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Nintendo Announces New Mario Bros, Mario Galaxy, Metroid
Nintendo's E3 press conference was an eventful one, with announcements for a new Super Mario Bros. Wii, a sequel to Super Mario Galaxy, and a new entry into the Metroid franchise by Team Ninja. The new Mario Bros. game will be available for the holiday season, and the other two are scheduled for 2010. Nintendo also confirmed an updated version of the Wii Fit, called the Wii Fit Plus (trailer), due out this fall. A full list of Nintendo's announcements is available, which includes more games and new features. Live blogs of the press conference, with commentary and pictures, are up at Engadget and 1Up.
That's kind of my feeling. I thought Nintendo did better this year (and Cammie dropped the creepy smile, so that's a win), but I still came away feeling like there was nothing new. It was the same thing we've already tread on the Wii. Where was the Starfox or FZero or Kid Icarus or SOMETHING new and exciting? Even the New Super Mario Bros. Wii reminded me of the multiplayer Mario flash game where players stomp on each other's heads.
Even the DSi announcements fell flat. Mario and Luigi 3 looked kind of fun, as did the Mario vs. Donkey Kong for DSiWare. Of course, the latter is just the continuing strategy of ripping pieces of old DS games out and putting them up as DSiWare. (At least we got Mighty Flip Champs on Monday.)
When Nintendo showed the interviews with the kids on the street, I got a kick out of the girl saying she was excited for the new internet features of the DSi. As I expected, Nintendo did nothing with that. I joked with the guys over on DSiCade* that Nintendo should really cut to DSiCade and show our conversation as it was happening. Alas, the poor DSi still got so little love.
* Disclaimer: I wrote DSiCade.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Sure, everyone loves Mario but at this point it's obvious Nintendo is very stagnant. Most of the stuff on the Wii is pure shovelware garbage, and I've yet to be truly impressed with the uses of the Wiimote (although the device itself is fantastic and I even use it with my computer via bluetooth). The Wii is a stagnant system all-around for the more active gamer, and its "environment" is so sterile (less mature games, using the friend code system, etc) and the system is far enough behind the others in terms of graphical and processing ability to not allow for faithful ports of games on the XBox 360 or PS3.
You'd think Nintendo would at least ramp up 1st party games but nope. Most of what is coming out is unremarkable shovelware. The DS is definitely starting to lose some of its luster as only a few good games on it seem over the horizon--though I do think the DS was overall a success with many quality games.
Mario, Mario, and Metriod. And another gimmick, Wii fit. How depressing for us Wii owners.
As an aside, when is Nintendo going to come out with a faithful quality sequel to Star Fox 64?
I think this upcoming year is a good one, with some serious games. Conduit, Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, a new Resident Evil, a new 'mature' action Metroid...
And Red Steel 2, which I'm anxiously awaiting. Overall, I think all three developers had a good showing this year, but I think Nintendo's was strongest. Not just because of their conference, but because the entire subtext of Sony and Microsoft's presentations was about them trying to copy the Wii's success.
While there's extremely little information outside of "It exists", a new Wii Zelda has been announced. Supposedly more "mature", though that can mean many things to many people.
All in all, this is a MUCH better showing from Nintendo than last year's "Yay let's flail around faking music!" show. I almost wish they had split what we've see this year between this and 2008 E3s, so that we might see more of each thing.
Personally, I'm more excited for Golden Sun DS than anything else, though I'm sure to pick of SMG2 and Metroid. Too bad that rumored Metroid: Dread for DS never came about.
I agree that the 3rd party situation is abysmal, but I'm scratching my head when you say that they are stagnating. If anything, I'd say they are the only console manufacturer that has truly managed to innovate and break out of traditional "gamer" demographic.
And then there's this:
Translation:
So you want innovation... except when you don't?
What really breaks Wii Fit is the time spent navigating the menus between exercises.
What it needs is a way to setup a simple list of exercises in advance (like a songlist in Guitar Hero's quickplay mode), and then run you through those as quickly as possible (don't explain to me how it worked *every time*, thank you), and with as short load times as possible.
As it is now, you never really break a sweat...