The Nintendo 3DS is a big part of Nintendo's business this year, and better content is lined up this year. The game library is rather small at the minute, but there are new games coming out, including Starfox64 3D, Mario 3d, Luigi's Mansion 2, Resident Evil Revelations, and more. Not only that, but the 3DS shop will open for Virtual Console downloads. I still don't own a 3DS myself, but the amount of games that developers have lined up is looking pretty good. When people think of the 3DS, they immediately think of games they have played a million times before, or games without a lot of depth. The 3DS is just barely behind in content to offer players, but the games themselves are hard to find anywhere else. There just aren't that many games that play like Starfox, and there certainly isn't anything like Luigi's Mansion. The most exciting looking game to me is that new Kid Icarus. Kid Icarus on the 3DS is a really fast action game that shows exactly why the 3DS is good enough for real gamers. I'll be honest, a lot of the games on my Nintendo DS are just too boring for me. You run around and touch, it is as if the hardware just can't do enough to keep me occupied. Then, you look at Kid Icarus. It is a handheld, so the graphics during gameplay are still a little behind. But the console has enough "energy" to make a game that could keep someone like me awake. There is multiplayer where you fight opposing angels, lots of weapons to slash or blast things away, and best of all, it could be called an entirely new experience on a Nintendo Console. It definitely isn't one of those re-hashes, remakes, or remasters. To me, it is almost unfair to see good games going to the 3DS, but you have to remember that it isn't the original Nintendo DS. There are only going to be 2 (good) handhelds by the Holiday season, and whether you(I) want to believe it or not, the 3DS is one of those.
The other exciting item releasing this year is the new Zelda: Skyward Sword. We saw a lot about the new Zelda last year, so there isn't much of a need to talk about it. If you guys don't remember, the new Zelda uses the Wii Motion Plus for motion gaming with better tracking. The game is a lot brighter looking than Twilight Princess and maybe even Ocarina of time, so maybe we can expect a Toon Link-esque atmosphere, in regular Link's world.
But enough about that, the most important part of the presser was for the WiiU.
I want to make a few things clear about the console first:
1) It IS an actual console, not just a controller peripheral for your Wii.
2) The graphics can go up to 1080p.
3) The release date is 2012.
4) It is backwards compatible with Wii accessories AND games.
These points alone usually mean that the system is on the right track to success. One small issue is that the console itself was not really touched on today at Nintendo's conference. Instead, most of the information was about the controller and what you can do with it. The controller is basically a tablet. It has 2 Analog sticks, trigger buttons and face buttons. It has cameras, motion sensors and a 6+ inch touch screen, so when you look at it, it looks like half of a 3DS. There aren't too many games actually made for the system, so most of what Nintendo had to show was conceptual, meaning things that the hardware COULD do for game developers. With motion controller, you can title the controller to manipulate the game. With the camera, you can move the controller around to point at objects on the screen(imagine zooming with a scope through your controller). With the touch screen you can do things like a 3DS such as drawing emblems or solving puzzles, maybe even draw out a path or two. Then, since the console supports Wii controllers, you can use the WiiU controller for 1 player, and the WiiMote with everyone else. So there could be a competitive game where the WiiMote players team up against the WiiU player, that has access to things on his tablet. Sounds interesting? There's no way you can say no. The question is that how do we get games for hardcore players out of something like the WiiU. Third party developers like EA already plan to bring good games like Battlefield and their sports to the WiiU(In 2012!), so if you don't have an Xbox or PS3, you don't have to miss out on those games. We don't know how the WiiU versions of games will differ though, which is where the money lies. Another very important piece of information that Reggie and the Nintendo Conference didn't cover much on and that is the new system's online capabilities. It will obviously allow players play together online and follow leaderboards, but network capabilities for the Xbox and PS3 are more than that now. Even worse is that Nintendo is infamous for their online community. Playing with your friends requires coordination outside of the console. Meeting people and becomming friends is a chore. And worst of all, most current games don't have a leaderboard that you can compare yourself to people you know; only to the top players in the world. So this is another point that Nintendo has to address.
And honestly, that is All of Nintendo's conference. The 3DS and the WiiU, seems like this year isn't looking too good. We have been told that there will be other games to look forward to besides WiiPlay Motion and Zelda: Skyward Sword. In my opinion, I have never been a big Nintendo fan, but I am excited to see what sort of games come out on the 3DS. I recommend that all of you guys at least take a look at what it has to offer.
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