Tendo City

At least according to the mainstream press.

Washington Post: Nintendo Is Star of E3 Show as Rivals Scramble to Catch Up Page 2

Quote:Game On
Nintendo Is Star of E3 Show as Rivals Scramble to Catch Up

By Mike Musgrove
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 12, 2007; Page D01

SANTA MONICA, Calif., July 11 -- For many analysts and fans, Nintendo was something of an afterthought at the video game industry's annual E3 trade show in recent years.

But after a blockbuster launch of its Wii console and its ongoing dominance in the portable game market with its mobile DS handheld game console, the company that brought the world Mario and Zelda is now the company that others are trying to catch.

Nintendo's competitors, meanwhile, are playing an expensive round of brinksmanship with each other to win back some of the attention. This week Sony cut the price on its PlayStation 3 console by $100. Microsoft recently announced an expanded warranty program for the Xbox 360 console, which could cost the company more than $1 billion.

Neither Microsoft nor Sony is making money in the game industry, since both are selling their consoles at below cost in their attempt to boost interest. Nintendo, meanwhile, which introduced the $249 Wii six months ago, can barely keep up with demand for the profitable product.

Microsoft and Sony even scaled back their annual parties at the E3 show. In years past, Microsoft held events at such glamorous Los Angeles venues as the Orpheum Theater, the Shrine Auditorium and Grauman's Chinese Theater. This year, its event was at a Santa Monica high school. Sony, which previously held events that featured such concert acts as Macy Gray and Beck, settled for a low-key sushi shindig this year.

Nintendo says it is not paying a lot of attention to Sony or Microsoft.

Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, said the bigger question was how to get the non-gamers of the world interested in Nintendo systems.

"There are 24 hours in every day, and only a small time is available for leisure," he said at a news conference Wednesday. "We intend to steal more of that time for video games."

Fils-Aime, as expected, showed off some more Mario and Zelda game titles, the franchises for which Nintendo is most famous. His focus, however, was on how Nintendo products have won fans among senior citizens and women at levels well above the norm in the young-male-dominated industry.

For years, as the video game industry battled for dominance in the living room, the best graphics typically beat the competition. The popularity of the Wii's motion-detecting controllers has changed that notion, popularizing the life-like simulation of games, not their high-end computing aspect.

As a result, game companies are now trying to think of new ways to get players feeling like they are inside the game, designing realistic add-ons.

The Wii balance board, for example, lets players lean one way or another to control their game characters. The board is to be part of Wii Fit, the fitness program that Nintendo has in the works, illustrating that the "Wii workout" craze among those trying to get in shape by swinging fake rackets has only just begun.

Forbes: Sony Draws Yawns

Quote:E3 VIDEOGAME CONFERENCE
Sony Draws Yawns
Rachel Rosmarin, 07.11.07, 7:49 PM ET

LOS ANGELES -

If the best Sony has to offer is a Darth Vader-branded PlayStation Portable, it may be in trouble.

Having already announced its big news July 9 — a $100 price drop on the PlayStation 3 — Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people )'s event at the E3 video game convention Wednesday didn't leave room for many surprises.

However, Sony made a point of picking a hardware fight with Nintendo (other-otc: NTDOY - news - people ) on the portable front. Sony redesigned its PlayStation Portable into a slimmer shape, offered two new colors (one silver, and one etched with Star Wars' Darth Vader) and gave it the ability to export video to high-definition televisions, all to better compete with Nintendo's DS. Nintendo sells about 423,000 portable devices per month, while Sony sells only 221,000, according to NPD.

Sony executives made it clear that they know they need to do more than lower prices to woo consumers back to its flagging video game brand. Tepid audience response at Wednesday's event suggests the company hasn't yet done enough.

“Our accomplishments bring no guarantees for the future,” said Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Jack Tretton. “We want to earn each and every one of our customers.” While Monday's price cut is already reaping rewards — Tretton said sales of the just-reduced PS3 have already doubled at the company's top five retailers — it won't juice sales enough to give the company the “installed base” that it wants.

Sony tried to impress its bread and butter customers — hard-core gamers — with a slew of exclusive violent action games from third-party publishers and Sony's in-house studios. Footage of gruesome knife battles in Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4 drew cheers, but it might be too little too late: the game will be released later than expected in early 2008.

The company can't promise PS3 owners exclusive access to Grand Theft Auto 4 from Take-Two Interactive (nasdaq: TTWO - news - people ) — it will appear on Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people )'s Xbox 360 as well — so Sony's taking a stab at creating a game called Infamous, which features a similar style of play known as the “emergent gaming sandbox.”

Price cuts and new colors on hardware will only go so far to help Sony catch up to Nintendo, which is moving to take an even bigger lead. Earlier on Wednesday at Nintendo's E3 event, the company attempted to prove that it could expand upon its successful strategy of appealing to nontraditional gamers, while at the same time encroaching on Sony's hard-core gamer demographic.

Nintendo aims to get traditional gamers interested in the Wii with a new gun-shaped controller and a few “first-person shooter” games. For everyone else, Nintendo intends to capitalize on the Wii's motion-sensing features by selling a new suite of health-conscious games called Wii Fit. It requires the purchase of a floor-pad controller that looks a lot like a bathroom scale.

Sources: NeoGAF NeoGAF


Oh, the tears of unfathomable sadness. Yummy, yummy guys!

As far as I can tell, E3 hasn't changed a bit. Still same amount of news. Still a lot of showboating. Still something I'll never attend.

I would have went last year if I could, but it's nothing at all like it used to be.

Nintendo has never dominated this hard before, even the 8 bit and 16 bit gens had Nintendo neck and neck with Sega in terms of sales and popularity but this is way AT A HIGHSCHOOL!!!!!! LMFAO Next year it'll be the Denny's on Ventura next to Future Dog!

This pleases all of my fanman sensors, my proverbial nerdgina is dripping like a sponge.

lazy if you think Nintendo was "neck in neck" during the 8 bit era... Well maybe you should read a little book called "Game Over". They may have had to compete with Sega in the 16 bit era, starting with the release of the Genesis, but Nintendo DESTROYED Sega during the 8 bit. I never even HEARD of the Master System until over a decade later. Nintendo actually had such a stranglehold they literally ordered stores not to CARRY the Master System or they wouldn't provide them with NES systems to sell.

The SMS sold about 13 million units compared to the NES's 61 million. Not realy that close.

lazyfatbum Wrote:This pleases all of my fanman sensors, my proverbial nerdgina is dripping like a sponge.

If you like the articles you should read the threads that I got them from. Sweet, sweet fanboy tears.

Nikkei : Nintendo Won E3

Quote:The E3 opened in a smaller Form in Santamonica this week. Every major Platformholder had a press conference. I want to talk about this E3 and how it represents the direction of the industry. E3 has gotten smaller then last year but it is still a place to show what the strategy is.


We saw what the three major companies had in mind. And this time around, Nintendo stood out.


Nintendo succeeded to create a market that SCE and MS cant compete in. Looking at the announcements we can easily see that the DS as well as the Wii is going to sell this holiday season just like it is dominating now.

The Wii is having a bigger success then many were anticipating. Right now the 360 has a shipped install base of about 12 Million but it is not selling greatly outside of the North American market. The Wii is selling all over the world. Even in the stronghold of the 360 it crossed 3 Million units in only 6 month and is going to outsell the 360 soon.

The current strategy of Nintendo is stabil and cannot be beaten. That the other two companies didnt have anything to counter the current Wii strategy is evidence. 360 will have a simple controller for a quiz game. But compared to that what the Wii does it cannot be called a valid counter measure.


Nintendos presentation showed a variation of You Tube videos that showed how fans were enjoying Nintendo DS and Wii. They wanted to appeal how much of a social phenomenon they have become. Those videos had one thing in common. They all focused on the expression of the Player. Back at GDC Miyamoto Shigeru claimed that he watched closely on the expression of the player.

The Wii and the DS share the common advantage that the Player becomes Advertisement as he is playing. The other platforms did not show anything that can at least mimick this advantage. And Nintendo is using this strategy as we can see on their advertisements that are focusing on the people playing the games.


Nintendo wanted to appeal to a new, broader audience. And this is paying off. Especially the Wii did not have strong software in Japan. Yet the hardware sells on the launch titles alone. Square Enix and EA as well as other thirdparties are starting to shift their development resources.

Nintendos announcement was 1. Guarantee the upcomming scedule 2. Hype their products. As an evidence, Nintendo announced the concrete release dates of Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros. While they didnt go in detail about Mario Kart Wii and Wii Fit as well as Wii ware.


The biggest news of this conference was of course the Wii Fit game. Wii fit is a strategy that cannot be mimicked by the other companies. The device alone will cost quite some money and with a steep hardware price it is impossible to sell peripherals that cost over 100 dollars (estimates). The advantage that the wii has lies also in its cheap price. Even if it costs 100 dollars the combined price is lower then the competition .


This Wii Fit presentation was geared towards the thirdparties and was much of a test marketing. Nintendo will look at the effect and deterimine the price. Probably many third parties will think about dancing games. There arent many peripherals that sold well in the past. The Eyetoy was only successful in Europe and the Xbox Live Vision Camera did not have much impact.

The Problem of Nintendo is its strength in first party titles. The 360 has many of the high hitting thirdparty titles and is stressing them. Many Thirdparties will feel threatened by the overly strong Nintendo first party titles. Ofcourse the Wii was a Hit that nobody saw comming. So the thirdparties will show their titles at the TGS this year after they had enough preperation time.

Yet it still remains unclear if Thirdparties can compete with Nintendo and make profits. This will determine wether Nintendo can remain the leader of this generation. Ofcourse that Nintendo changed the market this much on their own without many partners is once again showing the power that Nintendo has these days



[Nikkei Business]

Source:NeoGAF

They announced a bunch of accessories and games we already knew were coming. I didn't think it was that great, but I wasn't impressed with Microsoft or Sony either.

If I had to judge by the amount of games shown at the actual show then it easily goes to Microsoft. Mass Effect, Fable 2, Halo 3, Bioshock, Naruto (stunning), COD4 and so many good looking 3rd party games shown on the 360. Too bad their conference didn't set a better mood.

E3 has changed a lot, DJ. Just as much news? No. Oh, the BIG companies are putting out just as much press, but the small ones? Many small companies were not invited, and the really small ones or "weird products" ones that would have been in Kentia Hall at the old E3 are also completely gone. Also gone are the thousands of EB, Gamestop, and small game store personnel; they aren't allowed anymore, pretty much. The new E3 is an exclusive event for the press and the large developers. That is a bad thing.

As for who won this year, it clearly depends on who you ask. Yes, absolutely, the mainstream press loved Nintendo's show. And Nintendo did a good job at setting things up for that to happen, as they have for several years now but to great effect this time -- they put all of the products the mainstream press might care about in the press conference, while most of the games actual gamers want to know about sneak out as a line in the list of announced games on their press website and perhaps a few screenshots.

I mean... the conference's big, focused game? Wii Fit. The announcements of Advance Wars DS 2, Professor Layton (okay a mass-market-able puzzle game, but did they mention it in the main conference?), Mario Kart Wii, Fire Emblem's US release, etc... not there at all. Nintendo is still making games for gamers, but they try as hard as they can to downplay that fact every time the media looks their way.

Just looking at the three conferences, I don't think gamers would say "Nintendo's was the best 'what games they showed'-wise"... I mean, Wii Fit as the headliner? Yeah. Clear message there.

Now, I'm not saying that that's a BAD message -- it's a message that is clearly getting across and is pushing the Wii to a level of success maybe never seen before -- but it IS their message.

Quote:The SMS sold about 13 million units compared to the NES's 61 million. Not realy that close.

And most of those 13 million were in Europe and Brazil, the two regions that the SMS actually did well in. In the US and Japan it was pretty much an asterisk.

Quote:If I had to judge by the amount of games shown at the actual show then it easily goes to Microsoft. Mass Effect, Fable 2, Halo 3, Bioshock, Naruto (stunning), COD4 and so many good looking 3rd party games shown on the 360. Too bad their conference didn't set a better mood.

Microsoft's problem is that they had no major new announcements (like the badly needed price drop)... of course Sony and Nintendo didn't have any either, Sony's price drop aside (and going from $600 and $500 to $600 and $500 isn't much of a price drop, even if they increased your value for the money)... it was a pretty boring E3, that's for sure.