While Microsoft and Sony may have chosen to open their conferences with some pre-recorded music nonsense, Nintendo decided to kick it into overdrive and flew out a whole orchestra to welcome us all to their presentation. They were of course playing Zelda music, to celebrate this year being the 25th anniversary of the adventuring Link. Fittingly Shigeru "Shiggy" Miyamoto is first on stage, and he opens with a slightly delirious "Mmm, Zelda!" followed by a whole-body shaking of ecstacy. Shiggy then demands, through his translator, that the orchestra perform little Zelda sound effects for him, while he mimes along on stage, muttering "item get!" every few seconds. It's charming and weird. It's Nintendo. Welcome.
Once he's all calmed down, we learn that Zelda: Link's Awakening is the first title in the GameBoy Color console line-up to hit the Nintendo E-Shop. We also learn that in September on the Nintendo DSI, the old-school four-player co-op Zelda: Four Swords is coming as a free download. That is, admittedly, pretty sweet. Shigeru also announces a special gold Wii Remote available when they launch Zelda: Skyward Sword, which he calls "the most satisfying Zelda experience of any game in the series".
If you don't like music, skip to the next paragraph: Nintendo is holding Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary symphony concerts in each region around the world, this fall. More announcements later about specific dates are promised, but worryingly Australia is not in any of the territories mentioned. Nintendo are also preparing two Zelda-related music CD's - the first is the Ocarina of Time 3D official soundtrack, to be given as a gift to those who are the first to register the game with Club Nintendo. The next CD is based on the 25th anniversary symphony concerts and will be released in conjunction with Skyward Sword.
The 3DS Has Nintendo Games, But in 3D
Satoru Iwata takes the stage briefly to tease us about how he won't tell us anything about the next Nintendo console yet, before fleeing as Reggie charges onto the stage. His first annoucement is to tell us that the franchises we know and love are moving into 3D. A company leveraging their most popular franchises onto their new technology? Unthinkable, I know. But they're doing it anyway.
"We hear you", says Reggie. "You want to be surprised and you want to be comfortable, all at the same time". Can you give something for everyone, he asks? You can, is his answer, with the Nintendo 3DS. His example of this is a rather poor one: Mario Kart. Although Reggie describes it as a "tricked-out version" you haven't driven before, it looks and plays exactly like every Mario Kart game I've ever seen. Still, it's out in September.
The new Mario game for the 3DS is similarly lacklustre, looking for all the world like a Mario game. Twitter becomes flooded with sighs and rolled eyes, before everyone suddenly shuts up and pays attention. Why? Because Kid Icarus: Uprising is on the screen, and it looks really fantastic: a new and fresh Nintendo game that seems to play like a bizarre, hyperactive combination of God of War and Smash Bros. At the end of the Kid Icarus demo we see a brief shot of some trading cards, which the 3DS scans in and projects real-time images on top of. Reggie assures us these can be used in three-vs-three multiplayer battles, and we'll be seeing it in retail later this year.
More 3DS games montage their way through, with special love devoted to a new game: Luigi's Mansion 2. Reggie promises that it is "not a simple revision", but rather an entirely new game, with "not one, but several new mansions". Good to know if you're short on mansions. More games flash by. Ace Combat 3D, which looks rather spectacular on the small screen. Tetris... is Tetris. Cave Story 3D, Resident Evil: Revelations, and Driver: Renegade. Tekken 3D is the last of the bunch, and seems to be shaping up pretty well.
The Big Names, Actually on Nintendo
Of course a console is nothing without games, so Nintendo has lined up a bunch of big-name publishers to talk about how great the new console is looking. We see Peter Moore from EA Sports, and he's excited. Danny Bilson of THQ is excited. Everyone's excited. Darksiders 2 is going to be on the WiiU at launch, followed later by Batman: Arkham City. Other games include Assassin's Creed, Ghost Recon Online, DiRT, Aliens: Colonial Marines and Metro: Last Light. We also see Tekken, except it's a Tekken where you can draw on your character's faces and then play with them. Madness! The final game to be shown is Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge, which draws a big round of applause from the crowd.
The conference wraps up with Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello, who is on stage to talk about how great it is to be working closely with Nintendo on their new console. He heavily hints at a much-improved online functionality for the Wii U, talking up social networking, leaderboards, and all the other things that Nintendo has traditionally utterly failed to provide. Tellingly, his final quote for the evening is to describe the Wii U as "a better platform than we've ever been offered by Nintendo", and to cement the agreement as "an unprecedented partnership between Nintendo and EA."
Reggie bids us all goodnight, and tells us to look forward to hands-on with the new products.
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