After a financial results briefing held by Nintendo today, the juggernaut gaming company will not be holding a press conference for the Electronic Entertainment Expo this year.
Satoru Iwata, who now hold’s NOA’s CEO position, explained that this decision was made so they could host smaller events that emphasize software line-ups and hands-on experiences — mainly demos, previews, and trailers — for U.S. markets. There will be a closed event for meeting with American distributors, and an open event for allowing people to try out Nintendo’s products, mainly for the Western gaming media.
For many years, E3 was a communication bridge between Nintendo and the press, industry partners, analysts, software publishers, investors, and gaming fans around the globe, altogether. Nintendo has paid “special attention” with the recent uploads of Nintendo Direct information to address the demands for each party — gamers who care more about gaming information than sales figures and financial analyses; and business partners and distributors who are focused on marketing strategies to improve sales. Iwata believes that using Nintendo Directs will be a more effective method to deliver information of similar importance as those from E3 press conferences.
Finally, Iwata stated that Nintendo will not release new hardware at this year’s E3, but will use E3 as an ideal opportunity to talk more thoroughly about the Wii U games that are to launch this year, and make it possible for attendees to have immediate access for the games via demo kiosks.
This is certainly a shocking and controversial decision made by Nintendo that will surely disappoint many fans, as E3 has always been a tradition of anticipating big news and surprising hardware and software disclosures.
Given that Nintendo’s E3’s have been quite imbalanced as of recently (at least in my opinion), this move can be beneficial for both gaming and corporate activities. If there’s going to be more frequent Nintendo Directs as a result, then I’m okay with this, as long as Iwata continues dropping bombs.
