Nintendo Direct is Nintendo's response to the massive circlejerk that the gaming media has become, which has some pros and cons. Notable pro is that the Directs give their games a moment in the sun, even to lesser games that would largely be ignored in the sea of noise that is the gaming media. Who would have clicked a link for a brief view of something called "Omasse de Weapon shop?" But fans following the ND are now aware of it.
On the negative side, it doesn't get them exposure to people who aren't already fan enough to watch the ND's in the first place.
I still think ND is preferable to an E3 keynote, though, they just need to knuckle down and get it on Spike TV, maybe still air the E3 ND in a big theater, so you can hype it as an "event" and have an audience to respond live. The Direct beats the keynote in regard to little foibles like what afflicted the early Skyward Sword demo at E3 2010, where all the signal interference made it look like the motion plus controls didn't work at all, or embarrassing audio failures like Crimson Dragon at Microsoft's gig last year.
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
