Nintendo, E3, and The Unpleasable Fanbase

[JadePharaoh]

So, how 'bout that E3? As a Nintendo fan, I was really impressed by their performance. They started right out the gate not only with the release of their surprising new content for Smash 4, but dropped a bombshell that evening with the announcement (and release!) of EarthBound Beginnings; after 25 years, Mother 1 finally got an official western release!

All I can say is, welcome home, Mother.

Since then I've seen new entries announces for franchises that haven't been revisited in quite some time. We have StarFox Zero. We have Metroid Prime: Federation Force. There's a new muntiplayer Zelda coming, Mario Maker, and plenty of other great stuff coming from Nintendo.

And yet, throughout today, I have been seeing a lot of disappointment and in some cases outright anger at Nintendo for what they felt was not just a weak and underwhelming showing, but their worst E3 ever!!

“I was literally shaking with anger during that conference. Tears formed in my eyes and my fists were clenched. ‘Announce something,’ I shrieked at my computer,”
“I'm 31 years old and this was, without a doubt, the worst conference I've ever seen in my life. It's clear that Nintendo is not just done with the Wii U but done with the company. There is no recovering from a conference that bad. I loved this company and put my heart and soul into dedicating my gaming life to them. But now, I have nothing. I'm an empty shell.”

When I first read the article I got those quotes from, I thought it was a joke article at first. But I've been seeing similar remarks all day. GameFAQs' poll of the day shows Nintendo as having the absolute worst conference of the big three console developers (Sony being regarded as the undisputed winner, but I'll get to that later...). Where did all of this come from? What did Nintendo do wrong???

You begged for StarFox; you got StarFox!!

You begged for Metroid; you got Metroid!!

You begged for Mother; you got Mother!!

WHY are Nintendo fanboys so hard to please??

From what I can tell, a lot of the venom is being sprayed at Federation Force. Fans were anxiously awaiting a new Metroid adventure for quite some time. Rather than an exploration-driven adventure starring Intergalactic Space-Babe Samus Aran, however, what was announced was a co-op multiplayer game with Samus herself nowhere in sight. Having only seen a brief teaser and not anywhere close to being out yet, fans became angry that this wasn't the Metroid that they wanted and were quick to voice their outrage. One even went so far as to create a petition on Change.org demanding that Nintendo cancel it!! As of this writing it has 11, 686 signatures already. That's right; they would rather have no Metroid at all than have one that doesn't conform to what they say a Metroid game is supposed to be!

I've also seen people talking about how they want a new main series Mario and Zelda game. Zelda U has already been announced and is in development but people are talking about wanting either a Mario Sunshine 2 or Galaxy 3 (apparently Mario Maker and the new Mario & Luigi game don't count...). Also came comments that there was no new Pokemon announced either. And this is point when I remembered...

As usual, gamers say they want innovation from game developers. They say they want to see new things, but when it comes down to it, what they really want is the same thing over and over. The biggest news from this year's E3? Byfar? Final Fantasy 7 remake for the PS4. The same game you've been playing for the last 18 years BUT IN HD!!! Yet everyone is treating this like the gaming equivalent of the goddamn rapture. Sony and Square-Enix single-handedly crushed E3 with that one announcement. Even Microsoft though. What did they have? Their big highlight was backwards-compatibility on the XBO now. Whoopie. It's what it should have had in the first place. Oh, and I'm sure there's a new Halo in there somewhere too.

All that matters to so many gamers are graphics and hardware. They want to do the same thing over and over and over and over, just with prettier graphics each time. That's why they get a raging hard-on with every new Call of Duty, Halo, Assassin's Creed, and Madden that comes out, and why Final Fantasy 7 HD is already being declared Game of the Millennium. And they turn on Nintendo every time they try to break the norms and try something different. Last year they were complaining about why there's no new Metroid or StarFox; this year they get it and they throw it back and demand more Mario and Pokemon instead. And then... Then they wonder why there is no innovation in the gaming industry anymore.

(Edit: Okay. So some of the stuff I've been hearing is that a lot of this frustration also has to do with the fact that there were barely any Wii U games announced and people are fearing that Nintendo has already abandoned the console. But still, c'mon. People have been declaring the Wii U a failed console almost since the beginning. But we've seen Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8, Hyrule Warriors, Super Smash Bros. 4, and Splatoon as killer app material on the system (to name only a few of the great games on the system). Zelda U and StarFox Zero are on the horizon, and just because it wasn't announced at E3 doesn't mean there is nothing more planned.)