Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata sat down for a probing interview with Newsweek's N'Gai Croal. While N'Gai admits the interview was long overdue for publishing (it was taken back during E307), it has several interesting tidbits within. It only makes us think that it should've been published that much sooner.
Iwata takes time to talk about all things, including the widespread popularity of the DS in Japan, as well as the low sale numbers for Twilight Princess in the region. Iwata also says that third-party publishers shouldn't be scared of Nintendo's software success on the platform, stating that, in the end, it'll actually end up being better for third-party publishers.
The Game Critics Association has released their list of nominations for the best of E3, and Nintendo is all over the place -- particularly with Super Mario Galaxy and Wii Fit. The DS may have been spurned for anything other than the handheld category, but the Wii sure seems to be holding its own against the 360 and PS3. Unfortunately, however, none of the Wii titles made it into the nominations for Best of Show.
We'll skip over multiplatform titles like Guitar Hero III, but Wii games showed up in several categories:
Best Social/Casual/Puzzle Game (Wii Fit, Zack & Wiki)
Best Fighting Game (WWE SmackDown vs RAW 2008)
Best Action/Adventure Game (Super Mario Galaxy)
Best Action Game (Metroid Prime 3: Corruption)
Best Hardware (Balance Board, Zapper)
Best Console Game (Super Mario Galaxy)
Best Original Game (Wii Fit, de Blob)
An interesting mix of games -- some expected, some surprises. The winners will be announced next Tuesday. Think a few Wii games will pull out wins?
Nintendo's SVP of Marketing and Corporate Communications, George Harrison, conducted an interview with GameDaily during E3 where he spoke on a number of subjects (seriously, this interview is long). What we were interested in hearing from the interview, however, was talk of a Wii revision to the hardware in the works. George, in expert fashion, manages to provide an "answer" to the question without really answering it.
George doesn't completely dash our hopes of a bigger, badder Wii, though (we'd like more space to save our VC games, please!), stating "whenever we feel like it's time or have an upgrade, we'll do it, whether it's an improved screen for the handheld or slimmed down like the DS Lite – those types of things. So it's not out of the question on Wii, but we're not even to our second holiday yet, so it's kind of premature to talk about any revisions to the hardware itself." So, by that logic, we'll see a new Wii in 2009?
MTV's Stephen Totilo managed to not only take down Reggie's name, but also got him to plant himself in a seat for 15 minutes so that an interview may be conducted. Divided into smaller bite-sized chunks, the first-part of the proposed three-part interview has Reggie tackling many a subject. Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Mario Galaxy, Mario Kart Wii and Endless Ocean are all discussed, but what we found most interesting were Reggie's comments on Project H.A.M.M.E.R.
Turns out, the game isn't canceled, but has just been put on the back burner. While the game could very well become lost in limbo forever, we're kind of excited to see what some time away from the project could do for the game. Because, frankly, what we initially saw at E306 was nothing worth writing home about.
Despite E3 being smaller-scale this year, more and more trailers and videos just keep turning up, particularly for games that didn't get a lot of attention amongst the crush of news from higher profile titles. The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night certainly seemed to slip through the cracks, and from the reactions of some of you to the game's announcements, there may not be a lot of love left for the little dragon. Can this one redeem the series? We're not sure about that, but the video is at least worth a watch.
In the midst of all the excitement and videos of E3, we seem to have missed a very important update -- Battalion Wars 2, aka BWii! By "update," we of course mean "a couple of new images," but hey, it's better than a poke in the eye with the proverbial sharp stick. Or, y'know, with a tank.
It's been a while since we've seen images from BWii, and while these new shots are long on artwork, there are a couple of screens in there. Now we just need some new video footage so we can see what's up. We'd also love to see some more detail on how this one is coming along, since it's slated for a fall release and we haven't seen much yet ... like the online multiplayer modes. Guess we'll just have to trust for now that things are all good on the battlefield.
The analyst from Wedbush Morgan seems to think Nintendo walked out of the recently concluded E3 as the victor, for the second year in a row, commenting to gaming mag GamePro. He also commented that Sony would've walked away the victor, given news of their recent price drop for the PS3, but Nintendo still presented " new hardware and decent software introductions."
Of course, you already have our general impressions of the keynote immediately following it, but looking at the variety of content available for Wii owners now that the show has concluded, we're happy about the future of the Wii. And the experiences it'll provide.
One of our alumni here, blogger Ludwig Kietzmann, got his hands on the upcoming joint venture between Nintendo and Sega in Mario & Sonic at the Olympics. As one might expect, the collection of minigames present in this overall game are some that fail to elicit any kind of enthusiasm or excitement in said blogger, as it is remarked this is the equivalent of "gaming chewing gum," as "beyond the initial burst of flavor upon discovering the Wii motions needed to complete an event, it's likely to degenerate into a bout of repetitive motion" for most gamers.
To call us disappointed is an understatement, however due to the fact that we pretty much knew this would be the case, at least we were prepared for it.
This latest Super Mario Galaxy video doesn't introduce any new outfits like the last developer walkthrough, but it does demonstrate star-hopping, gravity tricks, and other essential skills for traveling in this 3D platformer. The latter half of this two-minute movie even features that curious portion of the E3 trailer in which the level builds itself as Mario moves around.
How will we make it to November 12th without our heads exploding from all this exciting media? Collect five star shards and fly past the post break for the embedded video.
Nintendo fans, rejoice. Metroid Prime 3 is going to be the best Metroid Prime game yet. It's been burdened with the enormous task of fulfilling Nintendo's promise of providing unsurpassed FPS controls through the Wii Remote and Nunchuck. Surprisingly, Metroid Prime 3 has more than delivered in this near-final E3 build. Not only do the controls work exactly as we'd like them to, Retro Studios has surprised us by fleshing out the Metroid experience with its most ambitious story yet.
Long-time Metroid fans will appreciate the game's opening moments. We're taken inside Samus' trademark space ship. Have we ever been here before? Interfacing with the ship through the Wii Remote certainly felt exciting, allowing players to control Samus' ship -- something we can't remember ever doing in the series' history. Players will touch various panels within the ship, and pull a lever, providing a simple facsimile of piloting a real space ship.
As you dock your ship in a battleship, you'll meet a small army of NPCs. Imagine our surprise when they referred to Samus' previous exploits, fully voiced. In the game's opening moments, Samus will be able to interact with characters that feature full voice acting, seemingly a rarity in modern Nintendo-published efforts. We appreciate the series attempting to connect Corruption to the previous Prime games, but we have to admit that the heavy-handed nature of the story caught us a little off-guard. Watching the Galactic Federation talk about the conquest of the Space Pirates made us think we were watching Halo 2, not a Metroid Prime game. However, Metroid purists need not worry: Samus still goes on as a mute.
This year's E3 had a lot of ups and downs. First and foremost, of course, there was the changed format ... and second, Nintendo's presentation and news seems to be pretty polarizing among fans. Some people thought the show was a win, and others are less convinced. We're interested in knowing how you feel about the show over all, and your favorite news and video items from the coverage. Go ahead. Spill. After all, we showed you our ending thoughts.
Yes, we're all sad to see E3 come and go. It was chock full of content and even though some of us are a little disappointed in Nintendo's keynote, they had a fairly decent show overall. Those of us dying to see more Mario got our kicks, we found out we're getting Forever Blue in the U.S. with the name Endless Ocean, and Nintendo revealed their next cash cow in Wii Fit.
Sure, we could do just a regular wrap-up post, but we decided to offer up some of our favorite highlights from the show, instead. Head past the post break to check it all out.
Not even one whole day of Power Pad ownership had passed before we were on the floor, drumming on the pad with our fists, flagrantly breaking the implicit rules of World Class Track Meet. Our other favorite move? Extending our long jump by simply stepping off of the pad. Yes, we are overweight now.
There's a new Power Pad in town, although it has fewer buttons and a more solid-looking construction. And it's meant more as an exercise tool than a game controller, really. But we're gamers, and we can't help the way we are. Some of us are going to cheat.
Do you think you have what it takes to play it straight, or will you take the hands-on approach to Balance Boarding?
First, the good news: after speaking with NoA's PR star Beth Llewelyn, AMN reports that Disaster: Day of Crisis is trucking along. Since this is one of the games we've been most hoping to see (for a long, long time), we're pleased to hear it. Project H.A.M.M.E.R., however, does in fact seem to be either canceled, or at least indefinitely on some back burner in a forgotten room. Well, E3 can't be all about good news, we supposed, but we seriously wanted to smash things with a giant hammer. And who can blame us?
CONFIRMED: Namco Museum Remix continues to be insane. Not that we expected them to, but Namco did not go back and change Galaga back to regular Galaga. We are still living in a world where a description of Galaga can include the phrase "Pac-Man rolls on a tube in outer space."
This is the "new" Galaga in which, instead of shooting from a ship at the bottom of the screen, you shoot the alien ships by pointing and shooting at them with the Wiimote, shooting-gallery style, and you can also use the analog stick to make Pac-Man jump.
Rally-Xwas still Rally-X, but with speed boosting, which seems like an okay addition. These were still the only two playable games, so we'll have to wait to see how Namco is ruining updating the rest of their classics.
Nintendo's president Satoru Iwata sat down for a probing interview with Newsweek's N'Gai Croal. While N'Gai admits the interview was long overdue for publishing (it was taken back during E307), it has several interesting tidbits within. It only makes us think that it should've been published that much sooner.
Yes, we're all sad to see 
