I for one am glad. E3 has turned into a weird meta-event, with people only interested in who "won". The gaming audience (press included) act spoiled, spiteful, hostile and ignorant to the art form that is games. Since the big E3 conferences are primarily watched by an audience that doesn't care for Nintendo news anyway (unless they see them go 3rd party), why waste time, money and their quality work on ADHD Gametrailers dudebros?

The other thing is that really Nintendo is not very good at these conferences. There's always uncomfortable silence and tech f*ckups and weird dramaturgies.

I saw this coming since last E3 2012, as it seemed like Nintendo really didn't want to be at that E3 and much preferred to make their announcements on their own time. Hence the Nintendo Direct with Iwata before their E3 press conference, the lack announcement at the conference, and the major announcements at their post E3 2012 Nintendo Directs.

Anyways, good move Ninty as these E3 press conferences were getting a bit ridiculous, e.g. when people have to get excited about Ridge Racer or sit through Usher dancing on stage.

I much prefer watching Nintendo Directs.

It's really weird these days, I feel totally out of sync with the gaming media. Gamespot was always horrible. IGN used to have some people who "got" Nintendo, but no more. Gametrailers is the big thing now, and it was N-ignorant from the outset. Pachter! The biggest (?) german site, 4players, is so hostile it's ridiculous.

Anyway, if I was Nintendo I'd be looking for other ways to get my point across too. And at my own pace. It's not ideal that they have to kinda bypass the journalists, but there's no other choice.

I would be more concerned about this if the last few Nintendo Directs were bad, but they've actually been very good. The January Nintendo Direct was better than their 2011 and 2012 E3 conferences combined. They just have to announce it a few weeks ahead so that more people know to watch it.

OK, so basically... we can expect a Wii U Direct and 3DS Direct aired on Monday and Tuesday during E3, and there will be no live-streamed events at all.

Interesting...

I wonder if Sony and Microsoft are considering similar things?

And the trash talking has begun... X'D

Ugh I hate this kinda talk......

if u cant take the heat get out of the kitchen fits perfectly here lol

I honestly get it. E3 has been underwhelming for the last few years (for all consoles). No mega announcements and most of the surprises are revealed earlier anyways... ND on the other hand has been better than most of Nintendo's E3's in recent years: short, concise, to the point and even entertaining. The E3's though have been really cringe-worthy (Wii Music anyone?). And really with the internet age, E3 isn't the most ideal way to get new announcements anymore.

This makes me excited, and really after the disappointment of last year's E3, I wasn't really hyped up for it this year. Like Nintendo said E3 is becoming more about the media and stock brokers than gaming, whereas these Nintendo Directs have actually been quite exciting! Still worth going to E3 and playing the games hands on, and it's what Nintendo will be trying to do.

Terrible decision and no amount of damage control can defend it.
E3 is the biggest time of year where all the media from all spectrums come to see what is new. E3 get's covered from TV stations like MTV all the way down to local news stories. National media outlets pick it up and run stories.
Hiding away from that and saying it is better to give secretive interviews to the games media is like saying football teams would sell more shirts if the games were not shown. Which is rubbish.

These directs get almost zero exposure beyond the gaming websites. To think casuals will know about them is laughable. The only reason Nintendo are not going to have a conference is because they know the other two have a lot of things to show. It would appear that Nintendo doesn't have as much to show.
When the conferences come around a lot of Nintendo casual fans will wonder why they are not there, why they are not getting mentioned in the media. I can't help but think this will be far more negative then any bad conference they put on.

Stupid decision at a time when the Wii U really needs as much exposure as it can get.