Nintendo E3: Can Wii Finally Play With the Big Dogs?

Nintendo was set to finish off the Press Conferences for the day and new hardware was revealed. Well, sort of along with a slew of classic Nintendo games and the promising of a new game that could pair the 3DS with Nintendo's new hardware.

Nintendo was off to a bit of a late start as Sony was yesterday evening but, for diehard Nintendo fans, it was completely worth it. Nintendo paid tribute to Zelda this year as its 25th Anniversary and there was no shortage of information on the subject starting off with a amazing symphonic performance of the Zelda theme and discussing of Skyward Sword releasing on the Wii.

There's just this sort of feel to Nintendo and their press conferences. Its a very soft and warm feel when its developers take the stage with smiles on their faces and a glow in their countenance. They're there because they love it. There's no corporate weight or stress, it seems, they're just there to have fun! Sadly, we can't same about the execs such as Fils-Aime. The business side has to come out somewhere I suppose.

I have to first make mention of Nintendo's stage setup this year as it was pretty dang impressive. I've never seen a setup from Nintendo that elaborate but, the shifting of the screen to each section was astounding. I couldn't get over that from Nintendo. It was typically this tiny little projection screen, compared to the competition, but I suppose this year with their new console and its HD capabilities, that was all able to change.

The 3DS is still going to be a hard seller for Nintendo. This year seemed like a repeat of last year with a few titles being shown and the mentioning of a possible Smash Bros game as well as Mario's 3D debut. However, the PlayStation Vita's detail's were announced at Sony's press conference yesterday and was on par with where it needed to be. The handheld boasts 5x the power of the 3DS all priced at the same as Nintendo's 3DS. The PSV is clearly more capable.

Nintendo had also briefly made mention of the Wii U but no specific detail's were given. The console was set off in the background that looks identically to the Wii with a few rounded edges. The big focus was on the new controller for the Wii U featuring a 6" touch screen. It basically is an iPad with buttons or lets go ahead and say, a gigantic DS with your HDTV being your upper screen, or maybe your 3DTV being your upper screen and your Wii U being your touch screen. Its a cool feature itself that it can become the TV screen if another wants to use it but, the PSP in some ways was capable of that as well as you'd view things through Remote Play. A simple software update could give the PlayStation Vita that same functionality.

There are a lot of concerns we have about the Wii U. The idea's definitely awesome and innovative but the controller is also extremely bulky and the buttons are small. Its as though they'd taken the DS parts and had applied them to the iPad look alike with some bumpers and trigger buttons. The analog nubs are basically a duplicate of the 3DS, which I'm not a huge fan of myself and its definitely gonna cost you. I just can't see myself playing Batman: Arkham City or Battlefield with a controller that massive.

Next, being the hardware or console itself. We really weren't given anything except a brief video of a bird flying around a Japanese village. We don't know if it will use Blu-ray technology or exactly how powerful it is. All we do know is that its on par with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and has virtually the same games. What are multiplayer games going to be like when you need to controllers likely to be really expensive?

For Nintendo gamers that just want to play their Nintendo franchises in HD, its going to work and appeal to them. Seeing Link or Mario in HD will be a hit but, it doesn't look as though Nintendo are going to be able to draw Xbox gamers or PlayStation 3 gamers away from their consoles especially with a new Halo trilogy and Sony continually cranking out their first-party games which I'm going to go ahead and say are the best when it comes to first-party. We also can't help but wonder how it will fair against the PlayStation 3 when the PlayStation 3 is coupled with the PlayStation Vita. Is the PlayStation Vita capable of duplicating this same experience? Its also worth mentioning that the Wii U controller is strictly a console controller while if Sony can duplicate the same experience with the PlayStation 3, the PlayStatio Vita is a portable handheld device allowing you to throw it in your bag and take it on the go.

I think Nintendo is going to have a difficult time marketing their new console when as of now its maybe sleightly more powerful than the PS3. At the end of the day, Nintendo had a great E3 showing and all went well. We're a little dissapointed as the boom of the new console wasn't exactly what we thought it would be. It will provide a new gaming experience but, is it enough to make a Sony gamer or an Xbox 360 gamer trade up and give up their strong hardcore gaming console exclusives? The stage was amazing but we weren't blown away with surprise announcements either.