Nintendo needs something. Anything.
Grainy pictures from the Expo have surfaced from Nintendo Enthusiast possibly revealing the mystery 3DS game people have been speculating about: Mario Maker. From what we can see, there's definitely a stylus in the image that appears to be designing a Mario level - which happens to coincide with the name suggesting players will be able to create their own Mario worlds. Similar to Microsoft's Project Spark and Sony's Little Big Planet.
Looks like Nintendo president Satoru Iwata won't be attending E3 this year due to medical issues. Nintendo issued the following statement:
"He's been instructed by his physician not to travel overseas in the immediate future, and so he will not be making the trip to Los Angeles. It is business as usual for Mr. Iwata, and he continues his normal duties as president of Nintendo Co., Ltd. while he remains in Japan. As always, he will be actively involved in all of Nintendo's activities at the show."
It's not a huge deal since the company will be holding another Nintendo Direct event on Tuesday morning before the convention floor opens.
Hopefully whatever Nintendo has planned will put it on the map again. Perhaps a few game announcements are in the works? Like, say, a Legend of Zelda for the Wii U? Or even some new hardware?
It's actually already been confirmed by Nintendo that we actually won't see hardware, but knowing the company's insane privacy measures, we can still cross our fingers and wish. There's also two new Pokémon games hitting Nintendo's handhelds and, if our predictions are correct, a possible price drop in the Wii U's future.
Valve probably (not?) taking a breather
Make that a long breather. Turns out Valve is pushing back the release date of those Steam Machines to 2015, noting a vague "release window" is to be expected in order to keep improving the Steam Controllers. On the bright side (maybe?), it's a little unclear whether the delay affects only Steam Machines being made by Valve or those being sold by the 14 partner companies as well.
Recent news also suggests the Valve team has been quietly working on Half-Life 3. Yes. You read that correctly. Rumors of HL3 have been around for ages but maybe (probably not) something will come out during E3? If not, we're hoping to see more on Left 4 Dead 3 at least.
There was plenty shared on the hardware front during CES, Steam's Dev Days and GDC but aside from getting our paws on both iterations of the Steam Controllers, we still have yet to play around with a Steam Machine.
So far we've gone hands on with the Alienware Steam Machine, and though it's a slick device, we're hoping to really see it in action during the Expo.
With the Machines unleashing from the various third-party vendors "later this year" and a likely fall release for the redesigned Steam Controller, we're hoping to hear more about the new features - like Steam Music.
Asus also just announced not one, but two whole Steam Machines during Computex 2014. Asus isn't going to release them until 2015, but like the Alienware Machine during CES, the Asus boxes may show up at E3 for some demo time.
We know Valve has its own virtual reality headset thanks to Steam's Dev Days conference - but we also know the company plans on helping out Oculus. That hasn't stopped the VR device from popping up though. Valve's headset showed up in Boston during a VR meetup where devs were given the chance to go hands on with it. Since it seems to be making the rounds, might we see it during E3 too?
More games, NOW
A few titles have already been mentioned but let's get right down to what games we want to see happen at E3 this year, and what games we know will be on the Expo floor.
GTA V for the PC is due pretty soon here and it won't be a surprise if Rockstar decides to finally out it at the show.
Uncharted 4 (or whatever it's called) has to show up with more footage during Sony's conference - at least that's the rumor flying around right now. Let's just cross our fingers that the Naughty Dog exodus really won't affect the game development.
The Order 1886 was teased during the last Expo and then throughout the year as a potential blockbuster game. Despite delaying its Christmas 2014 launch to early 2015, we're still expecting the PS4 conference to show us even more of the game in June to keep us content.
We'll also definitely see Batman: Arkham Knight on the floor too, even though its joined the list of delayed games. However, with the announcement of Mortal Kombat X, there should still be plenty for Warner Brothers to show off - especially with new characters on the fight roster.
Bethesda has also been a busy little bee. Could we see the announcement and teaser for Fallout 4? Who knows, but The Evil Within sure looks promising and will probably be on the show floor in some capacity.
Well it looks like Fallout 4 is out of the picture. Bethesda and BattleCry Studios announced a collaboration that spawned the upcoming free-to-play game BattleCry. However, it will be a PC exclusive and doesn't seem to match up with the following previously reported rumor below ...
Bethesda has fervently stated that there will be no announcement for a new title, but siteVideogamer took a screenshot of an Amazon UK placer page which suggests Bethesda might just unveil something after all. Whatever the Skyrim publisher has in mind, it seems it will be out on the PS3, PS4, PC, Wii, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita.
Microsoft's Project Spark has seemingly failed to capture the attention of gamers since its announcement at last year's E3, but the beta sounds like its been successful so far. We expect to see and hear more about the company's answer to a Little Big Planet-esque game. Activision's latest Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare should also give the Xbox One more oomph
Regardless of what gets announced, we just really want more games. There's nothing wrong with wanting more games, right? In the meantime, keep up with us as we countdown the days to the Expo and fill up the page with even more news and bits of rumors to keep your gaming appetites satiated.
