Just finished watching it. Iwata speaks slowly. But his English is a hell of a lot better than my Japanese, so I shouldn't complain.
Some interesting concepts. I think that if Nintendo can deliver on their promises for the 'Miiverse' (user-created levels for Mario!!), it will provide a very cool, very Nintendo alternative to Xbucks Live and PSN. In Nintendo fashion, it might not have feature-parity, but it will have crazy shit that neither of the other two would even have thought of including. Including stuff like upvoting and downvoting is pretty slick and forward-thinking. Instantaneous video/audio chat? Also slick. And Iwata made a great point about being able to access that information quickly and at any time from your handheld tablet. Much easier than going into the Xbox Live pause menu, and now that Microsoft has actually made their interface SLOWER and clunkier, in order to enable Kinect support, Nintendo could have a big advantage here (also considering stuff like the touch keyboard - not ideal, but 10,000 times better than hunting and pecking with a gamepad). The browsing stuff looked cool, too. That's sort of a coup, having an easy-to-navigate browser on your console. Hopefully, it's full-featured, to the point where Nintendo doesn't even NEED console-specific media apps.
All of that functionality is neat, but I'm a social misanthrope, so whatever. Let's talk gameplay!
Couple of things jumped out at me. I didn't know that NFC could actually write to devices. That's cool. The first example that jumps to mind is a robotic pet that has realistic reactions to the on-screen goings-on. The second example? GYROMITE.
Clickable sticks - I fucking hate clickable sticks. I think they're non-ergonomic and irritating, and I always admired Nintendo for NOT jumping on that bandwagon. But I guess it's good that third-parties won't have to strain their brains when porting games...
Classic Controller Pro - Also good for third-parties. And I've always wanted a wireless Classic Pro. Hey, you know what that'd be good for? MONSTER HUNTER. Speaking of Monhun, another thing that I never really considered before is two-player co-op featuring literally split screens. Like, Player one gets the TV and player two gets the tablet. And each player goes wherever he wants to go. That would actually be pretty fucking awesome. If the console supported more than one tablet, it would be even more awesome.
I also think that the pack-in (Wii Sports U?) will feature mostly tablet vs. Wiimote play. Stuff like tablet player pitching and Wiimote player batting. And then tablet player catching (and Wiimote player running?). I dunno. Something like that.
I totally thought homeboy was going to bust out some Metroid Prime-style scanning, but I guess they're saving it for SamusFox U. That segment was kind of cheesy at first, but it grew on me by the end. Grandpa, the friend, and the action figure stole the show. Nintendo trotted out the ol' nerd stereotype, but with love, I think. Maybe.
Sticks vs. slide pads - whatever. I do like the rearranged/enlarged buttons, though. Small buttons suck. Big buttons rule. Learn from the Gamecube. It appears that they DID learn from the 3DS with the movement of Start and Select. Excellent.
All Wii U games at E3? And very little 3DS? That probably makes sense, since we know most of the upcoming 3DS games, already. Now that the hardware stuff is out of the way, Nintendo's E3 presentation should all be creamy, gamey Wii U goodness.
Iwata seemed kind of down. Cheer up, Iwata! The stock'll go back up! Maybe.
That's all that I can remember.
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on: 06/04/12, 02:39 |