After what some considered to be one of the best E3 showings in years, many viewers voiced their disappointment with Nintendo’s showing at the annual trade show. Nintendo president Saturo Iwata and managing director Shigeru Miyamoto have now taken to responding to some of the fan criticism received by their E3 digital event.
As spoken during a recent shareholder meeting, Miyamoto iterated that by the company focusing on games that would be released before the end of 2015, players received a message that Nintendo presented a small amount of games for their platforms, as compared to the previous year where they showed games that were still in earlier phases of development.
“Since we mainly included the software that would be released before the end of this year, the entire software lineup appeared to be small,” he said. “And because we did not include a number of third-party titles, we must’ve ended up giving people the impression that not so many titles will be released on our platforms in future.”
“As for future titles, since we only introduced the software to be sold early next year, we acknowledge the criticism from our fans that we failed to excite them with new proposals,” he added.
Miyamoto argued that where Nintendo truly did shine was on the show floor. Miyamoto said he had a “solid feeling” that thse who visited and played games at the Nintendo booth extensively liked and enjoyed what they got to play, as opposed to Sony and Microsoft booths which they claim did not include as many playable demos.
“Other than Nintendo, the major hardware manufacturers, Sony and Microsoft, also had booths, and I got the general impression that they were showcasing not only the products for this year but also many products for next year or the year after and, because of that, introductions for many of their software titles were done visually, not with playable demos,” Minamoto said.
Iwata acknowledged that many fans had expressed their disappointment with the conference.
“We recognize that we have let down a number of the online viewers of this year’s E3, especially the avid Nintendo fans, because we did not show what they had expected,” he said. “On the other hand, since E3 was originally a U.S. trade show, when we consider what kind of messages we should dispatch and in what fashion, while we have to take into consideration the impression that we may give to people outside the U.S., we have been very mindful about how we can maximize our immediate business in the U.S. this year.”
Nintendo’s E3 digital event included Star Fox Zero, Zelda: Legend of Zelda: TriForce Heroes, Yoshi’s Woolly World, Metroid Prime: Federation Force, Super Mario Maker, and more.
How did you feel about Nintendo’s E3 presence? Do you think it was slim on content and surprises, or do you feel the Nintendo executives’ defense is justified? Let us know in the comments below.