Category: 
The three E3 press conferences from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony were the dullest, driest most humorless presentations that I have ever seen on an E3 broadcast. By now I expect dull from Microsoft, it’s the only innovation that they can take credit for. But when Nintendo’s presentation is worse than Microsoft’s maybe we should be worried?
It seemed that since the big whigs of these corporations thought that they were only talking to US journalists, they didn’t bother to step up beyond the usual type of content seen at a board meeting. And bored meeting it sure has been. Both presenters today from Nintendo and Sony had to coax applause from an audience who had generally gone to sleep and were woken up in time to say “Oh time to applaud now?”
One innovation that was first time that I have seen at E3 was that Nintendo had a lady presenter first up. That was great, until the first two words out of her mouth were about being a mother and her kids. That ruined it. Instead of picking an empowered, strong, career woman as a spokesperson, they went with the soccer Mom image. I found that choice to be more demeaning than if all the presentations were just done by males as usual.
The video that they started out with had triple the number of images of women, kids and old people than it did boys, and I saw no adult males in the opening video. That was a little progress anyway. They went on to say that they had made 5 billion dollars compared to Xbox’s 1 billion. They definitely have the top numbers, from DS and Wii sales. The guy said that there is “unlimited numbers of casual gamer” read “females”. Granted Nintendo has become a leader in offering games for girls, but for adult females they still have a long way to go.
There were no new IP’s presented by Nintendo. They announced a version of GTA for the DS called GTA Chinatown. But I can’t say that one title is going to carry the Nintendo to the attention of hardcore female gamers.
Nintendo is making the same mistake that they did with game cube. They have pigeon holed the Wii and DS as game consoles for little kids. Making it a fad item with passing interest. Pet rocks and suction cup Garfield also sold lots too. Do you know where your Pet Rock is today?
Nintendo’s big showcase was of all things, a new Animal Crossing : City Folk for Wii. Oh -kay. They also introduced a little speaker phone mike that looks exactly like the one that was on the Mac Phone Power PC Performa circa 1996. I laughed out loud at the introduction of Wii Music. The demonstration was terrible, off the beat and just laughable in the face of Rock Band. I know that they are trying to do something different, but sometimes different does not translate to good.
Nintendo basically said to us, ‘We have Mario, Zelda and Pokemon and we are making so much money off of them that we don’t need to work any more. We don’t need you unless you want kiddie drivel.’
Recently:
- Tomb Raider Underworld : Underwhelmed PS3 Review
- Geek Woman’s Best Video Games of ‘08
- Girl Geek Shopping Guide
- Lord of the Rings Online : The Mines of Moria PC Review
- Good Girl Power : Nancy Drew
- A Glimpse Inside Moria
- Not Much to Write Home About
- Bleach: Dark Souls DS Review
- Adam Sessler : Home is on the Way?
- Myvu on Ellen
