Things What Happened at E3

Here's the thing about Nintendo at E3. Even when they have good content to show, and I do think they had good content this year, they are absolutely horrible at presenting it. So to really judge their performance you need to look at the games, not the awkward corporate banter. Everyone also needs to abandon this ridiculous delusion that Nintendo is going to spend a whole conference basically apologizing to entitled core gamers.

That being said, if the conference had ended with one, big core game it wouldn't have felt as incomplete as this one did. There is a rumor going around saying Retro was going to show something but decided not to at the last minute. That sounds as plausible as it is unfortunate. Still, Pikmin 3 looks great. Nintendo Land looks like it can reach out to casuals while mining Nintendo nostalgia in an almost Smash Bros-lite kind of way. Also, between non-specific action figure, Reggie's body being ready once more and "Call Me Maybe" being the focus of SiNG this was by far the most meme-worthy Nintendo conference since "never"

Nintendo had the most to gain or lose this year and in a way they didn't live up to as much of their potential compared to Sony or Microsoft. Still, along with Ubisoft, they showed a new console and announced new games. To me, that was way more interesting than admittedly solid known-quantities like Halo, Gears, and God of War. Everyone already knew this going in but Sony and Microsoft really are just spinning their wheels until the next-generation/wonderbook/smartglass/techno apocalypse.

That Vita bundle was pretty good though.

Unsolved mystery, solved.