Hardware
Wii U bleeding out, but it's absolutely far to early to expect any replacement or official phasing out. Might hear about a bundle or two, but no sign of a shift in strategy beyond running down the clock.
- Most likely a bundle. No way they're announcing a new console now. The only way for them to really turn my head at this point is to have some sort of Oculus device.
3DS tepid at best. No sign of any mooted successor in anything Iwata's said lately, and the revision that the 2DS brought about didn't have the desired effect.
QOL platform probably receiving most internal attention, but fundamentally unsuited to the event.
- I doubt they'll announce anything now as the 3DS is now in full stride. I hope it won't be a long time til the next portable, but with the way things are going, I wonder what the landscape will look like.
Newly Announced Software
Many of Nintendo's top teams and creatives- EAD Tokyo, Retro, Sakurai- have either just put out titles or are in the final stages of development. New reveals from any of these guys are unlikely.
- That's all they have at this point. Nintendo has awesome software, but there's gotta be more as in third party more. The desperation here when a new character is announced for Smash Bros is insane.
Much of the software that should have been revealed at this E3 have already been revealed far, far in advance. Last January's Direct was one hell of a double-edged sword- Nintendo held themselves back enough to reveal Smash, 3D World and Kart at E3, but they've totally spunked their load on reveals for this year- the likes of X, Yarn Yoshi and SMT x Fire Emblem had absolutely no good reason to be revealed so long in advance, and anticipation for some of this stuff has fizzled as a result (admit it, you forgot about Yarn Yoshi, didn't you?)
- Besides X, (I'm not a Smash fan) there's not much else for me personally that I'm excited about. I'm sure there will be a Zelda though (I hope)
Nintendo throwing every franchise they have at the 3DS and, to a lesser extent, the Wii U, has left them desperately short of stuff to show now. With Mario (both 2D and 3D), Mario Kart, Pokémon, Animal Crossing, etc. all having been pulled from the drawer, and stuff like Metroid, Star Fox and F-Zero clearly having been deemed to be too niche to be worth the investment of a modern budget, what exactly have they got left to pull from the drawer?
- At the rate they're going with the lack of 3rd party support, this may be more of a Nintendo console than previous gens.
QOL concerns again: there's going to be some manner of software developed for whatever this platform actually is, and that's going to be drawing manpower away to stuff that, again, is not going to be suitable for an E3 presentation.
- I agree.
Actual Presentation?
Yes, yes, I know Nintendo didn't actually skip E3 last year. However, that really isn't the point. The PERCEPTION was that Nintendo skipped E3 last year, and E3 is all about perception. They need to absolutely come out swinging for the fences this time out.
- I don't think they'll be at E3. Probably another Nintendo Direct again, and it'll likely just be new software.
However... can they really? I think that, in terms of actual content, this year's E3 is going to be less big for Nintendo that last year's. No new iterations in the megasellers, with the exciting revealed stuff already having been shown off last year. If they considered it worth their while to turn an E3 Presentation showing off Mario, Kart, Smash and Pokémon into a Direct, can they really go back to a stage show where Zelda's the only reasonably big card that they're likely to be able to play?
- I have no idea what is going on at Nintendo, and I wonder if they can right the ship. You can never count them out because the software props them up, but I don't get a sense of any plan besides "Nintendo games are great. You can only play Nintendo games on Nintendo consoles. We'll be announcing something shortly. SECRET CHARACTER REVEAL"
