A detailed look at what happened to Nintendo at E3 this year.

Author's Note: This blog post is the second part in the two-part series called "Nintendo At E3 2015." To read Part 1, click here!

The games were there, but at the same time, they were not.

That pretty much sums up my thoughts on Nintendo’s showing at E3 2015. It was not as if they had nothing to show; Nintendo’s upcoming release schedule is, from an objective point of view, pretty good. The sheer quantity of titles coming out in the next twelve months is bewildering for a single game publisher. But the story of the show was not about what Nintendo did show, but what they did not.

It started off so strong. Before E3 even began, Nintendo went ahead and made several announcements. They showed off new maps for Splatoon. The presented new content for Smash Brothers, including the addition of Roy and Ryu. They announced—intentionally or not—a 3DS port of Hyrule Warriors. It seemed as if they were getting some things out of the way in preparation for a megaton announcement at their big Digital Event later that week. Think of them as appetizers before a main course—really, really good appetizers at that.

The return of Nintendo World Championships on Saturday kicked off with little fanfare, but soon turned into an unforgettable spectacle of surprises and pure entertainment. With a wide variety of different games and some genuinely impressive gaming performances in the final few rounds, the tournament itself was a big success. But Nintendo also took the opportunity to make some big game announcements as well, such as Earthbound Beginnings and Blast Ball. And Reggie stayed true to his promise to return to the stage this year and challenge Smash veteran HungryBox to a 1 versus 1 free-for-all live on-stage. It was pure fan-service, and we all ate it up.

This was a great start to what would end up being an underwhelming E3 for Nintendo.

By now, you will have known what happened next. Nintendo spent their 1-hour long Digital Event Tuesday morning announcing a handful of titles. Some seemed genuinely great—Star Fox Zero looked particularly impressive and Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam felt like a fever dream for fans of the two Mario RPG series. However, many of the announcements felt underwhelming, with games such as Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival and Metroid Prime: Federation Force sparking genuine outrage among fans.

At the end of the day, the reaction towards Nintendo’s E3 2015 lineup was fairly negative. But why? Was it because Nintendo did not have enough games to show? I would argue no. Here is Nintendo’s lineup through the end of 2015:

• Super Mario Maker (Wii U, Sep. 11)
• Skylanders Superchargers (3DS & Wii U, Sep. 20)
• Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer (3DS, Sep. 25)
• LEGO Dimensions (Wii U, Sep. 27)
• Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash (3DS, Oct. 9)
• Rodea The Sky Soldier (3DS & Wii U, Oct. 13)
• Yoshi’s Woolly World (Wii U, Oct. 16)
• Just Dance 2015 (Wii U, Oct. 20)
• Guitar Hero Live (Wii U, Oct. 20)
• Xenoblade Chronicles X (Wii U, Dec. 2015)
• The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes (3DS, Fall)
• Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon (3DS, Holiday)
• Star Fox Zero (Wii U, Holiday)
• Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice (3DS, Holiday)
• Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival (Wii U, Holiday)
• Mario Tennis Ultra Smash (Wii U, Holiday)
• Yo-kai Watch (3DS, Holiday)
• Devil’s Third (Wii U, 2015)
• Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water (Wii U, 2015)
• Project CARS (Wii U, 2015)
• Harvest Moon: Seeds of Memories (Wii U, 2015)
• Project X Zone 2 (3DS, 2015)
• The Legend of Legacy (3DS, 2015)

And here are some titles available in early 2016:

• Hyrule Warriors Legends (3DS)
• Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (3DS)
• Genei Ibun Roku #FE (Wii U)
• Fire Emblem Fates (3DS)
• Metroid Prime Federation Force (3DS)
• Bravely Second (3DS)
• Mario & Sonic At The Rio 2016 Games (Wii U)

This is not a bad lineup. In fact, I would argue that it is quite good. We are getting Mario Maker, a new Yoshi game, two Animal Crossing spin-off titles, a cooperative Zelda adventure, a Star Fox, and Xenoblade (of which I will personally sink a hundred hours into), plus a bunch of smaller and more experimental titles, all by the end of this year. But like I said earlier, the problem was not so much what Nintendo did show, but what they did not.

Nintendo, pretty vocally, stated that their E3 presentation this year would focus on titles that will be available within the next twelve months. This is in stark contrast to Sony’s presentation, which largely consisted of titles that would not be available until mid-to-late 2016. But when you compare the reaction between two conferences, Sony’s presentation received high praise while Nintendo’s hardly saw any praise at all.

In retrospect, Nintendo probably should not have limited this year’s E3 showing to only titles coming out in 2015 and early 2016. At the end of the day, Nintendo’s goals were not in line with what their audience wanted. Had they shown Zelda or Retro’s new title, perhaps they could have turned what ended up being a lackluster video presentation to something truly memorable. E3 is not just about what is coming out in the next twelve months, but also what what to expect in the months that follow.

This whole problem is perhaps a reaction to an issue that Nintendo has been experiencing these past few years: they announce stuff way too early. If you take a look at the lineup I listed above, three games—Xenoblade Chronciles X, Yoshi’s Woolly World, and #FE—were titles that were announced in January of 2013. These are games that we have known about for almost three years, and they just now are getting release dates! Yes, all of these games look amazing, but it is hard to get excited for them at E3 when you have known about them for so long.

It is obvious that Nintendo wanted to avoid this problem with Zelda, which is why they did not end up showing it off this year. Alternatively, you could argue that the biggest mistake about Zelda was showing it off last year. In order to prevent this problem from getting worse, Nintendo had to take a risk and hold back on discussing Zelda for Wii U until further notice. For now, it hurt them. In the long term, perhaps it was for the better.

Moving along, another interesting issue that Nintendo had to deal with this year was just how awkward their previous release schedule ended up being. Japan, for various reasons, received many of the titles announced last week already, or will be receiving them fairly soon. This prompted a statement by Iwata, who apologized to Japanese fans on Twitter. A very strange predicament indeed, which is why we did not see much from either Fire Emblem or Xenoblade aside from a brief trailer, but it does show that Iwata is, even in Japan, monitoring the reaction of his audience very closely.

Speaking of the Digital Event, it felt like this year, Nintendo spent too much time on games that did not need it and spent too little time on games that did. Perhaps they put too much trust on Treehouse Live, which was a huge success last year, to explain everything after the fact. And indeed, some of the more interesting details emerged throughout the next few days, including who is developing Star Fox Zero (Platinum Games), the story behind Triforce Heroes (some weird fashion fetish thing), and the price of Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival (it is free). There was even gameplay footage of #FE, which shocked everyone because the trailer for that game made it look like a concept artist vomited all over the screen.

Should Nintendo have spent more time during their presentation to elaborate on their games? Probably. But given the constraints that they had (remember that Square Enix’s conference was right after) there was not much wiggle room left anyways. Regardless, perhaps if they restructured the Digital Event just a tiny bit, cut out some of the fluff, and put a little bit more gameplay in there, it could have become a better show as a whole.

As we move ahead to E3 2016, there are a few things to keep in mind. For one, Nintendo is not dying. That much should be obvious. But with the NX on the horizon and Nintendo’s mobile “platform” launching later this year, change is happening at Nintendo. A transformation, if you will.

Overall, I felt that Nintendo’s showing at E3 this year was so-so. It was not terrible (remember Pac-Man Versus and Wii Music?) but was wholly unimpressive and very, very average. But, looking at their lineup, they have some great games coming this year, games that, at the end of the day, I will buy, and I will likely enjoy. A lot is to be learned about what went wrong with E3 this year, and hopefully Nintendo will see that and work on improving their show for next year.

To close, I would like to ask: what Nintendo games are you looking forward to the most this year? I personally will pick up Xenoblade Chronicles X on launch day and pay the hell out of it over winter break. Ahh it feels good to still be a student!