Nintendo the loser as big three rock E3

24. In terms of new IP, new franchises, or simply new ideas, Nintendo was found wanting. It just keeps returning to its old stable of Zelda, Mario, Metroid - time and time again. I mean, look at the SMG2 video - I bet half the SMG players couldn't tell you if it was new game or not. It looked exactly the same to me, down to the big robot and slippey-slidey ice world.

I've been an avid Nintendo gamer since NES and SMB3 (owned every console, sometimes twice, often on import), so I'm happy that my opinion is valid. And for me, personally, it was a disappointing show and Patrick called it right. If you disagree then fine, that's your prerogative.

But, truthfully, wouldn't you have all loved to see Miyamoto unveil a brand new IP? I bloody would.

23. @jmalonz

He's not saying that Nintendo is the loser in the real world, he's saying that Nintendo really bad compared to Microsoft and Sony in E3, that's all, read the article properly!

22. "Nintendo the loser"? Please consult overall system and software sales numbers and re-think the title. Nintendo is far from "losing" anything.

'Super Mario Galaxy' "disappointing"? 8+ million copies makes it just shy of Microsoft's best seller and more that twice that of Sony's. Not disappointing by anybody's standards.

"Fondness" of Nintendo's flagship franchises is "not translating" to sales? Please consult the sales numbers for 'New Super Mario Brothers' (#4 on the all time console game sales list), 'Mario Kart Wii', 'Super Smash Brothers', 'Pokemon', etc., etc.

Your gut reaction to the E3 press conferences doesn't translate into something anywhere close to reality and the numbers bear that out. Why you tried to argue that Nintendo is somehow on it's heels is beyond me.

21. Id like to go on record as saying im pretty ********** nintendo didnt annouce some sort of motion control controller for the Wii. I mean seriously, when is the Wii going to get a controller that can simulate bowling, or golfing, or sword fighting. Clearly nintendo is the loser here because they are so far behind the times.

20. Yeah, 8mil sales thus far is terrible IMO. That's not even quite double Gears of Wear 2. This is bad news for Nintendo. Great article.

Oh wait, no, this is a biased and unsourced article.

19. I just wish more companies would be like Apple and just announce that something will be in the shops the next day.

Sony seem to have given up on release dates altogether. At least Nintendo talk about what they don't announce at the round-table with Miyamoto (Zelda and SMG2 next year, for example).

The thing is, Mass Effect 2 is the game I'm looking forward to most, while The Last Guardian was my favourite reveal and Metroid was the biggest surprise for me. And I'll play these games...when? 2010? Brilliant. Only 6-18 months to wait then.

18. @mbb and that is a perfectly valid stance. As a multiple-platform addict (not so much neutral as equally biased) I would have *loved* to see Nintendo blow me away. The reason I wrote this is because they honesty didn't. In the lib term psp go may flop and Natal be a shadow of what ms hopes, but they DID light up E3.

For me, smg (maybe bar smk) is the finest wii game, and it *should* have sold millions more.

I sat through all three conferences wishing for awesome from everyone, and, as you can see, in my honest opinion, nintendo had the least impact.

17. No one (well, not me, at least) is questioning the order of 'Wow' offered here, just some of the particular statements made.

Personally, I actually did think Nintendo's keynote had the wow factor. I had no idea these games were coming, and they look fantastic. I was completely surprised.

In contrast, we'd seen almost all the games at Microsoft and Sony's keynotes before. Even Natal, though I was blown away by the scope they have in mind for it, we knew was likely coming. Okay, not everyone had seen the leaks and rumours, but even so - they're still only trying to catch up with (and possibly surpass, in Natal's case) Nintendo.

But Natal and Sony's motion control are just prototypes. Who knows when (or even if) they'll really be released. And then they may never catch on because they're not compulsory for the console.

I'll be picking up my Wii MotionPlus and Tiger Woods next month. When that's true for Natal, I'll call it Microsoft's way.

16. @mbb @bustin98 I never write anything to bait any set of fans. I think if you polled people on who had the most impact at E3 you'll find that Nintendo comes a distant third (which is what this article talks about)

In fact Ars Technica (so not even this site) has a poll up now http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/06/e3-poll-technicabig-three-edition.ars

Were the Galaxy sales good - yes - but did they match expectations? The attach rate for the Wii is smaller than the other consoles - those figures have been published. Super Mario Galaxy is a wonderful game, and with the attach rate it deserved would have been an even bigger seller.

Will it disappoint Nintendo that it didn't have a better attach rate for SMG? What does the low attach rate mean for Nintendo?

There is no argument about quality - in terms of SMG or Mario games in general - against other franchises. As my article points out, it is merely that other consoles are getting major traction from IPs and an increasing number of powerful names in gaming and Nintendo has returned to Mario time and time again.

The article doesn't say Forza 3 is better than Mario - it points out that massive franchises are not the sole domain of Nintendo.

This isn't an anti-Nintendo article - it's an article pointing out that Nintendo did not manage to generate the wow factor that both Sony and Microsoft did.

Weren't you hoping for a new Zelda game or a new novel control mechanism? If Natal had been an add on for the Wii or a new DS had been unveiled it would have been a different matter.

But they weren't.

15. What's your source for knowing that Nintendo were disappointed with 8m for Galaxy? Or that it caused an internal realisation that they core gamers were fewer than they thought?

Because if the logic here is just an assumption that it was disappointing because it could have sold more, then what game doesn't disappoint? No game will have a 100% attach rate (except Alex Kidd on the Master System maybe...)

14. This article seems designed to bring out the Nintendo Defense Force and up the pageviews. Fine, you're getting your opinion heard. Just be ready to hear from everyone who can counter your claims, as some already have.

Patrick, do you have access to Nintendo's internal memos? Do you have documentation that expresses Nintendo's sales projections? How about some integrity and post that data, please.

Also, did you know that everything that Sony demoed with the Eye Toy can be found in a developer's diary with the currently available Eye Toy? There is nothing new that was shown, just shown on stage for the first time.

How about Natal? Do you really believe core gamers, who have been bashing Nintendo's motion controls for the past 3 years are going to turn around and spend $200 on a camera system that requires even more physical exertion than M+?

These presentations were for the stockholders asking why Microsoft and Sony wasn't doing what Nintendo is doing, plain and simple. We will never see anything substantial come from these devices this generation. And I say that without reading internal documents.

Also, its so chic to chide Nintendo for pushing out rehashes, yet God of War 3 is going to be so awesome, just like the first two and the PSP game. Same with Halo ODST, it will be so awesome, like the other 3 Halo games, the RTS game, and the board game. Whoopee, lets celebrate the raping of an IP unless Nintendo publishes it.

How about we judge a game by the merits of its gameplay and not its pedigree, please.

13. "Yes, Nintendo may have preferred 10 million to 8..."

Yes.

Exactly.

The figures disappointed Nintendo. That doesn't mean the figures were rubbish, it means they were disappointing and did not reach expectations.

12. VGChartz tends to be a better sales indicator than wikipedia since they actually update. As of today they have 51 million sellers (and Wii Sports counts because they sold 4 million in Japan where it isn't packed in with the console). X360 has 63. PS3 has 31. So 360 does have the most. However break that out by year and you have 20.4/year for Wii, 18 per year for 360, and 15.5/year for PS3. So if you prorated the averages to the same launch time frame Wii would have had 71 (rounding down) to 360's 63.

That being said, I honestly don't think any of the 3 "won." I tend to think they all sucked. The 360's iToy is an iToy. Heck Nintendo has one now too thanks to UbiSoft. And so does PS3. Big woop. If you disregard the Motion Plus from Nintendo because they've talked about it before then you have to disregard GT5 from Sony (which they've talked about at the last 2 E3s now maybe even 3), FF13, kind of Halo, Forza and probably a few other of the X360/PS3 games.

I wasn't really wowed by much of anything personally, but then I am not a huge sucker for graphics, you actually have to show me something and a lot of the time Microsoft & Sony in particular only like to show you shiny things because a lot of their customers are rac****s. I did like what Nintendo showed for the New Super Mario Bros. Wii but that was about all I was interested in from them.

I think the PSP GO looks bad, but I think it is an interesting approach and could see why someone might get excited by a PSP that actually is small. I would tend to give Sony the edge in this year's E3 due to that alone despite the ball & stick.

As for Super Mario Galaxy sales, I doubt it is disappointing to Nintendo. SMG is the highest selling game since SMG has released. It is currently ranked #43 all time but every one of the other 42 has been out longer and there is only 1 game that has outsold it this generation that isn't on the Wii. Yes, Nintendo may have preferred 10 million to 8, but it is still one of the best selling games of the generation.

11. WHAT THE....

lol

Galaxy had disaponting sales. Who is the idiot who wrote this. Galaxy sold 8 MILLION copies MORON!

jesus lol

10. This article was squeezed out like silent but ripe fart, it's foul in just about every way and you were probably hoping it didn't get much attention.

I never really understoood the whole "competition" aspect of E3, it's not really there, especially if you own multiple consoles. In most cases it just devolves into petty fanboy arguments.

Having watched all three I felt it was pretty obvious that Nintendo came out on top with Sony trailing behind. The problem with Microsoft and Sony is that they did absolutely nothing to change the game. They basically talked about things we already knew and announced sequels to games that have been out on the console, doesn't need a sequel or isn't even out yet. Left 4 Dead isn't even a year old, do they really need to pump out a sequel? Final Fantasy 14 was a nice surpise, but can we get 13 sometime in this century before jumpingon the next game? Not only that but it's an MMO, like FF11 it will always be the whipping boy and assigned a lower class than the traditional FF titles. And another Metal Gear for PSP? The thing already has 3 of them, I'm sure the Metal Gear heads are pleased but for the rest of us, that Peace Walker trailer was typical Kojima nonsense.

PSP Go had already been leaked but I did not think they could make it any less appealing. They raised the price for less features. The lack of UMD is appalling. Sure the format failed, but they're crossing out the entire backlog. I can find good PSP games for a lot less than what they're going to charge for downloading. I geuss the only good thing that came out of that was that the PSP 3000 isn't going anywhere, but all in all it's still inferior to the DS.

But I think the ultimate kick in the pants were the motion controllers. I have rarely seen such blatant examples of "me too!" in this industry but the complete lack of direction and finesse with the Wii rip offs was just unbelievable. Sony's wand does nothing Wii Motion+ doesn't already do AND it's late to the party by about 3 years. Natal looked like fun but is impractical for a lot of games. Both looked like they could use another year in development before presentation. But what surprised me were the shared crucial mistakes - neither one supports any games! MS and Sony spent so much time showing off games like Modern Warfare 2, Halo, Alan Wake, More Halo, Assassin's Creed, even more Halo, then regurgitates Nintendo's philosophy about expanding the audience by announcing the next step in gaming which just so happens to be completely incompatible with all of the games they spent 2 hours talking about! What a waste of time! Do they have potential? Sure, but they're absolutely useless with no games. If MS and Sony can't even get one of their 1st party developers to make just one of those mass of shooters compatible with the thing, I can't imagine too many third parties jumping on, especially with the technology so far removed from the focus of the conferences.

So sure, motion+ may be "old news" but at least it's in Zelda Wii. I can't really say the same for Natal and any of the 3 Halo games announced at MS's conference.

And let's not kid ourselves - Super Mario Galaxy sold gangbusters. It's at 8 million, outsellign Sunshine's lifetime sales in under a year and it's still selling at full price, slowly but surely looking to crack the 10 million barrier. If it being one of the best selling console games of the generation was "disappointing" sales we would not be talking about Galaxy 2 now. And no, non-exclusive Assassin's Creed II isn't "gaining traction" against anything. SMG sold more and got higher ratings, going by developer pedigree the 'battle' between AC2 and SMG2 should end up pretty much the same.

9. Gears of War has sold around 6 million copies to date, and was released a year before Mario Galaxy. I didn't hear too much about Microsoft's disappointment.

8. @lazybum131 - it is when compared to the sales that Nintendo had hoped for. SMG was the key release post the console bundle, and yet it did not sell in the same numbers as the (nunchuck bundled) Sports.

It forced an internal realisation that the hard core (who buy many extra games for their consoles when they come out) were not as numerous as they had hoped, and the casual market which they targeted so well may not be an audience that invests in more games for their Wii.

7. You people haven't been following the sales numbers. Nintendo's Financial Results Briefing for the period ending April 2009 has the Wii shipping 54 million selling titles (18 by Nintendo, 36 by third-parties).

And I'm not sure shipping 8.02 million copies of Super Mario Galaxy is exactly dissappointing...

6. "The Wii has the most million selling games by far"? GTFO. From wikipedia I counted 35 for XBox 360 and 33 for Wii. Not to mention you are actually including Wii Sports and Wii Play into your totals which is a joke since Wii Sports is bundled with the Wii and Wii Play is bundled with a controller. That is like counting Solitaire that comes with Windows OS in a list of the top selling video games of all time. If that is how Nintendo wants to count their sales, then Micrsoft should claim Solitaire as the best selling game of all time with something like 2-3 billion copies sold?