Nintendo at E3 2008
Hold up, buddy.
After the negative reaction to E3's "Media and Business Summit" restructuring for its 2007 event, E3 2008 returned to its epic scale. Unfortunately, Nintendo's presentation was anything but epic.
The Big Announcements
The hardcore were hung out to dry this year, as Nintendo focused its press event entirely on casual-appeal, expanded-audience titles. In a reflection of 2003, in many ways, Nintendo had just delivered new entries in the "Big Three" franchises in the preceding 12 months, and so had nothing to share about any of their next installments come show time. So, instead, we got things like Wii Music.
Shigeru Miyamoto's Appearance
The go-to example for industry followers who want to make the case that Shigeru Miyamoto is slipping in his creativity, Wii Music was a foul, flawed and un-fun addition to the "Wii Something" series – and it looked ridiculous being demoed on stage. Miyamoto himself pranced around with a Wii Remote held to his mouth to act as a saxophone, while infamous drummer "Ravi" went bat-crap crazy shaking around a Wii Remote and Nunchuk on the other side of the stage to play a virtual drum set.
And that was Nintendo's big reveal. The company also trotted out an underwhelming Animal Crossing sequel, City Folk, and presented the Wii Speak microphone peripheral that would finally give the Wii a voice chat capability – though, like many Nintendo peripherals, it would go on to be underutilized and fall into retail stores' clearance aisles quickly.
Nintendo also revealed the Wii MotionPlus adapter, the fifth new peripheral for the Wii in two shows' time. It was more of a success, as its announcement came alongside the reveal of Wii Sports Resort – one of the few high points of this disappointing expo.
The Big Games
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