A firsthand account of what went down and whose names were taken.At 9:34, only four minutes behind schedule, the lights in the renowned Kodak Theatre went down in a hushed silence. Shigeru Miyamoto, gaming's Mega Man, walked out wearing a tuxedo with a Wii remote in his hand (the remote was attached to Miyamoto by a wrist strap, likely a packed in attachment). A large big screen appeared that displayed an orchestra of big headed cartoon characters playing the Hyrule theme from The Legend of Zelda, led by Mr. Miyamoto, conductor. He waved his remote as a baton, controlling the speed and the volume of the music, even slowing it down to a crawl, eliciting a laugh from the crowd. Miyamoto liked to hear us laugh. While Reggie and Iwata gave us the facts, Miyamoto slyly coerced a giggle from the hardened, earnest Nintendo fans who form the "media," as it were.
Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo's VP of Marketing, informed us several times that "Playing = Believing." This underscored the modest tone of the briefing that followed. Nintendo showed us footage, yes, and we got excited a few times, sure, but overall it felt like they were holding back. Bill Trinen of NOA said regarding the Wii Remote's built-in speaker that it was "one of the features they have not yet announced," implying there are more. Mr. Fils-Aime stated that there were going to be 27 Wii games on the show floor, yet by most counts we only saw around 20 at the briefing (maybe less, since the sports titles are packaged together). And as far as details for Super Mario Galaxy, or Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, we got a minute of footage for each, that's it.
The restrained attitude was appropriate, though, since there were so many games introduced during the briefing. The stage did have moving parts and had a variety of lights, but did not ever distract from the main event. After Miyamoto left the stage, Reggie Fils-Aime, wearing nicely pressed pants, took the stage and spoke of the new wave of consoles. He said that those who were awaiting the "next generation" were in the wrong place. Nintendo was going to offer something completely new, not just "next." After his speech, we were treated to yet another video, this time showing people actually playing (sometimes unseen) games. Though we saw a man using two Wii Remotes to play the drums, we never saw a game he was playing. We did see footage of four people playing the Tennis game that we are now familiar with, as well as Golf. We saw people playing Orchestra, but no footage was shown this time. Also shown (with footage) was a boy flying an airplane, girls playing ping-pong, a family playing baseball, and significantly, Wario Ware. In this footage the players were told where to put the Wii Remote in relation to their body - for a hula hoop minigame, the girl put the remote on her waist and swung her hips. When she needed to lift weights, she put it over her head and jumped up and down. In general, the crowd was enthusiastic for the titles, but roared for the franchises. One interesting thing we noticed while looking at the Wii Remote was that the Start and Select buttons have been replaced by “Plus" and “Minus." Also, X and Y (which were also known as A and B) are now 1 and 2. The Home button now has a blue home icon.
Afterwards, Reggie came back and told us what we already knew: we weren't getting a lot of info. He outlined four points that he knew we were curious about. 1) Why make the Wii different? 2) What is the price, and when do we get to buy it? 3) Why the name? 4) What third parties are supporting it? As for number one, Reggie made the bold statement that Nintendo has never been committed to just enhancing the “look" of a game. Rather, the “feel" has always been the primary concern. Footage from Super Mario 64 was shown, and Reggie reminded us that although that game seemed to have mostly graphical enhancements, in truth the “feel" of Mario was forever changed. Of the competition, nothing specific was stated, though it was greatly implied. With regards to the price and availability of the console, Reggie said that mum will remain the word for now. Most likely Nintendo was waiting to hear Sony’s price point and official date, which was announced yesterday. When Reggie moved to number 3, the name Wii, he said he wanted to “thank everyone who sent in positive feedback. Both of you." The crowd enjoyed this, since they were quite tense every time a Wii logo came on screen. (Should we laugh? Should we cheer? Should we boo? One attendee just yelled “Weeeeee!") Reggie then reiterated what has been the company line thus far – Lexus, Ikea, and Google were referenced as names that don’t sound good at first, but have come to define their arenas. Nothing he said would change anyone’s mind about Wii; Nintendo is sticking with it, for better or worse. On the final point, Reggie said that third party support will be vibrant on Wii, and as proof he offered yet another video. This one featured some games we have not yet seen including a Dragonball fighting game, Dragon Quest Swords, Cars (based on the Pixar film), Sonic: Wild Fire, Tony Hawk Downhill Jam, and Konami’s Elebits (which, though I saw it, I couldn’t for the life of me describe it). Games we have seen before were Rayman 4, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Madden by EA, and SpongeBob SquarePants. The impression overall was good, but once again the strongest titles were Nintendo’s: Super Mario Galaxy, which has Mario jumping from planet to planet (and had the crowd screaming), Fire Emblem, whose footage looked pre-rendered, not live, and more Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
After this, Bill Trinen came back with Nate Bihldorff (writer at NOA) who played Zelda on Wii while Bill narrated. It was announced that there would be two versions of Zelda, one for the GC and one for Wii – the impression is that both will be released at Wii’s launch. The Wii version looked sharp – Bill even said it’s the “best Zelda we’ve ever made." Nate demonstrated combat with the sword, the bow, and the boomerang. Bill emphasized the speaker in the Wii Remote as offering an “immersive sound" since it will make the noise of your bow and arrow, and you’ll hear your arrow move from the Wii Remote to your TV. Targeting is done by pointing the main Wii Remote (your icon is a fairy) at an enemy. You lock on with a Z button, and then control your sword by moving the NunChuk accessory. You actually do a spin attack by spinning the Nunchuk. Without a chance to play it, the control scheme looks complicated, but they did say playing is believing. Here’s hoping. We also got to see Link use his Iron Boots as magnets and stick, upside down, to a moving metal rig. Finally, Nate moved to a giant door that Bill did not let him enter; that was saved for us to play at the show, though he did say that since it’s a Zelda game, it will be “horrible."
Three new first party games were then featured, and all of them have a decidedly macho flavor. Excite Truck is played with the Remote sideways, using left and right motions to steer and up and down motions while in the air. Obviously, it is based on the Excite Bike series. Another game was called Project H.A.M.M.E.R. which had very few details. All we got to see was a man with a giant hammer swinging it at hordes of enemies. The premise seems to be that swinging a hammer is fun. Finally, we saw Disaster: Day of Crisis, which was only shown in pre-rendered form. Gameplay details are zilch at this time, though the footage featured a volcano, a giant tidal wave, a helicopter, and a well-gelled man.
Reggie came back once again, as our master of ceremonies, to tell us that there would be 27 games playable for Wii on the show floor. This number is quite huge, and Reggie emphasized that none of these would be virtual console titles. Two developers from UbiSoft then came out to demo Red Steel. For the first 2 minutes of the presentation, the projector, due to an error, did not show any game footage. As the crowd grew impatient, the glitch was resolved, and we were treated to a real-time play through of the demo that will be shown at E3. Though most details regarding Red Steel were already known, seeing the exact interaction between the controller and the game made it look quite intuitive. The actual game footage, when projected onto a giant screen three times a human’s height, did not look so hot. However, Mike Sklens has informed me that when viewed on a PC, it looks very good.
George Harrison, nicely dressed, then emerged from the stage to speak about the DS. He said he didn’t want to give any hard numbers, but that over 16 million DSes were sold, and the competition was being trounced “in the millions." He reiterated the numbers for unique Wi-Fi users and sessions, and said that Brain Age has sold over 120,000 copies in three weeks, more than Japan did in that same period. He introduced Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Blue for the DS and Red for the GBA. In these games you get to play as and communicate with hundreds of other Pokemon. He also announced Diddy Kong Racing, which appears to be a straight port from the N64 version, Starfox DS, which uses touch screen aiming, and Yoshi’s Island 2, which uses both screens for its platform action and will include Baby DK and Baby Peach. He also spoke about Final Fantasy III, Tony Hawk Downhill Jam which will include Wi-Fi, and Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, which will “pick up where Wind Waker left off." We were then treated to another video reel that featured Mario Hoops 3 on 3, Elite Beat Agents (the American version of Ossu! Tatakae! Ouenden!), and Mario vs. DK March of the Minis. The footage was mostly self-explanatory, though the general opinion of Ouenden fans is that Elite Beat Agents is going to be a completely different game.
Finally, we got to hear from Satoru Iwata. The first, and maybe the most important thing that he said was that “core gamers are the most important," even though Nintendo’s new mission is to expand the gamer population. He also spoke about the Virtual Console, saying that new games could be developed for it, and perhaps something as great as Tetris could be developed for it. He commented on long development cycles and how the Virtual Console can be home to smaller games. Quite humorously, Iwata spoke about how long it takes to start a game. A picture of two gamers waiting for a game to start appeared, and the crowd laughed. Iwata said that he is a busy man, and he doesn’t have time to wait 30 seconds or more before playing a game. If gamers can’t wait, why should non-gamers? That’s when Iwata announced “Wii Connect 24," a feature of the Wii where the system does not turn off. A minimum amount of power will be used to put the system into a sleep mode that will stay connected to the internet. This is a two-fold feature: load times will be reduced since the system will not have to boot up, and with a persistent internet connection players can interact with you while you sleep. The immediate example was Animal Crossing, where a player could visit your village, leave you a message and a present, all while you sleep. Though no further details were given, it will be interesting to see what Nintendo and other developers can include.
The very last part of the conference was the infamous AOL/Nintendo contest to allow one gamer to play Wii on stage with Miyamoto. Unbeknownst to the young mortal, not only would he be playing with Miyamoto, but also Reggie and Iwata. Three young men were flown to LA, but only one would get to play. Miyamoto read the name from a ballot because of our location in the home of the Oscars, according to Reggie. Once the winner had ascended the stage, all four players grabbed Wii Remotes. Bill showed us the last great surprise of the briefing – Iwata, Miyamoto, and Reggie’s heads had been mapped into the Tennis game, and rather impressively. Reggie in particular looked like someone from our forums had impressively drawn a funny avatar. The four of them played two matches, with Miyamoto on a team with the contest winner. Iwata and Reggie won the first match, but Team Miyamoto came back to win the second. It was interesting to see how easy it was for the contest winner to pick up and play the game, though he could have been coached beforehand.
The briefing to some was underwhelming, perhaps because of the high expectations. Of notable absence were Super Smash Bros, anything on the GC (though Super Paper Mario is a major, newly announced game), anything on the GBA, no new details about old games on Virtual Console, nothing on the shell (which has been revealed in press materials), and nothing on Wi-Fi connectivity. It seems Nintendo’s marketing this year at E3 is to sell the Wii Remote more than anything. This year, it’s Wii3, not E3. As Reggie demanded, we’ll play, and hopefully, believe.
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