Nintendo E3 Direct 2018, Nintendo Treehouse 2018, Nintendo Invitationals 2018, and Other Platform E3 Nonsense (God Bless)

I like getting hyped for a big event! It makes me feel happy. Granted, the comedown when Nintendo get it wrong is pretty bad.

To be honest, if they'd called it a Smash Direct, spent 15 minutes on SSB5, and shown off three new characters (not including Inkling who we'd already seen or Daisy who's a clone), with the promise of loads more to come, I'd have probably been happy enough with that. Their mismanagement of messaging around SSBU has been worse than their mismanagement of messaging around E3.

I got what I was told would be there and I was still disappointed as that didn't need to 45mins long and we didn't need to see so much SMASH.

What was shown including sizzle reel
Daemon Ex Machina, a cool looking mech game which when looking up comes up with Feb 2019.#
Pokémon Let's Go, Mew is pay to win as you got to buy that Pokeball
Super Mario Party, out October
Fire Emblem Three Houses, delayed from 2018 to Spring 2019
Fortnite, out today
Overcooked 2, out August 7th.
Hollow Knight, out today, and I've got my code.
Dragonball FighterZ, just 2018 for this was at the moment, anyone else getting?
Killer Queen Black, but of cult arcade game comes to Switch this year.
Starlink, out October 16th and has StarFox content.
Arena of Valor, out autumn 2018.
Pixark, out autumn 2018.
Just Dance 2019, out Oct 23rd.
Captain Toad, out July 13th.
Crash Bandicoot, out June 29th.
Ninjala, out Spring 2019.
Carcassonne, out Winter 2018.
FIFA 19, out September 28th.
Ark, out Autumn 2018.
Wasteland 2, out Autumn 2018.
Paladins, Out Now.
Dark Souls, Summer 2018.
SNK Heroines, out Sep 7th.
Monster Hunter, out Aug 28th.
Wolfenstein II, out June 29th.
TWEWY, out Winter 2018 and seems Nintendo is publishing it.
Megaman 11, out October 2nd.
SMASH Ultimate, Ultimate SMASH collection out December.

Updates for Octopath Traveller like a new demo, DLC for Xenoblade 2, Minecraft crossplay etc

Some things outside of the direct Hyper Sports R from Konami, My Hero One's Justice from Namco and Crazy Justice which is out in the 13th.

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On the whole "win" thing, Nintendo still has the best method of showing things and Square if we hadn't seen nearly every game beforehand would have also been great because 8 out of 9 games interested me were shown in the same style as Nintendo but MS did a great job in the old format and Sony did a horrendous job but it comes down to games and Sony showed 10 games and I'll buy 8 or 9 of them if I've got a PSVR again for the From Software game, MS showed 29 outside of the sizzle real and I think 23 I would buy (Kingdom Hearts III, I counted it in all 3 of those showings) that did MS win as they showed me more games or Sony as I would buy more and likely better quality games.

That it was great for gamers and as someone who is platform agnostic then I just get to play great games be it Shadow of Tomb Raider on anything, Forza Horizon 4 on Xbox One, Spider-Man on PS4 or Pokemon on Switch.

Not everything can give your downstairs parts a big wiggle (the only thing that truly done that for me at E3 was Sekiro) but I still liked what I seen from Nintendo, I saw a good tweet actually saying that if folk stopped thinking of E3 as a gaming Christmas they'd be much happier.

I don't get why folk are upset as there are some cool looking games coming to Switch in the next 6 months & I'm sure we'll have a few more Directs before the year is done.

I guess I have to admit it: I prefer the way other companies do it. I like having a gaming Christmas, I like having the build-up, the hype, and being blown away. I'd much rather have all of the big-to-medium games up until Q2 2019 (that are ready to show) splurged in the one glorious celebration than spread out over the year, ideally with game-specific Directs then zeroing in on the games nearer the time. I like being able to get my expectations up.

This way I just get confused as to what to expect. Is it too much to expect several big first-party surprises from E3? If so, should I then get my hopes up about every other Direct announced? Should I expect them to announce big first-party games, or just medium-tier and below? Does a barren E3 mean a barren year ahead, or will the gaps be plugged? I know the best answer is to keep my excitement down for all of them, but seeing as I clearly can't do that, how should I spread it out? Argh!

In the end, though, it's probably just because the games announced weren't for me. If Fire Emblem had been F-Zero, SSBU hadn't emphasised getting every Smash Bros. character into the game, and Mario Party had been... basically any other Nintendo offering, I'd probably have been perfectly happy. Shrug.

Conversely, as a big fan of Fire Emblem and a REALLY big fan of Smash, that Direct ticked the boxes for me. Throw in Dragon Ball FighterZ, a few choice indies and that mech game and baby, you got a stew going.

I think Nintendo's format of delivering news means that compared to the other big publishers, Nintendo will always seem a bit tamer by comparison. The others like to splurge out everything at once, but I prefer Nintendo's way of doing it. Keep the hype train rolling throughout the year. Nintendo will still get eyes on them whenever they want to do their thing.

If it were a proper event and Nintendo Directs weren't a think I'd be hugely disappointed at the lack of new stuff but knowing there'll be another Direct within about 2 months I'm relatively happy with what I seen.

There wasn't anything I disliked and Smash Bros is obviously shaping up to be as brilliant as expected. They did well to highlight that once again the Switch should have a very good year, Mario Party is my personal favourite in terms of new games, looks like it's back to it's best.

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Only saw the Smash presentation, and while I still am of the mind that if it's just Smash they won't win E3 I'd be absolutely lying if I said I wasn't giddy as a kid on christmas day at most of the presentation and cheering out loud at some of those reveals! Wolf's finally back and holy crap they actually added Ridley! This definitely cements that they're making this Smash with the fans in mind, especially with all those much-requested changes to things like super Smash attacks.

Bah who am I kidding that presentation alone was better than the snooze ultra-violence fests that comprised the other presentations. Nintendo won E3 with just one game and all is right with the world.

Jas is right we shouldn't think of E3 as Christmas any-more for games, and this is coming from someone who takes the week off (got to have my weeks off somewhere) to watch likes of Sony live because it finishes at 3.30am.

Because I want to say you're wrong Jay as it's just not Nintendo any-more that spreads things out as last year we had 4 proper directs from Nintendo along with some focusing on one game, Sony went to E3, PGW, TGS and PSX and a few other bits last year, now MS have normally only really done E3 and Gamescom but from March this year they've had Inside Xbox once a month which is like an hour long Treehouse type thing which has had decent news in them.

Along with the rise of Twitch etc that we've seen likes of SEGA suddenly do some sort of live stream with news in it. That now I'm in the mindset E3 is moving to be more like Gamescom or EGX as the public can now go and you got events around it be it EA Play or Xbox Fanfest to just play games than to get news.

Some of you might have Nintendo winning but investors sure haven't as shares have dropped 7.19%.

The investors can suck ma boaby.

Shareholders are notoriously fickle people and not worth putting much truck in.  When one small surge of people sell they all start to sell like a pack of money lemmings.  

They're not gamers, so what they're doing doesn't really determine who won E3 tbh.  Not from our perspectives, as the potential consumers of the bevy of products showcased over the last few days at any rate.  

So, E3.  Nintendo won, as they're the only company that can say they've got a potential console sale in the future from their showcase.  Smash made me feel all kinds of feelings I'd actually thought were long since gone from me, for the 25 minutes that presentation was on I wasn't the cynical depressive I tend to be now, I was the 11 year old I once was who would spend hours tossing and turning in bed at night in anticipation of the new Smash game.  It's their ability to somehow dredge that person up from the depths of my past that makes them such an enduring company, as I doubt I'm even close to the only person they do that sort of thing to.  In terms of pure joy Nintendo remain the best at creating it when playing their games.  

Microsoft "won" in terms of the traditional presentations, but at the same time I feel their conference pretty quickly devolved from a Microsoft showcase into a general video game showcase.  They "won" because they happened to be going first and pinched a bunch of world premier trailers, in terms of their actual exclusives they were as lacklustre and unconvincing to me as they've always been.

Sony were the big losers, if I didn't already have a PS4 I'd have been driven away from buying one as their show was so focused on pointless ultra-violence and wannabe attempts at mature storytelling, in fact there were several times during the game trailers I actually wanted to vomit.  And I don't say that in the ironic "it was so bad I felt sick" way, I mean several of the games were so revolting I actually had the physical urge to regurgitate my dinner.

See I personally have Sony winning as I want nearly all those games they showed, as from playing The Last of Us, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn they can do more mature games very well and those I bring up are 9+ games.

The whole "winning E3" is another thing that needs to go tbh, the event shows a shit tonne of games and there is something for everyone so arguing (not saying you's are btw) who won is pointless because it's all personal preference so no one is right when they say that X won E3.

The gamer is always the winner and like a few posts ago being platform agnostic I get play all the good games, just the ones I'm looking forward to most are Sony's first party as I know like those games a lot.

The_Jaster wrote:

The investors can suck ma boaby.

I smell a tagline.

Aye, I share Jas's sentiments of wishing that the "who won E3?!?!?!?" nonsense could fade away and classify itself as obsolete. It's boring now.

I've not checked out Sony's conference yet, but I've not really had a desire to as of yet judging by the negative feedback from the conference and the fact that I'm not too interested in seeing anything more from the games they showed off. I've had my fill of TLOU2 and Kojima's Celebrity Funhouse.

JayMoyles wrote:

The_Jaster wrote:

The investors can suck ma boaby.

I smell a tagline.

As long as you don't smell Jaster's boaby. (I will agree that investors don't belong in a thread like this.)

The Treehouse seems a bit shoddy thus far too, but that might just be me being coloured by what I perceive to have gone before.  Is it just me?

It feels about the same to me, in that if you have little or no interest in a game they're showing then it's on as background noise but when it is (like Hollow Knight currently) it's pretty good.

I’m having Hollow Knight bosses spoiled for me! To be honest I’m enjoying HK more than the other segments, since I feel like I’ve seen less of that. But no surprises, in the vein of MSR or even Sushi Striker, thus far.

Yeah that was odd of them to spoil stuff like that, probably won't watch the Splatoon Octo expansion bit for the same reason as I've only seen the initial trailer & I want to go in......

FRESH.

Have we even seen a 3DS game yet? And as it's the last day do you think we get some sort of surprise?

Alas I don't see the 3DS making any E3 appearances again, the few games that come to it nowadays aren't E3 material (that is to say they'll be niche jrpgs) and Nintendo are well and truly done with it.

Winners and losers of E3, at least for me is rather like Fire Emblem Heroes voting gauntlets. Pick a side, get slightly ironically invested in them for fun, then move on once it's over. Plus it's a simpler way of conveying whether the presentation was liked.

While I agree that the 3DS has likely seen its last E3 (oh no, what a shame ), I was hoping for a couple more surprises from Treehouse than we've seen.  We got some arcade NES-era games I suppose? In fact, based on what we've seen of Treehouse up until now, I'm happy enough to dole these out ahead of time:

Yer E3 awards:

Balla's E3 awards:

I thought we might have seen Luigi's Mansion or Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey or Warioware Gold at some point.

I do like me the E3 Awards

Best Port/HD/Remaster/Re-Release: Resident Evil 2 Remake, I've been waiting for this since REmake
Best Indie: Sea of Solitude, was the highlight of EA press conference this indie title.
Best VR Game: Ghost Giant yep this 3D Platformer, not Déraciné which you would have thought.

Best Multi-Platform: Beyond Good and Evil 2, well we don't know what it's coming to still but I would think it would be more than one system.
Best PC Exclusive: Gears Tactics, a proper PC exclusive it seems which is disappointing
Best Xbox One Exclusive: Forza Horizon 4, this looks so good.
Best PS4 Exclusive: Death Stranding, for the same reasons as Balla.
Best Switch Exclusive: Fire Emblem Three Houses, just edging out Daemon x Machina as FE might be my 3rd favourite Nintendo series behind only Pokemon & Zelda.

Best New IP: Ghost of Tsushima, after hearing it's playable in Japanese I think this just gets this spot.
Most Disappointing Game: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate just not excited about.
Best Surprise Reveal: Resident Evil 2 Remake, notice a theme.
Best Company Showing: The award says showing and even though I feel Sony showed the best games and Square showed the most I'm interested in but this has to go Microsoft
Game of E3: Resident Evil 2 Remake, yep I'm giving it to a remake.

Best moment: Joseph Gordon-Levitt appearing at Ubisoft.
Worst moment: Sony's Showcase.

Alright, let's go:

Best Port/HD/Remaster/Re-Release: I honestly can't remember any. Was Spyro Reignited shown? If so - that. If not, Dark Souls Remastered.
Best Indie: Well up for some Hollow Knight. I need to check out Sea of Solitude though as I've still not got round to watching that trailer.
Best VR Game: Yawn. Well, that Prey VR thing could be fun in that it's basically Prop Hunt.

Best Multi-Platform: Gotta be Cyberpunk 2077.
Best PC Exclusive: I can't remember any at all!
Best XBox One Exclusive: I'll go for Forza Horizon 4 here. I'm really not into racing games, but this one caught my eye. All it takes is an Edinburgh level, clearly.
Best PS4 Exclusive: Spider-Man.
Best Switch Exclusive: SUPER SMASH BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTHERS ULTIMATE.

Best New IP: Shadows Die Twice looks ace.
Most Disappointing Game: I don't remember being disappointed by anything this E3, to be fair.
Best Surprise Reveal: Big Ridders turning up in SSBU.
Best Company Showing: I enjoyed Microsoft's conference the most and they've definitely got me interested in jumping ship for my second console come the next generation.
Game of E3: SUPER SMASH BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTHERS ULTIMATE.

Best moment: This one means nowt to anyone who has no interest in competitive Smash, but seeing one of the pro players show off how broken Bayonetta is in a bid to get her nerfed - Sakurai has done this before in the past following Japanese tournaments which featured Meta Knight and Zero Suit Samus - and reading on Twitter from folks sitting near Sakurai that he was shaking his head seeing it. Bye bye, broken Bayo!

Worst moment: I thought it was gone from E3, I really did, but the cringeworthy fake gamer headset chat reared its ugly head again during The Division 2's gameplay showing. Ugh.

I don't think it's even next gen with jumping ships as seen loads are because of the whole crossplay stuff with Fortnite, that people are going from PS4 to Xbox One and even myself now play everything that isn't a PS4 exclusive on Xbox One (will be the odd exception).

Sony might be back to there PS2 / you'll get a second job to buy this $600 PS3 arrogant selfs again but unfortunately they have the best games that even next gen, if their output and partnerships (Persona, Yakuza, Nioh type stuff) are good as the PS4 then I'll have to get a PS5 regardless (I'll get them all anyway as I'll want to play the quality games but you know what I mean).

Best Port/HD/Remaster/Re-Release - Metal Wolf Chaos XD
Best Indie - My Friend Pedro

Best Multi-Platform - Sekiro: Shadows die twice
Best PC Exclusive - Not got a clue for this one.
Best XBox One Exclusive - Gears?
Best PS4 Exclusive - Spider-man
Best Switch Exclusive - Super smash bros Ultimate

Best New IP - Sekiro: Shadows die twice
Most Disappointing Game - Yer maw.
Best Surprise Reveal - THE BIG RID YIN IS IN SMASH, RIDDERS, RIDDY BOI.
Best Company Showing - Ubisoft, even though not all the games were interesting to me their E3 shows in general just feel like a celebration of their company rather than a dick swinging contest.
Game of E3 - Sekiro: Shadows die twice