I think that many more of us than usual turned in to watch Iwata's GDC 2009 presentation this time around because of the debacle that was Nintendo's E3 2008 Presentation.
Just two weeks prior to E3 2008, Nintendo made the big announcement that they were going to be showing many new games for the core gamers at E3. As a result of that many of us turned into their E3 presentation hoping to see Nintendo's best line-up of games since the Super Nintendo Days. We thought that we were going to see hardcore steampunk Zelda, New Kid Icarus, tons of Japanese jrpgs. And following Microsoft's announcement of Final Fantasy XIII we thought Nintendo would be sure to end their show with something equally as spectacular especially when Reggie said, "We have one more game to show you." After only seeing the new Animal Crossing announced during the rest of their press conference, we thought "Surely, this is the moment we've all been waiting for...it's going to be Kingdom Hearts III on Wii or maybe it will be the long awaited 3rd person 3d Metroid." Well, during what followed Reggie's statement, the lengthy presentation of Wii Music, we sat there cringing as we felt like we had been had. Where were all the games for the core gamers that were supposed to be there?
And this conference led to months of arguing between hardcore Nintendo fans that seem to love the big N no matter what they do and those of us that still love the big N but want to see Super Nintendo, and Gameboy Advance and DS quality games come to the system instead of the types of games that have so far made the biggest splash on the Wii.
So, last month, many of us turned in to see Iwata's Keynote at GDC. I have to admit that I think he did a good job. There were things I definitely didn't agree with. His statement that the balance board was a third console for one. Also his statment that the Virtual Console is for the core gamer (I agreed with that, but don't think they should stop with VC being the only Wii feature for core gamers). His statement that third parties should be delivering the core games, I agreed with, but it is at least partly Nintendo's responsibility to ensure that they do.
Then there were the definite positives like FF games coming to the Virtual Console (However, we want all of them here in the US just like they're getting in Japan instead of just a couple of them), finally a viable storage solution for the Wii (hopefully Nintendo will put sd card slots in there next consoles, so we won't have to download all of these games again next time), Wiiware announcements of spinoffs of FFIV, a plethora of new features for their latest handheld the DSi, and a new Zelda game for DS. All of these were wonderful announcements from Nintendo.
I think Nintendo's GDC 2009 Keynote went a long way towards making up for their E3 2008 Prsentation. Even though there were glaring omissions like the fact that still no new core games were announced for the Wii.
When you look back on it a few weeks later, what do you think of Nintendo's and Iwata's presentation at GDC 2009?
Heavens to Murgatoids.
Pixel Art can be fun.
