I thought maybe it would be better to have a seperate thread just for Nintendo E3 stuff. There has been a few news stories in the past couple of days I found interesting.

Nintendo officially announces partnership with GameSpy for online gaming. "With minimum setup procedures, Nintendo DS owners will be able to enjoy Wi-Fi gaming just as easily as if they were playing with their friends in the same room," explains Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales & marketing. "To realize this simple and seamless transition to Wi-Fi gaming, we're partnering with one of the leaders in the multiplayer gaming world. Accessing the service will require no added Nintendo subscription charges, whether users hook up using a home broadband Wi-Fi connection or access a Wi-Fi hotspot at a coffee shop, library or elsewhere. It doesn't get any easier than that." (link)

Mario128 WILL be shown at E3 (according to IGN). Apparently they know something, because in their "E3 2005: Our Most Anticipated Games" feature they state: "For the record, Mario 128 will make an appearance at this year's E3. Nintendo's Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Reggie Fils-Aime, has admitted as much." (link)

Revolution to be released in SUMMER of 2006? According to Gamespot, one of Nintendo's hardware vendors may have spilled the beans about Revolution's release date. Summer 2006 instead of the 2006 holiday season (which is when PS3 is rumored to be released). I guess they're trying to get a jump on Sony this time. (link)

Nintendo might unveil a new GBA, but it's not what you think. According to the reputable source GamesIndustry.biz, Nintendo will indeed unveil something new for the Game Boy Advance. It will not be the "GBA2" as past rumors have speculated, rather an update to the existing system. The article suggests this could be build-in wireless networking or a device similar to the Play-Yan integrated into the system. (link)

Hmm...Interesting. Excited about the wireless online play. Hopefully it will work with existing games as well as future ones.

Is Mario 128 a GC game or Revolution? My bet is on Revolution.
I don't know if they could really come out in summer 06. Maybe that is to give themselves a buffer of a few months for delays.

Do they really need to release another GBA? Won't this compete with the DS? I think that wouldn't be a really good move.

I don't get the GBA deal either. Releasing something to compete with the PSP I understand if it is a true GameCube graphics portable, but simply a third version of the GBA is pointless.

Wifi and Animal Crossing is sounding good. the day it comes out I will buy a DS. I also would like to see Castlevania DS.

I'm mainly looking forward to Zelda right now. I got a chance to see some of the new screens and it looks awesome! But now that Mario 128 is going to be shown my intrest in that is piqued.

the last bullet is a little misleading. At first they say "Nintendo will show a new GBA!" but then in the reading it clearly says "its not a new GBA." I'm guessing it might be the GBA camera? Or wifi bridge?

I think Nintendo is only aiming for some of the market the PSP is getting with its non-gaming abilities without upgrading their hardware yet. While I am sure a new Gameboy will be down the road, there is still a lot of sales and development with the current model going on. No reason to ditch current hardware and move on unless necessary or until they exhaust what they want to do with the GBA.

I can see adding MP3 support to the GBA, but its screen is pretty low res to use for video. That is not going to compare very well to the video playback of the PSP.

Hopefully though it is just an add on and not a redesigned model.

IGN also has the report about the summer 2006 date, however it states in this article also that PS3 is now scheduled for a 1st Quarter 2006 release. If this is true about PS3 then Nintendo would almost HAVE to come out by summer 2006 at the latest and it will once again be the last out the gates for the console wars. Personally I am not worried about this though since this time around I will not be buying a system on a release day for any console.

I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune next week but I'm only mildly interested in what's known to be at Nintendo's show. I just started playing Mario Sunshine so I have a slight interest in the new Mario. The only thing I'm hoping for on the new Zelda is that whatever they show puts my mind at ease that this game isn't going to end up some shitty Legend of Zelda: Warrior Extreme! game.

Is it too much to ask to have a surprise final 2D Metroid on the GBA?

From the preview in the new EGM I don't think Zelda will be "extreme" at all.

Just more realistic graphics and an older link, seems like it will be on par with the second half of Ocarina of Time.

There's still fishing, you heard cows into a barn on the horse, etc. Seems like it will pretty much be the same type of Zelda game as always just with more realistic graphics.

I think Nintendo is in the best spot to surpise people at E3. Most of the hardware specs for the 360 have already leaked so no big surprise there. If their system is as revolutionary as they say it is, Nintendo could easily steal some thunder from MS, which is what they need to do. Unfortunately I think they will drop the ball, again. Hopefully I am wrong though.

I think Nintendo is in a 'make or break' mode for consoles. If they don't do something to gain market share, they are going to fall the way of SEGA. Microsoft can afford to fight against Sony for many years (as they showed us with Xbox), but Nintendo can't afford to dump millions of dollars into a 3rd place system again. Especially since Sony is coming into the portable realm to steal some of their thunder.

Please. Boy you sure love riding the hype machine.

As much as it pains me to say it, it's not hype, Sony has first place and will have it until they do something stupid.

Just like Nintendo before they fucked it up by backing out of the partnership with Sony and then making the N64 cart based and eschewing the older gamer market by focusing too much on family games (not that I mind, but bad business sense).

Like Josh said (no, I'm not refering to myself in the third person), this is a real situation for Nintendo - not just hype. The threats are true and have drastically affected sales for the N64 and GC. A company is not going to keep supporting console development if it ends in subpar consumer performance and can be better focused on a very sucessful portable market.

Of course, they could prove me wrong and just keep making consoles despite demand. There will always be a demand for Nintendo consoles - their loyal fan base is out there - but at what point does that fan base become too small to warrant the investment in a new console?

People that see this as a race for number 1 and 2 are missing the big picture. Nintendo is content being last, I'm sorry if that offends some of the fanboys, but it is true.

The facts are in, Nintendo is perfectly content being the number one in profit while at the same time changing how people play video games. Nintendo expands markets and makes money, they enjoy doing that. Let Sony and MS have the top spots. Who is Nintendo to give a fuck if they make little or no money and simply copy ideas?

This is both completely sad, and completely true

Well this thread is fucked already, big surprise there.

Josh if you want to talk "industry," start a thread for it, I'm going to see if a mod can clean this up so we can fucking talk about E3 again since the "Nintendo is going the Sega!" shit's been done for five years now and goes nowhere (because it's unsubstantiated, as it was five years ago).

Well... being that rumors suggest we will see tech demos for Revolution, bringing up the current market situation for Nintendo is on topic with E3. Its more on topic than the "Dual Shock controllers suck" and "Xbox is just a PC" comments you see in the Xbox 360 thread. And those arguments go on for pages.

But I've said my piece if it pains you so much to hear about it

No it doesn't pain me, especially from you, I just don't think it belongs here.
If I'm alone on that, keep rocking it, I'll chime back in when something actually concerning E3 comes up.

When I read this in a Nintendo thread and anyone but Groucho said it I know the thread is pretty much screwed.



This E3 is not going to decide the fate of Nintendo so I think we can leave it out of the E3 discussion. We won't have any idea how their sales are going to be based on this show. I'm just hoping to see some cool and different stuff from them this year.

I think we were pretty spot-on with our sales guess after Phantom's showing at last year's E3.

But yes, it will remain a mystery because Nintendo is keeping it a mystery. I do wish they would show something to keep my interested, but a Mario demo for Revolution just ain't gonna cut it this time.

This is slightly E3 related:

Recently Nintendo announced their free online access for the DS network in Japan 1000+ hotspots. With amazing ease of connectivity and being free, does anyone expect Nintendo to announce the same for the US at E3?

Well, the majority of hot spots are owned by T-Mobile (who are in talks with Sony at the moment). I imagine they will have some compensation for their hardware. Whether that be by user or company is yet to be seen.

I'm sorry, I have no idea what you are trying to say. Please clarify.

I believe that T-Mobile owns the majority of hotspots accross this country. They own 15432 hotspots (5674 in the US). They paid big dollar to put up those hotspots, so I imagine they would require a subscription service to access their hotspots (as they do now). Sony is talking to T-Mobile to create a network within the US. I don't know if network access at these hotspots would require purchase of a T-Mobile plan or if Sony would cover the charge and make it free. That is what I am saying.

I'm not sure how Nintendo is getting people free access at hotspots in Japan; that would help determine if something similar can be done here in the states.