“in danger of getting left behind by the competition” to which he laughed. Have a look around 3 mins 50 secs or read the transcript after the jump.
