Nintendo Responds to E3 Criticisms

Nintendo made a number of exciting announcements at E3 2015 last month, but not everyone was impressed with what the company had to show. Now, Nintendo executives Satoru Iwata (president) and Shigeru Miyamoto (managing director) have responded to criticisms about the company’s lineup.

As part of a recent shareholder meeting, the English translation of which was published Thursday, Miyamoto explained that Nintendo decided to focus on games that would have a “direct effect on our business in the near term.”

This compares to last year, when Nintendo showed off early demos of Wii U games that demonstrated the unique capabilities of the console, Miyamoto pointed out.

“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,” Miyamoto added.

At the same time, however, Miyamoto said he had a “solid feeling” that people who actually got to visit Nintendo’s booth on the E3 show floor liked what they saw and appreciated the fact that they would have to wait months–not years–to play the games. This differs from the approach of Microsoft and Sony.

“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,” he said.

Miyamoto also referenced the many new virtual reality experiences at E3 this year, also pointing out that these demos are more future-focused and are not even commercial products.

“At this year’s E3, I noticed a number of dream-like demonstrations for which the schedule and format for commercialization are unknown,” he said. “The current software for these virtual reality devices cannot be played simultaneously by a number of people, and since it is generally expected that the development for the applicable software for a high-performance device will take two to three years, there were a number of visual demonstrations for virtual reality devices.”

Also as part of the shareholder meeting, Iwata offered a similar defense of Nintendo’s E3 2015 lineup.

“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 started off.

“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.”

Some of Nintendo’s big 2015 games include Super Mario Maker, Yoshi’s Woolly World, Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes, Star Fox Zero, Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, and Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice.

Another one of Nintendo’s big E3 announcements, Metroid Prime: Federation Force, has been somewhat controversial. Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime didn’t shy away from acknowledging the pessimistic reaction of fans to the 2016 3DS game. “The reaction has been negative. There’s no sugar coating it,” Fils-Aime said in an interview.

What did you make of Nintendo’s E3 lineup this year? Let us know in the comments below.

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