Your profile picture, is it from an anime?

Big public event every real gamer watches it's the super bowl for game's and when your in last place like Nintendo u need all the press and attention u can get so yes do Directs but still have a E3 show.

Nintendo will probably have a conference this year. Why? Because they'll have a hardware to present.
That makes a huge difference

Yeah that's pretty much it, years ago you couldn't get content the way you could now, what E3 used to offer exclusively is not only now available to all but as NDs have shown you can utilize it when ever you want.

I know for many older generation players it will take a bit of time for this to sink in having had E3 as a major part of their gaming but it's the end of an era, in future I can see platform holders doing their own events at certain points of the year like what Nintendo does with the Treehouse during E3.

Ahead of the curve? no.

They were so ahead of the curve that made no more conferences. Yet, it sales are not good. But hey, ahead of the curve!

I continue to maintain that I prefer the Nintendo direct approach. It better to watch, better detail, and media gets more time to play the games and then remark on them.

While I really like the Nintendo Direct/Treehouse live approach to E3, I do hope they have a sort of hybrid to unveil their new console.

Show a direct for the WiiU/3DS stuff and then cut right into the live conference where you explain what NX is and what is coming for it.