Tell that to Twilight Princess. A game announced in a real conference for their worst seller homeconosle (at that time) which ended on the Wii at launch and generate enough hype for many of us to buy their new hardware.

And even sales proves it: 7 million. Those sales won't even would have been this good if it was announced in a Nintendo Direct that only you, me and few more knows.

I felt hype for Mario Kart because the trailer exceeded my expectations.  I felt no hype and a little rage because SM3DW looked awful to me.  But much of that was do to the uninspired name for the game, the very weak trailer they showed and the laggy, poor quality feed that made the game look like a 3DS title.  If they let Reggie to more talking, have a more flashy presentation and boost the quality/kill the lag it could boos the hype levels.... as long as the games themeselves look good.

Pretty much this. I have a feeling that they won't be able to deliver, but only time can tell.

That's it I surrender my Nintendo fanboy title. I'm going where the good stuff is, I'm going with Sony.

What? Info in a direct is covered by all major video game news sites, and big games are typically advertised beyond that. I personally don't think the fact that it was announced live on stage affected sales when it finally released and you have nothing but speculation to prove otherwise. 

The SM3DW and Mario Kart 8 trailers didn't garner huge amounts of hype because... they weren't good trailers. They were introduction trailers that did not show us the best that these games had to offer. And that was defiitely Nintendo's fault, but not becaue they weren't live... but because they were poor trailers.

People were going on about how (based on the trailers) a mainline Sonic game finally looked better than a mainline Mario game (those were fun times...) It wasn't until the October 1st Trailer for SM3DW (which wasn't live either) to blow away folks (Hey, even you made a thread about it! :D) and the same went with Mario Kart 8, which really didn't impress people until the April 3rd Trailer, which once again blew people away (I'm using GAF because let's face it, VGC is terrible at hyping games... and yet we were still incredibly impressed!)

I only see Nintendo needing to improve their reveals... (although their X reveal was on point for sure... so maybe there's hope for them.), not that a non-"live" trailer increases the hype.

They never said that they would be doing another E3 Direct. Digital Event doesn't mean a Direct. It's obvious that they aren't doing a live conference, but the fact that they aren't calling it a Direct like they did last year means they are doing something else that's different from a Direct.

EDIT: Maybe not so disappointed.

The only case I can make for it not being a mistake is that E3 has become a PlayStation and Xbox centric event. Nintendo does't need to compete with the likes of Assassin's Creed, Halo or God of War, because their audiences are different. Nintendo stands out like a sore thumb at E3 presentations. They cater to a more casual audience that won't even watch the conference. So why bother spend the money?

Well: it's also a huge mistake in that the covereage that they will be getting via their Direct (if they do one) won't be the same as if they were presenting at E3. Major publications outside of gaming write articles about E3. Major publications outside of gaming journalism will not be writing about Iwata's Vlog.

No conference again?! Booo..

Why do a conference when you're holding E3 at Bestbuy?