Nintendo Press Conference
July 16th, 2008 Posted in GamesWell, it’s the second day, another busy day, and two conferences were held. Here we have a summary of Nintendo’s presser, the shortest of the three, and the quickest to the punch. It was very simple, and Nintendo really only showed their biggest-name games. Here goes…
Satoru Iwata came out and did the usual thing and talked about how good Nintendo is, but he also discussed a paradigm shift in video games — mentioning that certain games (Brain Age, Nintendogs, Mario Kart Wii) are selling consistently well, which was unheard of in the past. He also announces that new games are coming from Mario/Zelda teams, but that’s all he says. He suggests that Wii Sports and other such games are selling well because they are new ideas- thus WiiWare will probably do well, because smaller teams are making better games, which was also unheard of in recent times… He also covers how those who play games have changed — now games are played by a range of people, from young kids all the way to elderly, and are bought primarily for use by the purchaser, rather than as a gift. He then went on to acknowledge Web 2.0-type shifts in video games, too — the ability to create is now as important as the ability to play. Phew.
- Animal Crossing: City Folk… Looks like, well, more of the same. Doesn’t look any better graphics-wise, but there is a new city with some extra stuff in it that you can visit… You can even choose to look like your Mii (but not permanently, it seems). Animal Crossing is fun, so I’ll probbly get this one, but it just looks like more of the same thing… Also announced as part of this section is Wii Speak, a microphone attachment that can allow in game chat… Finally. Whether or not these will be bundled or separate is not mentioned…
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars… Looks pretty cool, but the gameplay is kind of vague at the moment… Still.. It’s Star Wars, it’s bound to be awesome! It’s important to note at this stage that this game is NOT designed for the new Wii Motion Plus system, so the lightsaber action is NOT 1:1…
- Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV (something… sorry, it wasn’t clear!)- more rabids fun! And that’s all I can say about that… I guess the minigames do look more fun than in last iterations.
- Call of Duty: World at War – Wow… Best-looking Wii game so far? I’d probably have to say yes, but that all depends… The video I saw was small and grainy, but it still looked great… Let’s see if they can get the first-person shooting right, because to be honest, they haven’t done so well as yet (see Red Steel and Far Cry for pertinent examples)… Excluding Metroid, of course, but I didn’t play that much either…
- DS updates- Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades — more guitar Hero on DS, plus song sharing! Not sure how that’s gonna work, but it can’t be a bad idea! Then again, I’m still not sold on GH on DS anyway… Spore Creatures — hard to make out the game, looks like a creature creator sim, not sure what the rest of the game is about though… Then a new Pokemon is announced. Enough said for me. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is coming to DS at the end of the year, but nothing shown yet. Bound to sell millions more DSes. Then they discussed other uses for the DS- at airports and at stadiums, for starters, then the video cut off for a moment again… Sorry, missed a bit.
- Wii Sports Resort and Wii Motion Plus- First they demonstrated a frisbee game and a Jetski game, showing how the Wii Remote will now have a lot more control over movement. In fact, it will apparently be 1:1… Looks great, even though the games seemed a bit lame compared to the original Wii Sports. Although the fencing looked like a lot of fun… Release next Spring (Autumn in Oz).
- Wii Music: At the start of this section, a dude sat and screwed around on a set of virtual drums using a Wii remote, nunchuk, and balance board, then Miyamoto-san came out and played a crappy-sounding sax (just being honest… didn’t sound like a sax at all) with just a Wii remote… Looks interesting, but I’m not sure exactly how much ‘game’ is in there… Still, jamming with your mates is bound to be fun. Plus, it’s supposed to simulate a hell of a lot of instruments- over 50, apparently. You can even save bits and make your own music video, or so it seems… Will be worth a look-in. In sum, it seemed fun, but a little too simple.
And that was the end of the Nintendo presser. Simple, quick little snippets of various games, went for under an hour, and that’s the way it should be.
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