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Nintendo started their conference by highlighting how they want to make us (and by us they mean everybody who is capable of physically holding one of their Wii Remote controller thingies) “smile”. Their E3 2008 showing today left me cringing. And this comes from a life-long Nintendo fan who feel the company can do no wrong.

Nintendo’s showing today was wrong for a number of reasons - the main one being that I can only think of 5 games in their release schedule for the next 6 months. Super Mario Sluggers and Wario Land: Shake It we know about, Animal Crossing, Wii Music and Wii Sports Resort were announced today. Now to say I have no interest in said games would be unfair but then again to say I do have interest would be a massive overstatement. The opening 30 seconds of Fallout 3 tickled my fancy more than what Nintendo had to show today and it hurts me to say that. I just constantly was waiting for something more.

Ok so let’s be generous here: Wii Sports Resort and it’s new MotionPLUS sensor look really, really very neat. Nintendo demonstrated the way the (touted) “HD motion controls” work and they looked very fun. It will reinvent the Wii controls again of that I have no doubt and I for one will definitely pick up the game. I would have liked to have seen more from the MotionPLUS but sadly it seemed that developers haven’t come up with anything yet. Hmmm. Ok. The question marks begin to appeal when you acknowledge that the MotionPLUS does not come in the box of the Wii and therefore how will developers be able to sell games that require the add-on? Surely that’s cutting off a huge number of the already installed userbase?

It does look good though. Likewise does Animal Crossing look good for what it is. I like the fact you get a microphone and can converse with other players (something the XBOX has done since what, 2003?) and the game looks fresh, vibrant and polished. I’m curious to see as to whether it will include annoying “friend codes” or not given Nintendo strongly sold it on it’s “connectivity”.

So it’s at this point of my write-up that I should be talking about something amazing that Nintendo announced. All the previous would have been a nice build-up to Punchout Wii, Pilotwings, F-Zero, Pikmin 3. Anything. Sadly instead we get Wii Music - the video game where you pretend to play instruments. What’s the point. Why not pretend to play along to a CD? Granted the drumming looked but when asked if I would really consider buying Wii Music - the answer is no.

In fact out of all the announcements the most shocking, interesting and surprising was that Grand Theft Auto is coming to the DS. But yet that fails to captivate me too much because I doubt it will come close to the PSP iterations and even they weren’t that good.

Aside from the lacklustre showing of games though it was the showmanship that was really embarassing for me. Nintendo made fools of themselves on stage today by letting some fake-ass bitch with a Primary School teacher look about herself take the reins and dictate the show. The comraderie wasn’t there and I think the big guns at Nintendo all knew they were resting on their laurels and have took their foot of the gas.

The ironic thing is - after such a poor show as that we all know Nintendo’s Wii is going to keep selling and selling and selling. I said before the show they didn’t need to announce anything and that rings true. Wii and Wii Fit will sell well into the Christmas period. Shame my Wii will continue to gather dust as I look for entertainment on pastures new.