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Nintendo is to abandon its traditional E3 conference style this year, in favour of hosting a few smaller events focussed on showing off its upcoming software releases, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has said.
“At E3 this year, we are not planning to launch new hardware, and our main activity at E3 will be to announce and have people experience our software,” explained Iwata during a financial results briefing. “Many people are certainly very interested in learning more about the Wii U titles that we are going to announce. We will use E3 as an ideal opportunity to talk in detail mainly about the Wii U titles that we are going to launch this year, and we also plan to make it possible for visitors to try the games immediately. As a brand new challenge, we are working to establish a new presentation style for E3.
“First, we decided not to host a large-scale presentation targeted at everyone in the international audience where we announce new information as we did in the past.
“Instead, at the E3 show this year, we are planning to host a few smaller events that are specifically focused on our software line-up for the US market. There will be one closed event for American distributors, and we will hold another closed hands-on experience event, for mainly the Western gaming media.”
Whilst these events will be behind closed doors it does appear that Nintendo will be bringing information direct to consumers too.
“Apart from these exclusive events for visitors, we are continuing to investigate ways to deliver information about our games directly to our home audience around the time of E3. We will share more information about them once they have officially been decided,” said Iwata.
He added: “During the E3 period, we will utilize our direct communication tools, such as Nintendo Direct, to deliver information to our Japanese audience, including those who are at this financial briefing, mainly focusing on the software that we are going to launch in Japan, and we will take the same approach outside Japan for the overseas fans as well.”
Expect Nintendo to show off the likes of Pikmin 3, Wii U Fit, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, plus new Mario and Mario Kart games.
Microsoft and Sony are expected to go big at E3 this year, each showing off their next generation consoles – Microsoft will reveal its next generation Xbox on May 21.
Will E3 be the same without a major conference from Nintendo? Do think Nintendo is scared of being overshadowed by Sony and Microsoft? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: Nintendo
