Roundtable: No Nintendo Press Conference at E3 2013

Nintendo has recently announced that it will be taking a step away from the glitz and glamour of the large media circus that is the live E3 Press Conference, instead focusing on smaller events for different groups such as a private event for US distributors, while the Western gaming media will also get their own event and a chance to try the games.

This will be supplemented by a number of Nintendo Directs during the course of E3 to provide info and new game announcements to the wider gaming public. Focusing more on software rather than the statistics and figures that previous years E3's have brought us.

Of course they will still be on the show floor with demo booths allowing people to get hands-on experience with many new and upcoming games.

Many would agree that dropping the big Press Conference that has been the "main event" of E3 is a highly risky move for Nintendo, but what are your thoughts?

Can you see some merit in their reasoning and desire to want to try connect with the gamer more than investors?

Do you think there is a chance after E3 we'll still be satisfied with their announcements and reveals regardless of the medium they are provided?

Or do you feel Nintendo are doing themselves a bigger disservice by not having a big live event regardless of how well they approach this new "E3 method"?

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Note: I'm posting this in GGD so as to not confuse this with the current thread on this topic.

I might use some replies from the thread in Nintendo Boards for the mainsite article but I ask that you post intended "Roundtable" thoughts here as singular posts and not as replies to others.

Cheers

As much as we might miss the internet meme's Nintendo has given to us in the past, Nintendo knows that the bulk of their potential audience aren't typically the kind to tune in avidly at 11am EST and wait through forty-five minutes of sales slides to see the stuff they might actually buy. Investors can have their Power Point party, journos will still get hands-on game time on the floor, we enthusiasts will get our cute Kirby trailers direct to Youtube and everyone else will get the bulletpoint version via their preferred general news sources. A big all-encompassing presentation isn't needed. It makes sense.

They had it all there for the taking, they could have won this years e3 regardless of the 2 new consoles, if they put on a hardcore big show, it would make people think sure the new consoles look good, but look at these awesome games coming for nintendo wii u and i can buy one of these consoles today!

Its like they hate the true fans at times :S

I'm so so on this. Do Nintendo need E3 for a major presentation. In my eyes, yes. But i also believe that the Nintendo Directs they are doing frequently are a good idea as well, so maybe this is the future of how Nintendo present new games. They need to do E3 for revealing new hardware though, a Direct would be a bad idea for this.

As much as I enjoy watching Nintendo Directs, they do not compete with the amount of coverage that E3 press conferences get as you don't just have the the games media there, you also have journalists from the BBC and the New york times etc

I have to assume Nintendo are aware of this so I really don't understand what their reasoning is for not having a conference this year.

This is an enourmously risky move that has a very high chance of backfiring on themselves. By abandoning the usual E3 conference, they are sending off the message (intentionally or otherwise) that they are admitting defeat and are ceding the international stage to Microsoft and Sony.

Regardless of what they show, this is now the prevailing media narrative and will continue to be so all the way throughout the event (and perhaps even for the rest of the year and beyond). They are also relinquishing the mainstream non-gaming media E3 coverage that would normally report on their event as there is no chance of them going out of their way to report on a Nintendo Direct video.

However, all is not quite lost. It must be remembered that the last two E3 events in particular have been increasingly universally considered to be huge disappointments, with many people questioning the need for E3's very existence and it is possible that Nintendo may well be acting as trendsetters. For this new format to be considered any kind of success however, I believe that it relies on a series of events that must occur for this move to work in Nintendo's favour. Firstly, Nintendo need to pull some really magic rabbits out of their hats; with a large number of significant announcements and new game unveils (A new western-focused IP from Retro Studios may well qualify!) that would ideally all be hitting the console this year. Secondly, their competitors need to have utterly disastrous events that would make the Sony of E3 2006 proud.

If both events occur in their entirety, it is possible that E3 itself may actually be brought to an end - with Microsoft and Sony following Nintendo's lead and shifting to creating their own events instead (as Sony did back in February and as Microsoft are doing next month with the Durango). It may well be the case that Nintendo succeed at disrupting E3 and the entire industry media narrative itself, rendering it all completely irrelevant. This would afford Nintendo a large advantage over their rivals as they have the upper hand when it comes to communicating directly with consumers (lest we forget Sony's disastrous attempts at their own Nintendo Direct style "Vita Heaven" videos; both of which were rightfully seen as laughing stocks)

But that is a very VERY idealistic scenario and relies on too many factors outside of Nintendo's own control. I don't think that Nintendo have chosen to abandon the format because they feel that they have little to show (as details on the currently announced lineup alone would be enough to fill an E3 press conference by itself!); they would surely have not forecasted the sale of 9 million Wii Us this fiscal year if they weren't confident in this year's software/announcements lineup (and that 3DS forecast looks very conservative, so I don't think it's a matter of them being overly bullish either). However, as crazy as it seems, I can't see any other scenario where this strategy would benefit them as otherwise it looks like they giving up on the mainstream audience and are retreating to their own little world inside a bubble (where they can just focus on preaching to the already converted choir of existing Wii U and 3DS owners).

Iwata is bravely defaulting here and that alone is enough to give me some sort of hope that he knows what he's doing. I just hope that it isn't a final fantasy for them...

(Might as well post a quasi-repeat from the other thread)

Whatever Nintendo does, any Nintendo Direct will fill the E3 gap. We've started to get as excited for those as we usually are for E3, and the fruit is far more rewarding. This, from a gamer/consumer point of view. For everyone else, there are other ways to show what they're doing, and how much profit they're making.

It's a ballsy move, and in the long run, it sure seems like the correct path to take.

This is Nintendo, they march to the beat of their own DK bongos...

Everyone else just has to deal with it, but really I think that this will actually turn out to be one of the company's best moves in a long time as it will really distance them even more from the other consoles in a good way.

Providing the games are there on the show floor then Nintendo won't need to do any more talking, their sure to be stellar line-up will do that for them.

...besides, I rather like their tune as much like many of the classic tracks that are featured in their games, it's what keeps them marching and I have every faith that they will be putting their best foot forward this year.