The Event Spiel

So, for all of the Reggie Fils-Aime fan boys, I have a bit of disappointment for you: Reggie was unusually subdued for this year's Nintendo Press Conference. We did not have the wild-eyed impassioned Reggie of last year---instead we had a more relaxed, laid-back Reggie, but man oh man I *wish* we would have had the Reggie "Kick Ass and Take Names" Fils-Aime. It was still a very interesting event, for the plethora of announcements which I will soon reveal to you, but a fiery Reggie speech was still sorely missed this year.

Before anyone came onstage, a song played in the background complete with clips of Fils-Aime's intense, impassioned speech from last year interspersed in the song---it was a "Reggie Remix," if you will. Thunderous applause ensued as Satoru Iwata, the president of Nintendo came onstage. Mr. Iwata informed the crowd that he had been playing Super Smash Bros. earlier and had been kicking some "you know what," according to him. This elicited chuckles from the crowd. As he closed his opening statements, he asked Reggie, "Who's your daddy?"

Reggie came out after Mr. Iwata, and delivered an informative, if somewhat dispassionate speech. He affirmed Nintendo's commitment to innovation and gameplay improvement. He stated that the difference of Nintendo can be best illustrated by two words: "or" and "and".

"Nintendo," he said, "is not an "or" company—it is an "and" company, encompassing all games and all gamers, styles, and genres. He also made it clear that Nintendo feels it is a content company.

During his time onstage, Fils-Aime debuted several upcoming games, including Electroplankton—a bizarre toy/simulation type of game where you control and maneuver bioluminescent sea life forms, which utter different sounds as you manipulate them, allowing for the creation of songs. New York DJ, David Hollands, demonstrated this during the Electroplankton segment as he spun up an ear pleasing real-time mix.

Fils-Aime also announced Nintendo's Wi-Fi connection solution for the DS, which will be utilizing IGN's Gamespy Technology enabling players to connect wirelessly anywhere wireless internet access is available. DS players will be able to post high scores, have online storage space for game data, and other prospects. This hints at many possible exciting gameplay scenarios for the upcoming DS titles, such as Nintendogs. Mario Kart DS, and Animal Crossing DS are both expected by the end of the year, and they will definitely be infused with this new capability. The audience was assured that many top-notch developers are working on titles to take advantage of this new Wi-Fi capability (a Tony Hawk DS game was announced to be in development). The best part of the announcement is that there are no plans to charge a fee for playing first party DS games online.

To demonstrate some of the features of Nintendogs, a demonstrator paired with the creator himself, Shigeru Miyamoto and had their dogs perform some tricks. As the Nintendogs segment closed, Mr. Miyamoto enticed the female demonstrator to come backstage with him so she could learn some more tricks. Nice.


The Systems Spiel

Game Boy Micro – Smallest Game Boy product ever—it's thinner than a cell phone and it only weighs 2.8 ounces! It's slightly bigger and 2/3 lighter than an iPod. The game screen is touted to be the best Game Boy screen ever, and, for the first time, users will be able to adjust the brightness of the screen to adapt to indoor lights or outdoor sunshine. It'll have a built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery and supports standard headphones.

Gamecube and DS– Really the biggest news for the Gamecube is the new games that'll be available. There have been no major announcements for hardware for this system, so…moving on…

Revolution – Mr. Iwata brought this little beauty out to the crowd's delight. Although the unit on hand was a prototype, (with several different colored cases currently under consideration), a strong design ethic was evident even this early in the process. The unit is approximately the size of three standard DVD cases stacked up together. The media that the system's games will be stored on is both the current Gamecube media discs, and 12cm digital discs—the reason that the Gamecube media will fit into the new Revolution, is that it will have backward compatibility. The system will most definitely feature the ability for a Wi-Fi connection, which will be good to have, allowing Revolution users to download Nintendo's legendary library of games spanning the console and game manufacturer's 20 years in the biz.

The new console will encompass the Nintendo philosophy of All-Access Gaming, meaning more games, more simplicity, and more players.

It wouldn't be an E3 Nintendo Press Conference without mention of some of their upcoming lineup of games across all of their systems, old and new. There were numerous Mario titles announced, many with a sports theme (baseball and soccer), as well as Mario Party 7 and DDR Mario Mix. Killer 7 and Batman Begins stood out as not-normal-fare for the usually family friendly Nintendo. Look for more information on your most anticipated Nintendo games during our upcoming E3 coverage from the show floor in the next few days.

All in all, it was a good event to whet everyone's whistle for what's to come…but I wish Reggie would've thrown a chair or something…ah well, there's always next year…