Lifergeek.com

“And here they come now rounding the first bend approaching the half-mile marker, On The Back Of Natal still running strong, and Nintendo’s Vitality’s Run is trying to make a push.  Can Vitality’s Run get ahead of the strong lead set by the front runner.  Wait a second, something seems wrong, it looks like Vitality’s Run has broken a leg, no strike that, all 4 legs.  Looks like she will get trampled by Sony’s PSP-a-Go-Go.  Can PSP-a-Go-Go do what Vitality’s Run could not, can she over take On The Back Of Natal?”

So out comes Nintendo and practically trips over their own feet.  Clocking in at only a little over 1 hour long, the media briefing showed exactly Microsoft’s “showing not telling” mentality worked.  The entire thing reminded me of a conference where they were announcing big new consoles, except the were practically the same videos for the previous consoles.  Let’s check my details as I get to the point in the same fashion they did, quick simple and boring.

Presentation 5/10 – Ok Nintendo this is where you dropped the ball.  You focused on the media in attendance at the venue I get that, but you still missed something huge.  I understand you are known for screwing this up, but the conference was broad casted live to the internet.  You again missed the online opportunity to really broadcast your new wares.  No special guests, boring talk about numbers that I doubt even the Media that was there cared about.  I can’t expect that anyone left that room saying “I have to go post all this exciting stuff right now.”  And you can’t make a dramatic reveal of something we already know about when someone has already trumped you and expect that to be exciting.  Just poor performance.

Announcements 6/10 - A few new games I haven’t seen before, almost everything else though has already been talked about somewhere.  The highlights were simple, a 4-player co-op Super Mario Bros.,  A new Mario RPG, Super Mario Galaxy 2…Mario and Luigi minis march again…ok way too much Mario. New Metroid game is coming out being developed by Team Ninja which could make for a very good game.  The trailer definitely showed both classic Metroid and Team Ninja Stylings.  And now the lead weight.  I tweeted it, and I still believe this.  If it wasn’t the Nintendo press conference, that image of a pulse sensor hooked up to a Wiimote, I would swear it was photo shopped, like a bad prank.  Now I know this shouldn’t go in the announcements section as we have known about this for awhile, but the way they presented it I feel it should go here.  Nintendo treated their new Motion Plus as this amazing new feature, that would change how we played the Wii.  It would allow for accurate motion detection, allow you to control your character in game…wait this is what it could do…oh it does it BETTER!  Which is funny cause the video makes it look like all this is only possible now which says to me Nintendo got it wrong in the first place.

Games 7/10 – The games look good, the new Super Mario Bros for the Wii with 4 player combat looks fun.  A Nice Crystal Chronicles game from Square Enix.  Metroid looked nice.  Wii Sports Resort had some nice gameplay to it.  Sadly presentation is killing this section for me.  The games all LOOK good, and on the surface I have to give it an appropriate rating but the truth is I don’t feel excited about ANY of these games.

Overall 6/10 – I said I want to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt, last year they announced Wii Music and it bombed, ok maybe the Vitality sensor might work out, but I feel no excitement or anything towards it, or anything else Nintendo put out today.

Ok Sony’s conference is starting in a few minutes, so check back after that.