Okay, so we were disappointed with Nintendo’s E3 showing. No Kid Icarus. No Punch-Out! Four years since the last The Legend of Zelda reveal. But in all honesty, should we really want to hear about a new Zelda game now, learn about a holiday 2009 release date, only to see it delayed to “after the fiscal year” ending March 2010, and finally see release in November of 2010? Reggie doesn’t think so.

There’s one thing I do want to reinforce. I could almost put myself into the ‘geeks and otaku’ camp. I grew up playing all those great Nintendo games. And so for me I look at product like “Animal Crossing” and I get tremendously excited. I look at “Wario” and get tremendously excited. I look at “Sluggers” coming out and get tremendously excited. So this mentality that we have somehow lost our soul and [are not] speaking to our fanbase, there is nothing further from the truth. And if you talk to Mr. Miyamoto, you really understand that we really have the interest of our core fanbase right at the top of the list. The recognition is — and I think this is really the point — we’re not going to tease you over 18 months or 24 months. We’re going to show you something that’ll make your jaw drop and make it available shortly thereafter.

That’s more like it. Remember, E3 and all the smaller publisher events surrounding it are only the start of the event season. We’ve got the Penny Arcade Expo, Leipzig Games Convention, Tokyo Game Show, and E for All rounding out the rest of the year, with the Game Developers Conference early next year. We’ve got plenty of time to reveal that amazing new Zelda + Wii MotionPlus game.

MTV Multiplayer

To celebrate the release of the latest Pokemon movie, Giratina and the Sky’s Bouquet: Shaymin, Nintendo is distributing two event Pokemon in Japan. The first one, Regigigas, was given away as a pre-order event for the movie. The second, the legendary Shaymin, is now being given out as of this past Saturday - coinciding with the movie’s release. Remember, this Shaymin can eventually be traded to Pokemon Platinum, where it will transform into its Sky Forme.

I’ve got about seven Shaymin right now and about twenty of those Regigigas. I’m not trading any of them away, but maybe if enough of you care about collecting event Pokemon, we could do a contest for one of them? Let me know!

Let me tell you, I’m no veteran of this business. When walking around the Los Angeles Convention Center last week for the first time, it was a weird feeling. Sure, I’m a member of the media walking among figures like N’Gai Croal, Mark Bozon, and Geoff Keighley in the same business I work in, and gaming figures such Koji Igarashi, Charles Martinet, and Shigeru Miyamoto. But it’s a press and investor event, and rarely during the summit did I feel as if it was an atmosphere to show gamers what to be excited about.

While E3 has suffered massive criticism against both the old, “expo” format of pre-2007 and against the newer, smaller format for E3, word among connected sources is that the ESA is giving considerable thought to opening the doors to the public again next year. The official word is that the ESA is still taking feedback and will announce details regarding E3 2009 at a later time, but I don’t see the ESA as having anything to lose by opening up.

We were walking away from the LA Convention Center last Monday, and some guy and his kid pulled up, asking when the show would open to the public. You should have seen the kid’s face when we said is was for press only. I’ll bet he’d love to go next year.

Kotaku

With the show in Los Angeles just wrapping up last week, it didn’t take long for a formal apology from the Nintendo camp to surface. In an interview with Forbes, Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata went on record to try and win back the core gamers that were left with a bad taste in their mouth:

If there is any perception that Nintendo is ignoring the core gamers, it’s a misunderstanding and we really want to get rid of that misunderstanding by any means… We are sorry about [the E3] media briefings, specifically for those who were expecting to see Nintendo show something about Super Mario or Legend of Zelda. However, the fact of the matter is the so-called ‘big titles’ need a long, long development period. … We really didn’t think this year’s E3 media briefing was the time to do so.

I completely agree with not showing a game until it is ready, but even a short clip or a screen shot or a logo would have sufficed. It is reassuring that somewhere, some form of a “hardcore” title is being worked on by Nintendo. Why is the world so cruel?

IGN Wii

After four days, eight hours of flights, twelve hours of L.A. traffic, one hundred dollars worth of Wi-Fi fees (stupid hotel), two gigabytes of photos, and ten hours of video footage, I think it’s safe to say that E3 has officially kicked our ass, but we loved almost every second of it. Hey, that sounds a lot like Mega Man 9, which I will be gushing about sometime later this weekend.

E3 might be over, but the best of our coverage has only begun, so stay tuned over the next week as our impressions, opinions, and an unhealthy amount of videos begin to trickle in. Now, excuse me as I continue to capture the remaining six hours of our video footage.

Elebits was one of those games during the initial period of the Wii that really didn’t catch my attention.  It looked interesting enough to purchase once I looked at some early footage, and to be honest, I spent countless hours destroying the house trying to find these critters to upgrade my gun to destroy the house even more.  With the recent announcement of Elebits: The Adventures of Kai and Zero for the DS, I’ve been patiently waiting to see how this series will translate to the handheld.

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To this date, it has been almost eight long years since a new Banjo-Kazooie title has been released on a home console. When Banjo finally does make his triumphant return this fall with Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts on the XBox 360, you will notice some rather big changes from his previous titles.

As you are probably aware of by now, many of Banjo and Kazooie’s past moves and abilities have been scraped for this title, and instead players will be able to build and modify vehicles to help them progress through the game. This implementation of construction mechanics into the core gameplay gives Nuts and Bolts a fresh, dynamic feel, and helps revialize the franchise as a whole.

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While I was cruising the isles of gaming goodness, I stumbled the first EA game that I actually wanted to take a look at. Even though everybody was busy with Rock Band, Spore and Skate It, I wanted to take a crack at Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. While it didn’t have any footage of the actual story mode, it did have demos for Potions class, Wand Dueling and a full fledged Quidditch match.

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One more big press conference for this show, guys. At least, I think I think it’s big. The same room is being used for Konami’s Press Conference starting at 4:30pm PDT that was used for Ubisoft and Capcom yesterday, but it was transformed into a series of small meeting rooms by this morning and was that way as of about 40 minutes ago. NOTE: There will not be a live feed broadcast for this press conference due to lack of demand and technical difficulties that aren’t worth the effort. You can still hang out at our Official E3 2008 Coverage Site to chat about the updates. Check past the break for all the live updates!

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NOTICE: Sorry everyone! I had Wi-Fi access just before the Activision press conference, but it disconnected shortly before it all started, and I was never able to get back on. :( Here are the notes I took!

Alright! One more press conference for today, and then we’ll move on to uploading some hands-on impressions, screenshots, and trailers to the site. I’m sitting here at the Vibiana - alone :( - and the show is supposed to start at 7pm PDT, so be sure to check past the break for all the updates!

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