Kind of a strange post here.  Your last paragraph shows that you do know about them doing a 3rd party one later so not sure where the hate is.

You complain about this one which was purely 1st party games catering to nintnedo only fans.  Um, yea it was nintendo ONLY games, so would it not be only pleasing to Nintendo fans?

Be like going to Capcom's booth/presentation at E3 and complaining that they didn't show enough EA gamesor something.  Uh duh, its Capcoms conference, not EA's.  THis was a purely Nintendo conference they had, they said they will do 3rd parties at a later date, which you said you knew about.

Is that a new game for the Wii U?

Nintendo Direct lets them speak to fans, not to the mainstream that they need the support of. E3 is where they focus on the mainstream media who are just as likely to completely ignore a Nintendo Direct. And if they're such a big priority, they'd have spaced out the announcements more between the various Nintendo Directs, rather than confirming seven new games (including a Mario, a Mario Kart, a Zelda, and a Wii-brand game) during this January one. I wasn't just asking why they would spoil the surprise, but why they'd spoil it NOW, and spoil ALL of them now. They could just as easily have held off on, for example, the Wind Waker remake announcement, the Monolith Soft game trailer, and the Yoshi's Land announcement, as it's not like any of those three would have a major effect on immediate Wii U sales - why announce it all now?

Nintendo has always had surprises at E3. Why would it be different this year?

Nintendo can assure that games are coming to the Wii U without being specific. They could also feed the information more slowly. So again, why do it all now?

As for the conference, I'm pretty sure that, if Nintendo wanted, it could have a 5 hour conference. It will have as much of a conference as they feel is necessary to convey what they want to convey. And if they couldn't get enough time for it all during the traditional part of the event, they'd hold a special event just before or after it to cover the rest. And again, it doesn't explain why they'd be announcing this stuff NOW. They could easily hold a pre-E3 Nintendo Direct, just as they did last year, to cover the stuff that wasn't able to fit into their actual conference. So why now?

Note that I'm not advocating a massive number of megatons. I'm suggesting that they haven't exhausted their major announcements, and that there'll be at least one major announcement at E3 that they felt needed to be held back and kept secret until then. And if it's not 3D Mario and it's not Mario Kart and it's not Wii U Party, and it's not Zelda: Wind Waker remake, then it must be something that rivals each of those, if not exceeds them. Mind you, it's entirely possible that the big announcements for E3 aren't first-party announcements. There could be third-party exclusives (or timed exclusives) that they're keeping quiet in preparation for the event.

Just because I want it emphasised again, here it is, once more: Why did they spoil it all NOW? Why now, in January? Why seven games in one hit, at this point in time? Just two of the games plus one sidebar announcement (first Smash screens at E3) would have been enough to get people excited enough for the next month, and then they could do another couple of games plus another sidebar announcement in February, and so on. So why NOW?

Earnings season, major revision on unit sales.  No easy way to explain that doesnt sound like a loser's excuse (Iwata doesnr have it in him to say, at least wait until Wii U's 2nd Holiday season, or Wii U is performing within expectations).  This is called taking the losses early.  Nintendo has given up on defending Wii U's fiscal 4th, lower fiscal 2012 but provide more optimistic projections for 2013.  

Well if you look at the complaints about the Wii U it is mainly coming from non Nintendo gamers. Nintendo should be addressing their concerns first about the lack of 3rd party support so they are confident in buyng the hardware. 

Nintendo 1st party games is something that should be left to E3.

Essentially I am saying they are doing it in the wrong order. If Nintendo can't convince non Nintendo gamers to buy their hardware before nextbox or ps4 launches then they will most likley never capture these core gamers.

I respectfully disagree.  It takes an active interest to even find the damn live stream, and patience beyond haphazard following to sit through those dreadful 15 minutes of Miiverse coverage.  If you are responding to this ND, you are either a Nintendo fan eagerly awaiting good news, or a critic looking for chinks in Nintendo's armor.  E3 is where the press converges.  ND, as its name explicitly states, is a direct massage, point to point communication, to whom?  To people already having an interest.

Your marketing efforts and expense must be channeled towards the intended audience as much as possible.  You never hear Hermes or Bentley radio advertisements, because 99% of the listeners simply cannot afford them or give a damn.  You also don't spend millions for a spot in professional publications to advertise Cheerio.  Not that many people view the Nintendo Directs on Youtube, if you pay attention to Iwata's words, they are framed with Nintendo players in mind.  

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I'll try spelling it out one more time: because the holiday season is over and people are dooming the Wii U, sales are somewhere between middling and disappointing, they just delayed a bunch of titles, people are carping about no gaemz, etc., etc. Obviously, no one here can give you a definitive answer because no one here knows. But there are a lot of factors at play that don't point to Nintendo having an embarrassment of riches. To put it another way, knowing that virtually every franchise that Nintendo has actually given a shit about over the past decade is already in the works for the Wii U, what else would you expect? The only thing that's obviously missing is whatever Retro is working on. I'm not sure why that wouldn't be enough of a surprise.

If you really don't think that the mainstream gaming media picked up on yesterday's Nintendo Direct announcements, you are spectacularly wrong. It doesn't matter where an announcement is made. If it's big, it's going to get coverage however it's made. In fact, it's much better for Nintendo to announce stuff when nothing much is happening than to try and fight for some share of the spotlight at E3, where everyone is assuming that the PS4 and new Xbox are going to be unveiled.

INDEED!!!!!

Aielyn...closest thing to a new Joel?