I don't care. The 3DS has been doing fine with the Nintendo Directs.

I'm not overly surprised.  Its very easy to see why they would do this.

3DS had an Awesome Direct;  Sales are doing well;  People are excited for the Lineup; AND the Press in General have a Favorable Attitude to the 3DS.

Wii U No Awesome Directs, Sales are doing poorly, Even the Die-Hard fans are having a hard time being excited for the Line-up, AND the Press In General either thinks its a Wii Accessory or has an Unfavorable Attitude to the Wii U.

The biggest thing E3 gets Nintendo over a Nintendo Direct is access to entice non-Nintendo Fans.  The 3DS doesn't need this.  The Wii U desperately needs this.  The Wii U needs to show that it can stand on its own.

So Yeah, I focus on the Wii-U as well.

Nintendo should make the E3 Demos available to those who own a 3DS and Wii U.  Then I may care a little more about what demos are available during E3.

That said, Ceric hits the nail on the head. 3DS is doing fine as-is, Wii U is floundering, and needs a heavy focus to drum up interest.  Not only that, but the nintendo directs that occur throughout the year provide a lot of into on upcoming games.  If 3DS takes a backseat during E3, I wouldn't expect complete radio silence afterwards.

I'm Pretty sure if Nintendo only had Pokemon X and Y come out for the 3DS this year they would be fine...


But with The plumber, the dinosaur, the monkey and the green hat right behind pokemon... It could just be me... But I  think the 3DS is going to be fine.

The 3DS has been doing great for the last year or so while the Wii U is flopping hard.  The Wii U is just the most obvious priority.

What really matters to me is what games are being made.  The 3DS being ignored at E3 doesn't really matter that much, it's more if games are in the works for it or not.  My concern is more that Nintendo doesn't have the resources to provide both the Wii U and 3DS with a healthy lineup and that the two systems will alternate droughts as Nintendo's focus shifts back and forth between them.

It's been said, but I'll say it again:  The 3DS has a killer lineup coming this year, Directs have done enough to build hype for said releases, and I suspect further ones will continue to.  The Wii U is the system that needs the focus, and I have faith Nintendo will deliver exactly the focus the system needs. 

The main problem with the system as is goes like this:  Low sales are due to a lack of software, and since 3rd-parties won't produce software on consoles that aren't selling, it's up to Nintendo to provide that content.  Again, I have faith Nintendo will highlight why their content must be played, and it will drive people to buy the console which, in turn, will get those 3rd-parties on-track as far as development.


I understand Neal's concern that 3DS' lack of a feature spot in this presentation (and potentially the booth) means it's not as important to the company, but that kind of thought is more in line with what E3 was before.  When the Wii entered the picture, DS was barely ever mentioned at E3 conferences despite its success.  In this case, though, the 3DS has gotten much more coverage through Directs than the DS ever did at said conferences, so it's no huge loss to not highlight it in this Wii U presentation.  Sure it could be a prime opportunity to remind everyone of the great stuff that is coming, as the game media on the internet does get pretty forgetful from time to time, and it could be a chance to let people play these demos who didn't play them at the Direct event.  Again, though, building up the Wii U really is a more effective use of their time.

As someone that loves the excitement of E3 and who doesn't own a Wii U, I can't say I'm not a little disappointed.

I also think the 3DS will be fine without a large E3 presence, but I get the feeling that Neal's disappointment probably stems more from the fact that he will be attending E3 and wants to play the 3DS games coming down the pipeline.

There are plenty of games coming to the 3DS this year, so even if it's left out of E3, I'm sure people will find out about the games from somewhere. It certainly doesn't need the hype of E3 like the Wii U does.

3DS needs to learn its place.

Nintendo needs to lower the price for the Wii U along with the announcement of whatever games they have in store for this holiday season.

Nintendo won't drop the price of the system this year. One lesson they learned from the 3DS is don't drop the price of the hardware when the real problem is lack of software.

Not only does the 3DS have lots of momentum for the rest of the year, it also has no competition at E3 to worry about either.  If Sony couldn't be bothered to talk about the Vita at last years E3 when it had just been released in America a few months earlier, what makes anyone think they'll even mention it at this years E3 when they're focusing everything on the PS4.  Outside of some niche games for Japanese otaku's, the Vita is dead in the West and Sony has pretty much abandoned it.

So focusing on the 3DS at E3 is pointless since Nintendo has already won the battle on that front.

It'll depend on how sales still are before November.  If the Wii U is still selling below 100k in August, September and October when Pikmin 3, Yoshi's Yarn, Wind Waker HD and several other bigger titles then we have now are released, I can guarantee they'll be a price drop right before Black Friday when Mario Kart is released.  No way will they risk their trump card being hurt by high prices if sales are still that terrible right before the holiday.

Personally, I thought the price was a problem on top of the lack of software. I would have been hesitant to buy one at $170 if not for the Ambassador Games.

In any case, I don't see Nintendo dropping the price of Wii U unless, like Luigi Dude said, hardware sales are still low even after Nintendo releases bigger titles. Then, there's PS4, but it's hard to see what impact it might make without an idea of what it's launching with.

If we do see a price drop, I could see consolidating into one model at $299.

we wont see one until the PS4 and 720 are priced(and can be undercut)

on that note if nintendo took a backseat on the 3DS and tried to get games localized we would be golden

Besides being white, the Basic Set is flat-out fucking useless so it would be the bomb dot com if Nintendo phased it out and introduced a white Deluxe Set which honestly, without the Basic Set, would just be "the set."

And Nintendo doesn't need to undercut PS4 or Durango. There's no way either is launching at less than $399 let alone $349. By the time either launches, Nintendo should be able to drop the price $50 without incurring any losses. So they don't need to, but putting more space between them and Sony/Microsoft could be beneficial.

but if they launch with a contract model then things could get interesting

even then 400 vs 300 is somewhat of a less then friendly comparison... 250$ on the other hand is an almost deceptive price point that almost seems smaller then it actually is in comparison to 400$...

and nintendo is fighting on two fronts here, for $200 microsoft will likely launch a subsidized model and Sony will likely follow suit... Nintendo needs to be able to compete on both fronts here.

either way i'd say yes get rid of the basic set...

Why is it useless? If ever I were to buy a Wii U it was always my intention to get the basic bundle because I don't care about internal storage (particularly because the system allows for the use of external storage) and I also wouldn't find much benefit in the 10% digital discount because I would be mostly buying physical copies. Is there something I'm missing?

that the white color was fugly then and is fugly now... the charging stand is honestly pretty nice... yeah i'd say you're missing something

and tbh i would never have otherwise gotten nintendoland outside of the bundle

Personally, I prefer the look of the white model. In my experience shiny black systems tend to show dust and grime a lot more.

As for the charging station and Nintendoland? I think I can do without them, lol.

In other words, the basic model is not useless. If it has everything I need to play Wii U games then it has fulfilled it's usefulness as far as I'm concerned. That's not to say that they won't or shouldn't phase out the basic model. I suspect the basic model was a launch time creation to allow them to be able to quote a certain price point while also making the deluxe model seem more valuable. So it's likely that they will get rid of it, but I wouldn't call it 'flat-out f***ing useless'. It served it's purpose.

Whatever floats your boat. You're basically asking why I have an opinion. If you want the Basic Set, knock yourself out. I think it's a terrible deal comparatively. Even though I preferred the black model anyway, I think separating the sets by color as well as content was a mistake. There are people who wanted a white Deluxe Set.

Not at all. The term 'useless' implies certain things. I thought there might actually be a substantive difference between the two versions that I was unaware of. So I thought I'd ask.

Again, what is "substantive" is entirely subjective. I find the differences between the two sets to be quite considerable to the point where the Basic Set is a bad deal. If you don't, fair enough. Obviously, I disagree, but I'm not saying you're wrong. You can, of course, do or believe whatever you want.

White set represents!

Right before E3 2012 Nintendo held a voting on their site where people picked their preferred colour between white and black. I think by that time they already decided on tiered pricing model and then just needed this voting to pick which model gets which colour.