Nintendo's E3 conference could have been better, says Satoru Iwata

By Ellie Gibson Published 10 August, 2009

"Important lesson" has been learned.

Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata has said he reckons the company's E3 2009 conference could have been better.

He was speaking during a financial results briefing, as reported by Nintendo Everything. "As for the media briefing at E3, of course we had many internal discussions after that," he said. "Honestly speaking, none of us at Nintendo thought that our presentation at E3 was as good as it could have been. It is apparent that we could not fully convey the charm of our products."

Previously, Iwata said, Nintendo was successful in showing off the likes of Wii Sports and Wii Fit "since it was something no one had ever seen or imagined before". But New Super Mario Bros. Wii was a bit tricker: "Four people lined up with Wii Remotes was not a scene that no one had ever seen. Those who actually had the chance to play understood how the game would change with four people playing simultaneously, but we could not address that fun sentiment at the media briefing."

In these days of webcasts and whatnot Nintendo needs to find "a better way to demonstrate the products' appeal", according to Iwata.

"In that sense, we learned many lessons from this year’s E3 show," he said. "After the media briefing, we had a domestic trade briefing in Japan. There we disclosed the black Wii console and red Nintendo DSi, which made a big buzz among game fans. It is also an important lesson for next year."

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About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (42) Latest comment 3 years ago

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  • Xerx3s #1 3 years ago

    "In that sense, we learned many lessons from this year’s E3 show,"

    You say that every year and every year is far worse than the last. It became unbelievable years ago.

  • Alterego-X #2 3 years ago

    The Vitality sensor was badly presented. It might become as popular as the Balance Board, but since they didn't show any software, we have no idea what it does exactly.

  • Milk #3 3 years ago

    Yes, it was cringe-worthy.

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #4 3 years ago

    It reads to me as - 'now our sales have peaked we now actally with bother marketing the wii as a format it was ment to be in the first place, a games console, but we are still going to make your buy every little gadget we can think of to actal play them'

    Dispite sadly what Nintendo think they are, they aren't the gaming gaints they used to be, once the 'family market' grows out of the 'wii fits' and shovelware all Nintendo had to fall back on was it's SNES/N64 era fanbase - which it snubbed so long ago..

    It's gonna take more then another mario/zelda and even the droolworthy combo of Team Ninja and Metroid to win the gamers back on a permite basis, the money printing has stopped - can they get get any honer they had? Kinda hope they do
    Edited by 2 at 10/08/09 @ 09:16

  • Alterego-X #5 3 years ago

    This year's E3 was definitely better than last years's, but it still had some flaws in the presentation.

  • Xerx3s #6 3 years ago

    "Oh I'm sure people would have been more impressed by a Black Wii and a Red DSi. "

    Heh. ;)

  • Darren #7 3 years ago

    After the last two Nintendo E3 presentations, I refused to watch this year's because they tend to be 95% "filler" (since I have no interest in DS or casual games) and only 5% worth of useful/interesting info. From what I can gather from reading comments post-presentation, this year's 5% was the announcement of new Zelda and Mario (a.k.a. Galaxy sequel) games, which was nice to hear confirmation of but not totally unexpected really. The bad news is that both games are likely many, many months away and certainly not out this year which is what I wanted to hear. :(

  • AphoticCosmos #8 3 years ago

    Compared to both Microsoft and Sony's conferences, Nintendo's conference was pure garbage. Microsoft's was funny in some places, professional in most. Sony's was both funny and professional in most places, if a bit too long for my liking, Nintendo had pretty much nothing to say that would interest most of the people watching.

    The other major players learned to drop the figures, charts and most of the market speak a few years ago. Get with the times, Nintendo. I mean, even the EA conference was better, and by a mile.

  • xmifi #9 3 years ago

    The problem is that the majority of those people who buy a wii don't have a clue what E3 is. That's why Nintendo put's ass to sleep with bad shows every year.

  • teabagger #10 3 years ago

    I know mentioning 'core' and 'casual' markets is kind of tedious, but...

    In chasing the casual market they've alienated themselves from the core. Sure they've made a lot of money in the short term but it's the core that will continue to spend a lot of money throughout their lives and I wonder if a lot of their target market turn out to be fairly transient.

    As for E3, I'm just not convinced it's the right platform to promote their brand any more. I think their target audience lay elsewhere. E3 remains heavily focused on the core market which Nintendo simply isn't really selling to anymore.

  • WinterSnowblind #11 3 years ago

    Nintendo's improved from last years, but only barley.

    Microsoft and Sony didn't spend half the show talking about numbers and how awesome they were, whenever they did hype up themselves or their systems they always showed the games or the technology to prove it. Both of them had an awesome collection of games on show and showed a good amount of ingame footage, which is what we want to see..

    I did enjoy a few of the trailers they showed, but if they had actually shown us gameplay footage of Metroid, Golden Sun, Mario Galaxy 2, etc, it would have been much more impressive. Their show was just underwhelming compared to MS's which came first, and then Sony's which came shortly after, they were sandwhiched in the middle.

  • LazyDan #12 3 years ago

    Someone should set up Nintendo-article Bingo.

    Count the amount of times the same buzzwords/phrases appear in the same bandwagony opinions: 'alienate', 'core', 'casual', 'gathering dust', 'waggle' among many, many others.

    Nintendo are putting out the exact same quantity of AAA games they always have - the only time they put out a mental amount of their own games was in the NES days, which I'd imagine most whiners here weren't even born for. The difference with the Wii is that nowadays they have the shovelware 3rd party games the PS2 had, and Sony most likely wish they still had.

    I don't see what was wrong with this year's presentation. They put out 2 new Marios, showed off Wii Sports Resort which was due and turned out to be excellent, a new Metroid with Team Ninja and started word of the new Zelda. They're all old franchises sure, but people sure were bitching and moaning before E3 when we didn't know any of them were in the works. Nintendo can't win with the 'core' gamers. Which is you lot. I thought I was counted as a 'core' gamer, but apparently I'm excluded from this group for being interested in more than FPS games and not being against any and all new ideas or any game that even slightly looks like it might be enjoyed by someone who isn't a massive nerd. And thank God for that.

  • spekkeh #13 3 years ago

    Compared to both Microsoft and Sony's conferences, Nintendo's conference was pure garbage. Microsoft's was funny in some places, professional in most. Sony's was both funny and professional in most places, if a bit too long for my liking, Nintendo had pretty much nothing to say that would interest most of the people watching.

    Apples and Oranges.

    While it's true that MS and Sony's presentations were better from a corporate marketing perspective, I was very much interested in what Nintendo had to say about Metroid Gaiden, Mario Galaxy 2, Mario Bros Wii and WiiMotionPlus games (and later on Zelda). Much more so than MS's conference which had no new noteworthy games at all, even though the x360 is currently my console of choice.

  • spekkeh #14 3 years ago

    Microsoft and Sony didn't spend half the show talking about numbers and how awesome they were

    Well duh.

    "We're awesome, being as we're absolutely dwarfed by our competitor"

  • teabagger #15 3 years ago

    @ LazyDan. It's not meant as a bitch-fest towards any platform... but whether you use the terms core/casual or not Nintendo have targeted a different market to Sony and Microsoft. In the context of the article, E3 generally caters to and is attended by the more traditional-minded market, i.e not necessarily the primary market Nintendo is aiming at. Hardly surprising then, that the conference is met with a 'meh' from a lot of these people.

    Time will tell how many of the 'new gamers' (or casual, whatever you want to term them) will repeat buy on Nintendo's next generation of hardware, whereas the traditional audience are extremely likely to continue to invest in new platforms when they come along.

  • Burkey123 #16 3 years ago

    Okay it probably wasn't as good as Sony and Microsoft's conferences but they announced Super Mario Galaxy 2, a sequel to the best game this gen, so I'm happy.

  • kinky_mong #17 3 years ago

    This year's presentation was far better than the disaster of last year's. At least they announced some interesting games in Mario Galaxy 2 and a new Metroid.

  • Xerx3s #18 3 years ago

    Best game this gen? I think most people will disagree. Good perhaps, best is simply relative.

  • sneetch #19 3 years ago

    @Xerx3s
    "In that sense, we learned many lessons from this year’s E3 show,"

    You say that every year and every year is far worse than the last. It became unbelievable years ago.

    I agree - in general - but you have to admit that 2009's show beat the crap out of 2008's: it's still a long, long, long way from excellent but was a definite improvement. As for 2010, I've no doubt it'll be much the same as this years along with the same type of follow up "it'll be better next time" announcements from them.

    For a company that claims to learn a lot from each E3 they do seem intent on repeating the same mistakes again and again, for one thing it's a "show and tell" kind of show not just "tell" talking about products without even a screen shots or some concept art doesn't cut it anymore - having Miyamoto's name loosely attached to a product no longer guarantees that we'll be amazed by it - I think they've burnt out a lot of the industry's good-will over the last few years if nothing else, having missed the mark for so many of us in the recent past.

    To be honest, he would have been hard pressed to convey the "charm" of their products to the E3 audience, as they've seen it all before. Metroid Gaiden was the biggest news for me, the only thing I can clearly remember about the presentation and the one thing that surprised me, oh there's apparently a Zelda in the works and another Mario Galaxy (which I'll snap up sight unseen like the first one) but that was the one thing that "perked me up" in the presentation. The one place where I saw a new direction.

    I'm looking forward to the intro for Mario Galaxy 2, Mario flying in Toad's spaceship towards a planet, Bullet Bills streaking past and the voice-over begins.

    "Platforming... platforming never-a changes. I've-a Shine Get a thousand-a times and it'sa never enough."

  • canIdoyabombsforya #20 3 years ago

    @teabagger "Time will tell how many of the 'new gamers' (or casual, whatever you want to term them) will repeat buy on Nintendo's next generation of hardware, whereas the traditional audience are extremely likely to continue to invest in new platforms when they come along".

    Why do they have to buy Nintendo products? What you fanboys dont appreciate, is that new, casual and veteran gamers being brought into the hobby, should be a good thing for everybody in the industry. If you dont like pointing device/motion games then buy the other consoles instead. Just as many people have switched back from PCs to consoles for the comfort and ease on offer. It's important that all types of gamer are catered for in the market and things are still evolving. So hats off to Nintendo.
    There's no reason why the new gamers, can't go on and learn to play with a traditional gamepad and fall in love with high res life like graphics, just like we did from a one button joystick.
    Investing in a new platform? What kind of ###ocks talk is that? These are toys we are supposed to have fun with.
    In the old days we had 50-100 consoles to chose from, all the companies made profit on their hardware and we played them for hours on end. Video games had a bigger percentage of the Toy and Game industry than they do today. They were not investments, no more than a new football at the begining of summer was.

  • sneetch #21 3 years ago

    @canIdoyabombsforya @teabagger "Time will tell how many of the 'new gamers' (or casual, whatever you want to term them) will repeat buy on Nintendo's next generation of hardware, whereas the traditional audience are extremely likely to continue to invest in new platforms when they come along".

    Why do they have to buy Nintendo products?

    Any electronics manufacturer wants repeat customers, from Nintendo's point of view it'd be desirable if their current customers bought a Wii 2 (or whatever it'll be called). Teabaggers point is (I believe) that a lot of them will not, they're flavour-of-the-month-gamers, who are playing games now because it's "cool" and everyone's doing it but not dyed-in-the-wool gamers who are likely to keep going with games into the foreseeable future so therefore Nintendo need another source of customers.

    Basically I believe he's saying: a lot of the people (not all, obviously) who own a Wii won't be all that interested in buying another console in the future. They're not even going to be tracking that sort of stuff.

    I for one agree: it's pretty obvious that if you've bought a Wii and, say, only bought two games for it then those two games are probably enough for your needs. Why buy a whole new console in that case?

    In the old days we had 50-100 consoles to chose from

    Huh? What days were those? I must have been in a coma or something. Did Bobby step out of the shower at the end of that era? ;)

  • SFG_Clan #22 3 years ago

    I think Nintendo was by far the worst, in my opinion they completley lost all credibility. They were too busy trying for the casual market when they were in a conference hall full of gamers, not children and grannys. Even Sonys prsentation was better and all they did was show their Sony wang *cough* wii remote *cough* and their exclusives which everyone knows about already.

  • matrim83 #23 3 years ago

    The woman who was doing the presentation was god awful.

    Edit: Spelling.
    Edited by 1 at 10/08/09 @ 13:46

  • Xerx3s #24 3 years ago

    sneetch: Depends. If you look for mario, zelda, metroid, etc. then sure. I'm not the first to sneer at sequels but after so many years I'd like to see something new every once in a while. When you look at ms and sony, they release at least a couple new IP's every gen. Nintendo has a different approach and attach known quantities to new idea's. While this is a good business decision and clearly works for them, it just doesn't do it for me any more.
    So if you look forward to something like mario, it's all good but if you look for something different, it's rather depressing. Imo, their N64 years where far more interesting (partly due to rare I might add).

    "Huh? What days were those? I must have been in a coma or something. Did Bobby step out of the shower at the end of that era? ;) "

    A bit of an overstatement but still true. Before the 90's there where dozens of consoles.
    Edited by 1 at 10/08/09 @ 13:36

  • OldK1ngCole #25 3 years ago

    I think he's said this after every E3 in recent memory.

  • Alterego-X #26 3 years ago

    I think, Iwata was talking about the presentation's style, and not the "hardcoreness" of their lineup.


    It is funny how all analysts, publishers journalists, and gamers keep buzzing "hardcore", "casual", " gimmick", "disruption", "innovation", "waggle", "demographics", "soccer moms" and most importantly, "console wars", while Nintendo simply tries to make games that entertain the possible widest audience, and they succeed.

    The idea that "casual gamers" will leave Nintendo, is ridiculous. First of all, they are not that casual. Wii's attachment rate is on par with the PS3's, and Wii Sports, for example is played for 34 hours on an average system.
    [link url=http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008 /11/04/wii-software-stats-update-november/
    ]http://mu ltiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/11/0...[/link]

    They don't buy much less games than us, and they don't play them for less time, or even shorter sessions. They just happen to be interested in different themes. As long as Nintendo makes games that entertain them, they will buy them. And if Nintendo makes a console that holds new values for them, they will buy it. (graphics probably won't do it, so they need to be innovative again)

  • sneetch #27 3 years ago

    @canIdoyabombsforya and Xerx3s

    Holy crap! Of course you're right. Sorry, I didn't remember most of them. Getting too damn old for this.

    http://en .wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vid...

  • MORZTAN #28 3 years ago

    "(SMG) Best game this gen? I think most people will disagree. Good perhaps, best is simply relative."

    Everything is relative but maybe apart from the story of Super Mario Galaxy, the game is far superior to anything else out there. Graphic/style, gameplay, music( Ohh, the lovely music!!), challenge (Luigi coins, anyone) and replayability.

    SMG is king :)

  • spekkeh #29 3 years ago

    When you look at ms and sony, they release at least a couple new IP's every gen. Nintendo has a different approach and attach known quantities to new idea's.

    Like Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Wii Music, Disaster: Day of Crisis and Excite Truck aren't new IPs? Microsoft publishes a lot of new IPs, but companies like Bioware, Epic games etc can hardly be called subsidiaries. When it comes to inhouse development, there's not much in the way of new IPs. Sony is doing a commendable job this generation I must say (and see where it gets them :( ).
    Edited by 1 at 10/08/09 @ 15:11

  • AphoticCosmos #30 3 years ago

    "Everything is relative but maybe apart from the story of Super Mario Galaxy, the game is far superior to anything else out there. Graphic/style, gameplay, music( Ohh, the lovely music!!), challenge (Luigi coins, anyone) and replayability.

    SMG is king :)"

    . . . in your opinion, is what you forgot to add on there.

    In my opinion, there are few games I would rather not play than ANOTHER mario money-milker.

  • spekkeh #31 3 years ago

    In my opinion, there are few games I would rather not play than ANOTHER mario money-milker.

    To me, that sounds like "In my opinion, there are few compositions I would rather not listen to than ANOTHER Bach money-milker.".

  • teabagger #32 3 years ago

    @ canIdoyabombsforya. Not sure what exactly you're taking as fanboy-ism to be honest. I work in the industry so it's in my interest that Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony are all successful and continue to a) keep existing target markets happy while b) trying to expand the market, regardless of what I, personally, choose to put in my living room.

    Sneetch summarised exactly what I was trying to get at. Nintendo have done amazingly well at bringing new people into gaming, but it'll be a while before we know how many of those will continue to be gamers and buy new hardware as it comes out. That's what I meant when I said 'investing in new platforms', which the more traditional market tends to do anyway. I hardly think I can be accused of being a fanboy off the back of that.

  • electrolite #33 3 years ago

    @ Xerx3s

    "You say that every year and every year is far worse than the last. It became unbelievable years ago. "

    I have to disagree on that. I doubt they could ever do any worse than last year.

  • KrissAkabusi #34 3 years ago

    "Time will tell how many of the 'new gamers' (or casual, whatever you want to term them) will repeat buy on Nintendo's next generation of hardware, whereas the traditional audience are extremely likely to continue to invest in new platforms when they come along."

    So what has happened with all the PS2 owners who didn't buy PS3? I reckon Sony got it really right with the PS2, they served the core well, and the core in the main have flicked them off for the 360. The core will hop in bed with whichever tart is offering them the best lay. Console monogamy isn't that common among gamers, and nor should it be.

  • electrolite #35 3 years ago

    "Someone should set up Nintendo-article Bingo.

    Count the amount of times the same buzzwords/phrases appear in the same bandwagony opinions: 'alienate', 'core', 'casual', 'gathering dust', 'waggle' among many, many others. "


    @LazyDan. Spot on. The anguished cries of the self-proclaimed 'hardcore' start to look like Lemmings racing each other off a cliff as you read the comments on a Wii article and they all fall over themselves to say something more ridiculous than the last post.

  • teabagger #36 3 years ago

    @ KrissAkabusi - You're absolutely right re PS2 ->360, but the point is that they're still spending money on gaming. It doesn't really matter what platform they move to or if they stick with the same one. The important thing is that we can find a way to keep new gamers, gamers, and keep existing gamers happy.

  • teabagger #37 3 years ago

    Being anything other than gushing on a forum when it comes to anything Nintendo goes down about as well as shouting that you've shagged everyone's mum, and sister, and nan.

    Ah well.

  • BartonFink #38 3 years ago

    Bloody hell understatement of the year.

  • smelly #39 3 years ago

    dont they say this every year?

  • teabagger #40 3 years ago

    Group A = People who are serial gamers, who keep up with new hardware/software on any platform both in terms of reading information and in purchasing consistently from one generation to the next. Over a large sample would likely bias towards more traditional game types.

    Group B = People who are new to gaming, don't have years of familiarity with keypad so value more accessible interfaces (Wii provides this brilliantly), don't follow gaming press or have awareness of upcoming hardware/software/developments etc. etc. and probably don't really care. Strong bias towards accessible games and lifestyle games over more traditional types. No idea yet what percentage will be retained as gamers as new hardware generations appear.

    It's hardly fanboyism to point out the bleeding obvious - that is Sony and MS platforms cater more towards group A and Nintendo's more towards group B.

    Going back to the article, given that E3 is geared more towards group A and is covered by the gaming press the readership of is largely group A, Nintendo is always going to have a bit of a hard time there.

  • FenderMaster #41 3 years ago

    as bad as it was, the annoucement of the new Metroid just about salvaged some respect

    2008 on the other hand, had no redemption

    "we haven't forgotten our hardcore fans! This holiday season we're bringing out... ANIMAL CROSSING: CITY FOLKS"

    [link url=http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=NNHhXCgUcXo
    ]http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=NNHhXCgUcXo
    [/link]

    hmm...

  • N.A.T.O #42 3 years ago

    Thought it was a more than adequate E3. Metroid and NSMB look ace, and far more interesting than anything Sony and MS mustered.