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.
Head inside for the full gloating press release.
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.
You can read the whole thing over here.
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…
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.
Bring it on!
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.
At Nintendo’s developer roundtable during E3 earlier this week, Shigeru Miyamoto showed some concept art from the upcoming new Zelda for the Wii. The image was supposed to remain un-shown to the public, however it has now found its way onto the Internet.
Rumours abound that the female figure in the foreground is a living incarnation of Link’s Mastersword and I have to agree that they could be onto something. Her cloak looks a similar shape to the swords guard and and the design on her front looks familiar. Also Link is not holding his sword in the concept drawing though he is his shield.
Whether this rumour has any truth to it will likely remain unknown for some time but we’re very keen to know more. Maybe Tokyo Game Show later in the year will reveal more details.
Hit the link for the Zelda E3 concept art.
Update - Master Sword comparison inside.
It really seems as though developers are pushing the graphical boundaries of the Wii more every day. The first years of the Wii’s life attracted many mini-game compilations mainly due to the new controllers and the success of Nintendo’s own Wii Sports and Wii Play. Now however, it looks like the console is starting to be taken more seriously for traditional style games and there is a massive amount of more ‘hardcore’ (or whatever you want to label it) titles on the way like The Grinder, The Conduit, Muramasa, Metroid and Final Fantasy just to name a few.
Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Piccolo also looks to add to that list and as you can see in the video above, has the awesome graphical style that original Dragonball designer, Akira Toriyama used when creating the franchise.
Namco Bandai have already stated that the game will be available in Europe this Autumn with other areas to follow. We posted more images here.
It’s been a long time coming, but the Classic Controller Pro for Wii will be available in Japan this August, along with the newly announced black version.
Up until now it has been unclear whether westerners would ever see the peripheral and Nintendo initially hinted that it would be for Japan only. However, the wavebird-style controller has turned up at E3 in two plastic display casings.
The Nintendo reps are still unsure whether there will be a western release themselves and there has been no mention of it in any of Nintendo’s E3 literature but it must be there for a reason and could be the biggest hint yet that countries other than Japan will be able to get their grubby mitts on it.
Personally I would like one myself as I find the existing Classic Controller a bit uncomfortable. The new grips and shoulder buttons look like they’d solve that problem. FIngers crossed.
Nintendo have been a bit quiet over their new DSiWare service recently. They announced a new Mario vs Donkey Kong title in their press conference on Tuesday but what else can you expect to download soon on your handheld wonder?
This video shows a few new games and utilities, some already released and highlights their new ‘Domo‘ series of games.
‘Monado: Beginning of the World’ is a Wii RPG from Nintendo that seemed to come out of nowhere, but wherever it did come from, we’re glad it did!
The game sports a warrior fighting through armies of robotic warriors with a rather large energy-sword. It’s very Japanese then and we love it! Monado’s gameplay seems to be in an open-world design where you venture through jungles, forests and in old remains of distant settlers. The game looks like it runs smoothly at 30fps with a decent level of detail and impressive textures.
As you can see from the trailer, Monado is not in English so don’t hold out for a western release in the near future as we guess it hasn’t been localised yet.
Nin-ten-do.com