Nintendo’s E3 2014: a line-up unlikely to ‘save’ Wii U, but who cares when it’s this

June 12th, 2014, 01:44 Posted By: wraggster

Mario and Nintendo president Satoru Iwata celebrating a victory over NoA’s Reggie Fils-Aime, yesterday.

And now for something completely different. It doesn’t matter whether you believe Nintendo’s determination to do things its own way is its greatest asset or its greatest flaw, few will have watched Nintendo’s version of an E3 press conference without cracking a smile.The tone was set from the very beginning with an extraordinary, GIF-friendly scrap between Reggie Fils-Aime and Satoru Iwata, and the Robot Chicken interstitials that ran throughout the show were genuinely funny too, poking fun at fanboy demands and subverting established Nintendo tropes. A well-judged sense of humour at E3! Who’d have thought it?And the games? An unexpected and uneven mix, to be perfectly truthful, and there’s little here to turn Nintendo cynics into believers. Carefully described by Nintendo as a ‘digital event’ rather than a press conference, this wasn’t an event aimed at journalists, industry analysts or shareholders – it was for players. And it was all the more entertaining for it. The new games on show here were designed to please Nintendo’s demanding, sometimes restless fanbase rather than turn Wii U into a blockbuster gamebox.It worked. We saw familiar, much-loved mascots return in Super Smash Bros, new Pokemon games, Yoshi’s Wooly World, Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, new spin-off Captain Toad’s Treasure Tracker and, of course, that captivating Zelda Wii U reveal. All of which are likely to be released to an enthusiastic critical and player response, even if they won’t sell in the numbers Nintendo once enjoyed.

http://www.edge-online.com/news/nint...this-much-fun/

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