Plus need I remind everyone that Nintendo did this same strategy of not having an E3 press conference with the 3DS last year as well and yet that system did fine. Shows that the lack of an E3 press conference isn't what caused the Wii U's problems for 2013, and isn't a neccessary thing in order to help give a system good sales.
Precisely. It's strange to me how selective certain people are regarding this. Wii U is undoubtedly struggling, but 3DS is doing extremely well. If you suggest that the lack of a big E3 press conference hurt Wii U, that same logic would point to it helping 3DS. It really doesn't appear that E3 had anything to do with either product's performance. It also baffles me that the same people are applauding for Sony using the same reasoning despite Vita doing terribly. If you're going to **** all over Nintendo for their E3 plans, it's unfair to praise Sony at the same time.
Frankly, I wish Sony and Microsoft would follow suit. Oh, you're going to ramble on about TV and Call of Duty? I'll just skip those videos then.
I think you could make a compelling argument, however, that the Playstation 4's current good fortunes derive in no small part from Sony's crowd-pleasing E3 conference last year. By all accounts the PS4 has been selling very well, and it certainly isn't because of the slew of ground-breaking next-generation games. I think much of that console's success can be attributed to the new focus on indie development and certain popular policy announcements which were handled so deftly by Sony during it's E3 presentation. Sony was able to accurately gauge the mood of that portion of the video game audience that actually pays attention to E3, it then calibrated it's message accordingly, and the PS4 has pretty much rode that wave ever since.
Sony were able to make a big enough splash amongst a dedicated audience that it caused ripples outside of the video game media bubble. The perception of Sony as a company has changed drastically since 2012 and much of that was because of last year's E3 showing.
I'm not saying Nintendo need to have a large press conference, or that Nintendo's current approach is broken, but I do believe that having the confidence to walk on to the big stage at E3, and to allow your audience the opportunity to make a very direct comparison between you and your competitors, is meaningful.