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.

The last direct exceeded my expectations very nicely; awesome new trailers for Bayo 2, Mario Kart and DK, plus footage of X in action.

Why a let down? Mario kart awesome, X awesome, Bayonetta Awesome, Kirby Awesome, DK Awesome, Yoshi klind ok, Steel diver interesting, The baseball game sounds good, Izunama Eleven nice surprise, Layton looks great and Smash was stunning!

Not to mention Child Of Light which looks beautiful, and the official announcement of the localization of Monster Hunter 4.

people (like myself) love to hype this stuff up. There is nothing wrong with having hope - as long as you are able to cope with disappointment.

Directs are the definition of hype and they should continue to be so. With all the "doom and gloom" the Directs are a great thing.

i second everything said on this page

I think a lot of people are being misrepresented by their expectations.

Their expectations are high because they want the console to be successful. What's so wrong with that??

When Nintendo keep putting out the same old crappy Directs that appeal only to a percentage of Wii U owners that get orgasmic but have minimal impact on potential buyers (the sales don't lie) there is a problem.

What is the purpose of the NDs?? It must be informative but far more importantly it is a marketing tool.

If you seriously think Nintendo is doing a fine job marketing the Wii U through these Directs then fine. No probs.

If on the other hand you think (as I do) that these Directs are lacklustered and are a good example of why the Wii U sales suck then you have every right to expect more. It seems every Direct just lower my hopes for a Wii U recovery.

Last year Nintendo had a Nintendo Direct blowout where a bunch of games were announced/shown then people complained that they didnt show anything new at E3. This year it seems they are saving alot of announcements for E3 and now people are complaining that they didnt do a Nintendo Direct blowout.

Nintendo has no plans for the Wii U. What you see now, that wás their plan: release a bunch of Mario games and refuse to cooporate with third parties so that Nintendo's big games don't have any competition.

Nintendo will release Donkey Kong, Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros., Bayonetta 2, X, Zelda and probably a few more Mario games. And that's it. After that, it's over. If that sounds like a worthwile line-up, then you're golden. But this is how it's going to be and frankly, a line-up like this will be the best-case scenario for the next Nintendo console, if even that.