Topic: E3 MMX

[Stratos]

We were promised brand new IP's from Nintendo's studios awhile ago, and with Sony and MS showing off their 'let's copy Nintendo after we made fun of them' peripherals, it might be a good way to steal the show. A new (amazing) title from Rare would cause a stir, and Eternal Darkness 2 from Silicon Knights would be a gift that would just keep on giving. Of all the horror games I have ever played Eternal Darkness is the only one that really managed to scare me.

There have been a number of new IPs released by Nintendo. Most of them have not escaped Japan though. Cosmic Walker, Span Smasher, Reginleiv, Tact of Magic, ASH, Soma Bringer, Disaster. Where are these? Not in North America that's for sure.

[Luigi Dude]

There have been a number of new IPs released by Nintendo. Most of them have not escaped Japan though. Cosmic Walker, Span Smasher, Reginleiv, Tact of Magic, ASH, Soma Bringer, Disaster. Where are these? Not in North America that's for sure.

Actually Span Smasher is coming out in North America under the new name, FlingSmash.  Plus according to some reports, the game is only going to be $30 as well which should make it a great deal.

NOA has said it'll be a summer release so I'd imagine we'll learn it's release date at E3 next week.

[MaryJane]

When I said 'we', perhaps I should have said North America

All those games you listed look pretty good except FlingSmash which could probably benefit from a less bright (dare i say kiddie) environment.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

It's a 2 hour presentation, so Nintendo should show what Retro is working on.

You sure this is accurate? They've knocked everything out in an hour the last couple of years. (And a full third of both have been embarrassing at best for all involved, but we won't talk about that...)

An extra hour?

Finally, a whole hour dedicated to sales data and pie charts, just as I prayed for.

It's going to be a 2 hour presentation, or so I heard from IGN's NVC podcast (#77 I think).
It makes sense because they've got to cover the 3DS's software line-up, price, capabilities, and that should take at most an hour. Not to mention they have to do some kind of presentation with the Vitality Sensor. Also the Wii, and DS software line-ups for the second half of the year following into next year. If they do show the new Zelda they will most likely also have a presentation for it to show how its played.

You can't seriously believe they'll spend lots of time on real games.  Ever since Nintendo changed the industry, E3 has always been about the latest casual non-game gimmicks, which is exactly what Nintendo will emphasize, along with sales data.  The 2004-2005 golden years of the company are long gone.

[TJ Spyke]

Cosmic Walker. Where are these? Not in North America that's for sure.

Not in Japan either. Hasn't it been over a year since they even mentioned that game?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

I think it became Shinji Mikami's Vanquish.

[that Baby guy]

It's a 2 hour presentation, so Nintendo should show what Retro is working on.

You sure this is accurate? They've knocked everything out in an hour the last couple of years. (And a full third of both have been embarrassing at best for all involved, but we won't talk about that...)

An extra hour?

Finally, a whole hour dedicated to sales data and pie charts, just as I prayed for.

It's going to be a 2 hour presentation, or so I heard from IGN's NVC podcast (#77 I think).
It makes sense because they've got to cover the 3DS's software line-up, price, capabilities, and that should take at most an hour. Not to mention they have to do some kind of presentation with the Vitality Sensor. Also the Wii, and DS software line-ups for the second half of the year following into next year. If they do show the new Zelda they will most likely also have a presentation for it to show how its played.

You can't seriously believe they'll spend lots of time on real games.  Ever since Nintendo changed the industry, E3 has always been about the latest casual non-game gimmicks, which is exactly what Nintendo will emphasize, along with sales data.  The 2004-2005 golden years of the company are long gone.

Don't forget that over the past four or five years, the fundamentals of E3 have been radically altered a few times.

[MaryJane]

With the rumor that Nintendo is allowing 3rd parties to show off 3DS games at E3, I wonder if developers will put more emphasis on their pretty new 3DS games, their Natal and Move games, or focus on their 'hardcore' games?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

The fact that 3rd Parties get to show their 3DS games as early as possible is evidence that Nintendo won't be wasting their press conference time on 3rd Party projects.

Get ready for a glorious hour of sales talk.

[BlackNMild2k1]

2 Hour Nintendo Press conference Time Block
|----Sales----|-Vitality Sensor-|core games|--Casual games--|---Zelda Wii---|-----------3DS-----------|

[stevey]

2 Hour Nintendo Press conference Time Block
|----Sales----|-Vitality Sensor-|core games|--Casual games--|---Zelda Wii---|-----------3DS-----------|

Hour 1
|-------Sales-------|--Vitality Sensor--|core games|-----Casual games-----|-Zelda Wii-|-------3rd party's------|--------3DS--------|
Hour 2
|------------3DS/DSi hooked up like an eyetoy to the Wii with Nintendo executives making fools of themselves------------|

[MaryJane]

Okay so Nintendo is doing a two hour conference...

MS is holding a special event for the premiere of Natal on Sunday, then the following day is their E3 press conference, and then the day after that MTV is airing the Natal Premiere commercial free--and their agreement is quoted as being "a broad-ranging, first-of-its-kind programming partnership" so you can just imagine how many times MTV is going to replay it.

MS is marketing the hell out of Natal, something that Nintendo never does for its products. Yes the mystery surrounding the 3DS makes the 'core' gamers and journalists excited, but what does it do for the other 80% of Nintendo's customers?

Of course Natal still needs to be good to be truly successful, but marketing is proven to be effective--especially at the MTV audience--and you have to ask if MS is really willing to throw that much money into advertising a bad product? I still don't see the point of the thing, but perhaps MS planned it that way. They may actually have us is for a surprise, and as a 360 owner I would be glad if they do, but I really don't see it being a big thing. I think it will end up being more like a better version of expansion slot on the N64 (which was horribly underutilized btw) it will add features to the system and games, but it's not going to expand the market, and it won't be a necessary or overly used feature... I still hope I'm wrong about everything except the overly used part.

I don't know much about the Move as I'm not I don't own a PS3 so am not really interested, but their 'nunchuck' thing looks awkward to hold to me, but honestly, they copied from Nintendo so the Move as a whole is probably going to be pretty good. I'm doubtful about its reception for the same reasons as Natal's but done right with the camera, some interesting things could come out of this.

[NWR_insanolord]

Nintendo most certainly marketed the hell out of the Wii.

[Adrock]

Agreed. Nintendo never did anything like the Wii experience videos. They never had to. The Wii was something you had to see in action which then made you want to try it.

[TJ Spyke]

Why would Microsoft want to do something with MTV again? Don't they remember the terrible premiere MTV did for the Xbox 360? I don't think anyone considered that good and MTV hasn't been relevant to pop culture in years.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Don't forget that MTV marketed the hell out of the Xbox360 too and while it did help it sell more then the original Xbox, it didn't do it a whole lot of good.(I believe that Xbox360 enjoys padded numbers like the PS2 did from system replacements)

edit: TJ beat me to it, I should have hit the submit button many minutes ago.

[Luigi Dude]

Not to mention that if Microsoft is trying to go after Nintendo's family audience, MTV is the last network these people are watching.  The majority of MTV's audience is teenagers who probably already own a 360 anyway for games like Halo and GTA which are the types of games the MTV audience likes.

So yeah, Microsoft is already off to a poor start with their advertising then.

[MaryJane]

Well tweens and pre-adults aren't really into the Wii as it isn't really 'hip' MS could be reaching out to a new audience, who depending on what Natal is, could bite. I live in New Jersey close to NYC and MTV/VH1 are still very relevant to pop culture... Ever hear of the TV show the Jersey Shore? The president has mentioned it...

[TJ Spyke]

That is pretty much the only popular show MTV has. I bet the only reason people in the NYC area still care is because that is where MTV is based.

[Luigi Dude]

Well tweens and pre-adults aren't really into the Wii as it isn't really 'hip' MS could be reaching out to a new audience, who depending on what Natal is, could bite. I live in New Jersey close to NYC and MTV/VH1 are still very relevant to pop culture... Ever hear of the TV show the Jersey Shore? The president has mentioned it...

Like I already said, the people who watch MTV already own a 360 for games like Halo and GTA because these are the types of games the MTV crowd find cool.  This is why it makes no sense for Microsoft to have a huge special on MTV when all they'll be doing is preaching to their own choir.  If only the current Xbox fanbase buys Natal, then it's a failure because it didn't succeed in the one thing it was suppose to do.

The whole point of Natal is to help Microsoft take a bite out of Nintendo's audience that bought the Wii for games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit.  Using MTV to premier it isn't going to help them since this part of Nintendo's audience doesn't watch MTV.

[MaryJane]

I have to disagree; as with anything any company does the point is for it to be profitable. If they fail to expand their market but make $1 billion profit in 2-3 years from Natal I don't think they will be complaining. And yes the Wii marketing was stellar--for Nintendo. Do you not think MS will do a mall tour with Natal to show it off to people and let them play it like Nintendo did with the Wii? There will also be plenty of Natal video and not all like the gif in the Natal thread. I actually thought it might be cool in if in Fable III as you're playing you could quickly doing a throwing motion having the char throw a spear and then quickly regrabbing the controller do follow up attacks on an enemy.


Putting Natal on MTV ensure that craploads of people will have the idea of the it shoved down their throats, and if only 10% of MTV's 15-20 million 12-34 yr old viewers buys Natal for $100 or more plus 2-3 games for $60 or more, I think Microsoft would still consider it worth the money spent. 

In 3 years the 360 outsold the original Xbox which had a 5 year life-span and MS now actually makes a profit on their Xbox division, so I would say they did something right, and I don't know... advertising just may have had something to do with that, I'm sure there were other factors, but how could they tell people about those factors without advertising on popular channels?

@TJ: Just because you don't like MTV doesn't make it irrelevant... MTV is not just popular in the NYC area, and if you believe otherwise you are crazy. Have you ever heard of the "of Love" series of shows, you know like Rock of Love which relaunched Brett Michaels career? Also believe it or not MTV still shows music video's and the last time I checked music was still popular...

[BlackNMild2k1]

Quit lyin', Everyone knows MTV hasn't shown "Music" in a long ass time.
especially not in it's entirety.

[ThePerm]

i thought Rock of Love was on VH1, I occasionally watch Vh1...in fasct im pretty sure it was on vh1.

I didn't much watch Bret Michaels Show, but i used to watch Flavor of Love and I love New York

[MaryJane]

VH1 is under the MTV 'family' of networks just like Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. Already confirmed to be also airing the Natal premiere are Nick at Nite and Logo--which is the Lesbian and Gay channel. Spike TV will be airing MS's E3 conference in it's entirety as well. So MS will not only be targeting just the people who watch the channel MTV but people who watch it's other networks as well.

I suppose I could have made that clearer from the beginning...

[TJ Spyke]

Yeah, I agree you could have. I assumed you were talking about MTV, not MTV Networks (which, as you pointed out, includes several channels as well as MTV Games). Airing the E3 press conference on Spike makes sense.

As for MTV's show, I just checked and the only music shows they have set for tomorrow is AMTV: Morning Hot Mix from 6AM-8AM. If you want music at a normal time, you have to check out MTV2 (but even that is starting to have less music).