I hate being negative about Nintendo. Just like pretty much everything else in the world, they aren’t perfect, and I realise it would be incredibly unreasonable for me to expect them to be. Here’s the thing, though. I do. I do expect them to be perfect. In the same way that I feel betrayed by Spielberg whenever he creates a film that isn’t on the level of E.T or Schindler’s List, I can’t help but get annoyed when Nintendo, with their history of revolutionary gaming and such memorable franchises as Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda, can’t reach that level of perfection every day. It’s very unfair of me, and I feel guilty about it; hence my opening statement. I hate being negative because I love the company. Honestly though, sometimes, it’s hard not to just scream: NINTENDO. SORT. IT. OUT.
I’m referring, of course, to Nintendo’s E3 presentation last week. Nintendo, as brilliant a company as they are in so many other ways, just haven’t been able to get E3 right in recent years. They seemed to have managed it in 2010, with the announcement of the then-upcoming 3DS, but as they then managed to totally blow the release of the actual system, I’m not sure we can class that as an unmitigated success either. It’s not that their E3 presentations lately have been bad (well, with the exception of 2009’s Wii Music debacle). They’re just not good enough for a company with such an innovative and creative background. The past two years have been very much focused on the Wii U, a new console which is now mere months away from release. Everyone was pretty much in agreement that they cocked last year’s unveiling up royally; when everyone should have been excitably discussing the Wii U, they were instead saying “So wait, what is it again?”. Was it a new console, or just a Wii add-on? If it was a console, were the gamepads ‘it’? Nintendo wanted everyone to leave E3 discussing the Wii U, but I suspect that’s not what they had in mind. They’ve worked hard over the past year to explain the concept of the Wii U, but even with all that, they hadn’t quite achieved their goal. I think we were all hoping that E3 2012 would complete the puzzle. But no. Yet again, Nintendo just weren’t quite *there*. Close…but no.
Don’t get me wrong-there were some very interesting, and exciting, moments at this year’s E3 presentation: new footage of the new, errr…, New Super Mario Bros game, Pikmin 3, the brand-new-for-Wii-U edition of Arkham City, and numerous other games. However, there’s one problem with all of these: pretty much everyone knew about them beforehand, though leaks, game developer presentations or prior announcements. The only real exclusive unveiling turned out to be Nintendo Land, a set of mini-games which will most likely be bundled with the console in a Wii Sports type fashion. It looks fun, nostalgic, and hopefully a handy way of showing off Nintendo’s ‘asymmetric gameplay’ concept, but the overly-detailed and talky E3 unveiling was perhaps not the best way of presenting it. The other major Wii U innovation was Miiverse, Nintendo’s own social network; however, Nintendo barely covered this at E3, leaving it instead for a pre-E3 webcast. That’s fine for those of us paying full attention, but what about those more casual fans who tune in solely for the major presentations? These are the people Nintendo should be looking to impress, in the hope of building hype on entertainment blogs, discussion forums and the like. Nintendo Land, and another Mario game, much as they might excite fangirls like me, are not going to do it for everybody, and this is where Nintendo got it wrong yet again. The concept of the Wii U is still not clear. We know it will have gorgeous HD graphics, we know that the gamepad looks very unique, and we know that through Nintendo Network, it will have massively upgraded online capabilities and options. These are all things worth celebrating, but they’re most likely not going to be guaranteed selling points. The Wii had motion control, the DS had touchscreen, the 3DS had 3D…what, given the likelihood of a reasonably steep retail price, is going to capture the public’s imagination for the Wii U? It’s worrying that Nintendo have given two E3 presentations on this console now, and still haven’t cracked that rather large problem.
Incidentally, by all accounts from those there, the Wii U IS a great console. I am sure this is true, because, well, this is Nintendo. The Wii U will be brilliant, and the gamepad (slash tablet) looks to be a very exciting piece of kit. I’m in no doubt that my house will contain a lovely, shiny new Wii U within hours of the launch, and that it will be a great addition to our ridiculously large gaming collection. That’s what makes this all the more frustrating, though. As I said right at the start, Nintendo are capable of perfection, and chances are that they’ll display this many times in the life of the Wii U. However, for all their excellence in the actual gaming department, they need to improve on the business front, and fast. They seem to have ridden the storm that was the 3DS launch, but you have to wonder how much luck they have left. It would be a crying shame if this console failed simply because they couldn’t market it properly. Please, Nintendo…prove me wrong.
