Yea, sales were kicking ass for Gamecube because of the yearly E3 presentations. You are just going to continue your rhetoric no matter what. The past few weeks/months have been super hard for you for some reason. As for Wii U, its sales are not going to skyrocket no matter how many conferences they do in a year. 

green_sky beat me to the punch, but I'd also add that the 3DS' worst sales period to date, as well as the Wii U's anemic opening performance, both took place during conference years. The things are hardly a panacea. I could also point out that you're the person who made the assertion, so the burden of proof is completely on you. But overall, I'm willing to wait and see, if you promise to cease being the biggest Negative Nancy since trestres. The position of Mindless Nintendo Naysayer has been filled. Several times over. We expect better from you.

I think you negative nancys have not watched the last couple directs and/or simply don't get the full picture.

The last three directs have been exceptional. Great content, witty, and well thought out. I hope that trend continues.

Also, these are far better than old fashioned ways of delivering information.

OLD - ARCHIAC
1) Send out press release and/or have media filled conference and/or on-hands demos for media.
2) Media gives various forms of coverage based on reporters personal views/experience/bias.
3) Consumer must read/watch numerous outlets to get full and/or real information beyond basic factoid tidbits like release dates/price.

NEW - MODERN - INTERCONNECTED
1) Create high quality video and disseminate via FB/TW/YT directly to consumers/users/fans/MEDIA. Couple this with in-person specialized demos for consumers of any type at conferences and retail outlets.
2) Media gives various forms of coverage based on reporters personal views/experience/bias.
3) Consumers have direct FULL information and even use word of mouth to better spread information to those not closely following Nintendo... often better and more positive than media.

In both scenarios the SAME MEDIA gets and puts out the SAME COVERAGE.

HOWEVER, in the new modern approach the consumer gets a much better exposure to direct information about everything including actual possibility of hands-on experiences.

I still have no clue who this transition is bad for anyone but media.
4) Consumers also

The last 3 big Nintendo Directs have converted me. There was maybe one good Direct last year, and it still had some flaws of the early Directs in terms of pacing and... maybe too much Iwata.

But SSB4... Tomodachi Life... the E3 announcement... Mario Kart 8... these presentations have actually entertained me and gotten me interested. Going back and watching snippets of E3 conferences from the past, I realized that they weren't quite as exciting as I thought, on the part of any company. Very little humor, awkward pauses, almost uncomfortably frequent applause, introduction after introduction, PR talk out the wazoo, demos of games we aren't interested in or just straight technical difficulties. I think Nintendo has an opportunity to capitalize in an actually engaging way on a real attention grabbing event, if they do it right.

We'll see. I also wouldn't oppose bringing in more internet personalities from time to time, like they did with Mega64.

The MK8 Direct was simply phenomenal! Hopefully their E3 Digital Presentation will also deliver!

Agreed 100%! That Mario Kart 8 direct was awesomazing! I'm definitely eager to see what they do for their E3 Digital event!

Seen a lot of this recently with no actual figures/outcome to back it up. You can't call something old and archaic if it still works perfectly fine ...

Compare the impact of a direct compared to a classic press release, who gets the wider audience?

Its simple logic.

The same media that would receive a press release or be in attendance to a conference is watching a ND. They are then creating their own content to splash on their channels in the same manner as before.

Best part is those of us who would also want to attend that conference, now can via Youtube and NDs.

I also am quite sure Nintendo has done a lot of analysis over the last year and post last E3 to compare to previous years. The simple fact that they are not only continuing with this digital presence and instead use their conference space for hands on demos or in this case a buzz worthy tournament... says a lot.

I actually don't understand what you and others think you're missing in this scenario.

Are they though? I see them as not bothering for several reasons. The news already being out there and not having as much incentive to report it. Yes sites regurgitate a lot of stuff but this is WiiU/Nintendo, there is a low audience for it in the first place. If they got it first hand I think more sites would report what the ND does. That and sites feeling shunned by Nintendo, it feels like they really want to remove themselves from the industry as much as they can ....

Second part, really? You would have thought Nintendo would have learnt a lot since 3DS launch and then the last WiiU and I see no learning, why are you assuming they're making a sound decision this time?

Put simply, this scenario once again closes off attention to anyone but Nintendo fans, it seems the only news we ever hear about outside of Nintendo themselves is WiiU sales.

If Nintendo reached out to the press perhaps their whole image overall would benefit.

Few things to throw into the debate:
-Directs are accompanied by the traditional press release.
-Directs often get many times the coverage than a simple press release would ('theres a direct coming', 'watch the direct here', 'here's a summary of the direct').
-Recently Nintendo has been using press events in collaboration with directs; see the MK8 blow out earlier in the month, and that GameXplain was straight in after the Direct with footage and analysis of new tracks.
-Other devs/publishers are following suite. EG. the way Disney Infinity 2 was unveiled yesterday: 'Direct' and press release.

Personally I think Directs were only OK last year; it was nice to get more information direct from the source and have several moments of excitement throughout the year. But the format was a bit stilted and they did cut the press out a bit too much.

But so far this year; wow. Nintendo have the format nailed now and they've clearly learnt to give the press their special days. Nintendo's E3 plans have me super excited; I think we're going to get more information out of Nintendo's E3s about the stuff that matters to us as gamers, than we are out of Microsoft and Sony.

If you think an on stage presentation and a 2 minute interview with Geoff Keighley is going to trump the level of in house coverage that it looks as though Nintendo is set to be providing then you're deluded. And don't forget, that the press STILL get all the hands on that they do with everything else, except that this time they don't get to watch the execs trip over themselves whilst drinking champagne in a dark room (well, who knows what goes on backstage...)

Plus, who doesn't want to see a shed load of excellent Smash players figuring out how to beast the new game in a tournament setting?