So it looks like everyone’s mad at Nintendo again huh? After spending months building up good rep with hit after hit and bold new partnerships with companies like Universal generating a ton of excitement, one bad direct seems to be all it’s taken to bring back ye olde “Nintendo is doomed! Wii U is dead!” talk. These fires have only been added to when Iwata seemingly apologised for the digital event saying he would “take their concerns very seriously”, which for many fans validated their rage, though this was quickly damage controlled by Reggie who claimed Iwata’s response was more on an “ hear you” . As well as this we’ve seen downvotes, negative comments and even petitions spiral out of this event, making it seem like a global disaster to the casual onlooker. While I’d much rather go play more Splatoon than attempt to reason with the internet, I thought it was worthwhile to look at the intense negative response to this latest direct, examine whether or not it was justified and talk a little bit about the future of the Wii U.
Exciting, but low key
First off, I feel it’s important to point out that I too was very disappointed by Nintendo’s Digital Event at E3. Like many others I was let down by the lack of any huge reveals or big new software, unlike last year’s direct which focused on huge titles and offered some new surprises, this year’s offerings felt very small by comparison with most of the games being ones that we say last year but have only now been given release dates. I’m just as excited as the next guy for Xenoblade Chronicles X, but after the attention it got last year it can’t reignite that same spark when it’s shown again now. There were some surprises, I’m very excited by the new Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam Bros. for example, but that isn’t something that’ll really feels like the usual “Knock your socks off” level of Nintendo directs. Other surprises left many feeling cold, such as the new Animal Crossing and Metroid games which were a far cry from what fans were asking for, but we’ll get to that later. Overall it seems that for many this event failed to live up to their sky high expectations, I must admit to being among them, but does this fully justify the intense hatred Nintendo are receiving? I personally would argue that no, it really doesn’t.
For me, the best reveal of E3.
There’s a lot to tackle here, so first let’s start with one of the most frequent complaints I’ve seen so far; the size and scope of reveals was incredibly small, disappointing a lot of fans. Now, I’m not here to tell people they’re wrong to be disappointed and they should suck it up and buy every copy of Super Mario Maker they can find (though really that game does look awesome), as I’ve expressed myself that the digital event felt sadly small in scale and lacking in big reveals, but when thinking over Nintendo’s overall E3 experience I remembered how much I actually absolutely loved. While it may be easy to forget in the fast paced world of internet time, if you can remember just before E3, Nintendo delivered a presentation where they released a ton of info on Smash DLC including new characters, stages and costumes that released that very same day. That was a huge amount of high quality content dropped, and while it may have been spoiled by leaks a few hours in advance, it was still a pretty awesome way to kick things off. Then we had the Nintendo World Championships the following day which were, in my mind, one of the highlights of E3. The Championships were not only incredibly fun to watch, spotlighting a lot of great Wii U content and really allowing Nintendo to get in touch with their community, but also featured one of my favourite E3 reveals; the original Mother game finally getting a world wide release under the title Earthbound Beginnings. Now, I want to go on record by saying that any E3 that features Mother games is one of the best E3s ever, and being one of the releases fans have been clamouring for shows Nintendo do want to release those games. It was an incredibly exciting way to begin E3 and bought Nintendo front and centre of the E3 stage. While this may actually be what caused the disappointment of the digital event by raising expectations too high, I feel it shouldn’t be forgotten that these events were among some of the best at E3, proving Nintendo can still make huge splashes.
The Nintendo World Championships were a definite highlight of E3.
Similarly, while some of the reveals in the direct itself may have been a little tame, I think it’s important to remember their only some of the games Nintendo showcased at E3. One of the games we are at the site are most excited for, Fatal Frame, for example wasn’t featured at all in the direct, but was still been shown at E3 during the treehouse stream. This stream showcased a bunch of other high quality games such as the new Fire Emblem and Bravely Second, games that look incredibly exciting and that gamers will surely love, but were not featured heavily in the digital event. If you pull back therefore and look at everything Nintendo’s been doing at E3, they’ve got some really big stuff coming up for both the 3DS and the Wii U.
This leads us on nicely to another sore point for many users, they feel the Wii U has been abandoned, they are equating the lack of big reveals with a loss of interest in the console from Nintendo as they attempt to shift focus to the NX. I find fault with this line of thinking based on two fronts:
1) we don’t know at all what shape or form the NX will take, let alone when it’ll hit
2) the Wii U has a ton of games coming out the rest of this year and more to be revealed in the future
A packed schedule, so why are fans concerned?
Let’s start with the later sentence, because as a Wii U owner I feel I can speak of this from a first-hand perspective. It’s not uncommon to hear the argument that people haven’t bought the struggling console due to a “lack of games”, but really this makes no sense to me. I’ve found no lack of games to play on my Wii U, and not just any games either, premium top quality masterpieces. As well as my Wii U I also happen to own a PS4, which in comparison has very little must-own titles in my opinion. I don’t regret my purchase or anything like that, but I’ve felt like the Wii U has been much better value for money. This is why I continue to be confused by the mainstream perception that the Wii U is dying and has no games, especially when they talk about this E3. Nintendo put out the infographic seen above which shows the titles they’re planning to release this year, which is no small amount. I don’t see how any gamer worth their salt could turn their noses up to big releases like Xenoblade Chronicles X, Starfox or Super Mario Maker. This doesn’t even account for the previously talked about games like Devil’s Third and Fatale Frame, plus keep in mind that games like The Legend of Zelda are still coming next year, so why are so many people concerned about a lack of releases? Really I think this misconception is due to Nintendo choosing to focus on games coming within a relatively short window; all the games shown are coming by Spring 2016 at the latest, and while the schedule may be packed, most of the games were already announcement due to Nintendo trying to damage control their initial games drought. It’s not a case on a Nintendo having no games coming therefore, but instead having already revealed all their surprises and thus fans were disappointed.
What I find most interesting about this situation is that arguably the most popular conference, Sony’s, seems to have taken the opposite approach but people are loving it. Now I don’t want to come across as a fanboy or anything, I absolutely loved the Sony press conference (any conference that can deliver the trifecta of The Last Guardian, FF7 and Shenmue 3 is a definite winner) but when watching it I couldn’t help but notice the lack of any release dates. It seems Sony were more interested in laying out a long term plan, with the majority of these games presumably targeting 2016 launch dates and beyond. This leaves Sony with still not a lot of first party games coming out this year, something that’s plagued them a lot so far but that the general audience don’t seem to care about. Again, I’m not being a downer of the conference, I absolutely loved it and it had the big surprises and reveals that make gamer’s love E3, but they have absolutely nothing coming up in the near future that makes me excited like Nintendo have done. Despite having a packed calendar of releases everyone seems to be down on Nintendo while praising Sony who have got by on hype alone. Reggie himself has spoken about this issue and how Nintendo perceive E3, revealing that they want to focus on the here and now:
“ We just fundamentally don’t believe in showing content at E3 that is going to be a long term proposition. We like to show content that typically will launch in the upcoming Holiday and maybe extending into the first half of the following year.”
Presumably the number of directs they have per year is responsible for this, why reveal games far from release when you can show them off later on in a similar presentation after all.
What’s going on in that beautiful mind…
While Nintendo have therefore done their best to showcase the content coming in the immediate future to alleviate fan concerns, it seems to have backfired as people are now convinced that there simply aren’t more games coming out and Nintendo are paving the way for the NX. I find this sort of thinking to be unnecessary apocalyptic, it seems people have forgotten that new hardware is always in development as soon as the current model is released and have assumed Nintendo is rushing a new console out the door. Nintendo have repeatedly stated that they will not stop publishing Wii u content until all users are satisfied, and while I personally already feel satisfied with the purchase, there’s no way in my mind Nintendo won’t be supporting the Wii U well into 2016. We still have Retro’s big project on the way for example, and it’s been a while since Nintendo EAD Tokyo released anything, so I’m sure there are still some big projects ticking away. The NX is also still a lot longer off than many people think, it was only recently confirmed to be a home console whereas before it was nothing more than a concept. Nintendo have also repeatedly stated they will not be ready to talk about it until next year at least, so a reveal in 2016 followed by a release in 2017 seems highly likely to me, giving the Wii U the traditional 5 year life cycle for any Nintendo console. That doesn’t seem at all apocalyptic to me, while the Wii U has struggled in sales, it’s hardly like Nintendo have given up on it, and instead they’ve supported it like any other console even through the rough parts. Really, the only reason Nintendo even mentioned the NX is due to the mobile gaming announcement, I can guarantee if they hadn’t people would have been shouting the exact same stuff they are now but talking about how Nintendo were giving up consoles altogether. Nintendo only confirmed they were working on new hardware as they wanted to put the fears we’re seeing now to rest, it seems they give people too much credit. Regardless, the lack of far off reveals at Nintendo’s E3 event is hardly indicative of the Wii U being dead, but instead a desire to focus on the here and now. Whether or not that’s a good idea for E3 is debatable, but it hardly speaks to the death of the Wii U.
Getting back to these reveals, what seems to be the biggest problem is something that happens every year; fan expectations got far too out of hand which means no matter what Nintendo did, not having the specific games people wanted has led to it being perceived as being a total failure. It seems every year I see some sort of forum post of someone “only” asking for Super Mario Galaxy 3, Mother 3, F-Zero, Metroid Prime 4 and a whole host of unlikely games as if it should be standard, and if any one of these are not present it’s been an absolute disaster and Nintendo have somehow personally offended them. This year however is slightly unique, as we did in fact get a lot of what we asked for, but not in the form we expected. While we didn’t get Mother 3 for example, we did get the original as stated (which I feel more than ever indicates Mother 3 is also on its way to Wii U to complete the trilogy), we got Animal Crossing on Wii U, but in the form of an Amiibo centric party game. Starfox is also finally there, but for some reason people feel underwhelmed (even though it’s being developed by Platinum Games, seriously why aren’t Nintendo playing up this fact?). The biggest offender however is the highly controversial Metroid Prime: Federation Force, a co-op shooter developed by Next Level Games without the series traditional heroine Samus Aran. Fans have been clamouring for a new Metroid, and since the announcement they’ve been freaking out with an impressive level of anger and hostility not seen since Metroid: Other M.
If you’re a normal person, you’ll see a teaser for Federation Force. If you’re a Metroid fan, you’ll just see red.
Not only has the reveal trailer been downvoted faster than a video of Hitler kicking cats, but an entitlement fuelled petition has also started in hopes to get the game cancelled. While I too was disappointed by this reveal and it was certainly not the Metroid game I expected, after checking out the gameplay footage from the treehouse and thought it looked fun, I’m a fan of Next Level Games so I expect something entertaining for me and my friends. While the Metroid brand has of course been shamelessly slapped on I don’t feel too strongly and certainly wouldn’t start a petition to get a game cancelled. The petition is sheer lunacy, if anyone thinks this is actually going to be successful they need themselves checked out immediately. A game with the amount of time and resources put into that game has is not going to be cancelled because it upset some fanboys. I tried to read the comment section for examples to quote here and they’re honestly hilarious yet utterly soul destroying, one angry fan claimed he was signing because he “[refused] to let Nintendo walk all over us”. Yes, walk all over you with their own ideas, that’s how this works. Honestly, I get people are upset and I’m not trying to force people to like the game, but going as far as to try and cancel it? That’s just the worst kind of fanboy entitlement, there’s much bigger things to be worried about than not getting the video game you wanted. Really, this situation speaks to the problem Nintendo face in general, if they release the games people want they’ll be seen as just rehashing the same games once more, and if they release something new then the fans will crucify them for not giving them want they want. They’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t. I’m not trying to say everyone has to like something just because it’s different, but honestly just give the game a chance before condemning it.
What it’s really all about.
Honestly, people seem to be mad because these games weren’t made specifically for them, but Nintendo isn’t about you, it’s about everyone. While I personally am not excited by something like Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival I’m sure someone will like it, similarly, I’m really excited for the Shin Megami/Fire Emblem crossover, but I know a lot of people won’t have it on their radar. People need to take a step back and realise not everything Nintendo put out is exclusively for them. While this digital event may not have been what people wanted, it was hardly the absolute abomination people make it out to be. As I’ve stated throughout this article, there are a ton of games coming to the Wii U and 3DS in the coming months, some may not excite you and hey, that’s cool, there’s a lot of games I don’t care about that people are absolutely in love with and for them has made E3. Nintendo, for better or for worse, just seem to create huge emotional responses, positive or negative. While this direct may have fallen short of expectations, within a few months’ time there’ll more than likely be another direct that gets people exploding with excitement, so really I wouldn’t get too hung up on this. If you’re disappointed, express that disappointment, but please don’t act like this is the end of the world, they’re just video games after all and that’s all Nintendo see them as. Plus Nintendo had puppets, so you know, 10/10 for that.
Do you agree with Josh’s outlook on Nintendo’s E3 showing or were you disappointed with the event? Lets us know in the comments below or on our Facebook page.
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