Indeed, for better or worse the Nintendo E3 Press Conferences have been one of my favorite gaming events of the year, even if they often don't announce games in them that I actually care about.  I've especially enjoyed seeing the real-time, almost sports fan-like responses from other posters here in my annual Press Conference threads.  In the gaming world, there is no bigger worldwide stage than the E3 Press Conference, and there are few companies that can draw sheer irrational fanboy hype from the gaming press at an E3 Presser like Nintendo.

This year, the fresh-out-of-the-gate Wii U is getting its ass thoroughly kicked by its 7-8 year old contemporaries.  The only passion and discussion surrounding the Wii U right now in the general gaming community have been regarding how much of a massive sales disappointment it has been and how weak its software lineup is.  Nintendo needed the huge explosion of goodwill and excitement that an E3 Press Conference can provide, and instead of answering the challenge...Nintendo ran away.  They knew their Wii U offerings couldn't compete with the content from Sony and Microsoft at their Press Events, so they ran away and started handing out the fanboy Kool-Aid.  They may be able to get their message out with these smaller Nintendo Directs, but the audience will be significantly smaller and the "E3 Bounce" coming out of the conference will likewise be diminished.  Sony and Microsoft will own the gaming news cycles coming out of the conference, and the Wii U will likely continue to be irrelevant outside a very dedicated (and very small) core Nintendo fanbase.

As for "memorable moments", I can't honestly say I've found any of the Nintendo Directs particularly memorable in comparison to some of the E3 Presser ones the article's author listed.  There's just something about the unpredictable nature of the E3 Press Conference (where things can and often do go wrong) that make them so much more enjoyable for me than the heavily-scripted, heavily-edited, and extremely artificial Nintendo Directs (despite the larger percentage of game content in the Nintendo Directs).

shhh

no E3

only Direct now

Their still having an E3 but their breaking tradition by breaking it up into sections, if your a Investor go to the investors conference, if your from the media go to the private media conference, and if your a gamer go to E3 because that's what where Nintendo will be showing off all their games to the gamers.

I don't think them shaking up how they present at E3 will hurt them, although I'll admit I was always anticipating their presentations, for better or worse.

My nostalgic disappointment aside, as long as they have some type of presentations where they a bounce what software is planned, screenshots/video, and when the scheduled release date is, then it won't bother me much.

WTF is Nintendo thinking ? This is pr nightmare and totally muddles the message instead of having a single unified presentation . I really like Nintendo direct but I love the spectacle of E3 big presentation . I guess we will see how they handle it

I think this is REALLY exciting. I don't even know what to expect. For all we know this could be better then a live event at E3. I mean this is Nintendo! From what I can tell this has potential to be better because going from what Iwata said, this Nintendo Event will be focused at us! So we won't have to go grab a snack or get a drink when they start talking about all the investor stuff we don't care about. From what it sounds like, what ever they end up doing with be packed solid with pure unadulterated nintendo brand awesomeness.

Always marching to the beat of their own drum. Here's hoping!