Okay… the Nintendo Conference.

There wasn’t many new hardware-esque announcements in this conference, either. It was mostly game previews and showing off the controller, of course. Which was, naturally, the highlight of the event! They demo’ed a racing game called Excite Truck (remember Excite Bike?) that uses the Wii Remote held long-ways with both hands… acting as a steering wheel. When the truck flies through the air, you can tilt the Wii Remote forward or backwards to balance your truck in an attempt to land square on all four tires.

Then, of course, there was Wii Sports, which is a quantity-over-quality sports assortment game. Baseball… tennis… all by swinging with the Wii Remote. Metroid Prime? Aim with the Wii Remote, move with the “nunchuck” attachment. Red Steel? Same thing. The first time FPSes may be better on consoles than they are on PCs, thanks to Nintendo! They also showcased other games coming soon, including Super Mario Galaxy and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Mario looked super-fun as always. I’m getting Zelda, of course, because of Link’s turning into a Wolf, bwahaha. Sega is making Sonic the Hedgehog games that are exclusive to the Wii, now, too.

They announced that Zelda will be dual-released simultaneously on Wii release day for both the Wii and the Gamecube. Which everyone seems to be happy about. (As if any real Nintendo fan would buy Zelda on GCN if there’s a Wii version?!)

Reggie (Nintendo of America’s Public Relations, I believe) that history is littered with companies who died because they didn’t advance and change. (You hear that Microsoft? You hear that Sony?) Later on, they announced the presense of a speaker on the Wii Remote that would, say… allow you to hear a bow being drawn and the arrow leaving, and then depth of sound would make you hear the arrow travel to the TV and hit your target. (Round of applause at this.) Then they also announced that the “nunchuck” attachment is ALSO motion-sensitive independent of the Wii Remote.

They brought out general numbers that proves people like change by talking about how fast and numerous the Nintendo DS is selling… and now the next wave, the DS Lite, is selling like hotcakes. They also said they’re releasing Yoshi’s Island 2 (sequel to Super Mario World 2) for DS! Bwahaha. Ooh, and Starfox DS, too… and, to a lesser excitement level for me, Diddy Kong Racing. Satoru Iwata also commented on load speed… teehee. (I couldn’t find the original video, but this one is funnier even, so I’ll link you to that instead! Seven… minute… PSP… loading time. They compare it to another game, which, even still, takes 30 entire seconds to load the main menu. The DS loads to main menu in a little under 5 seconds… at least with Tetris DS.)

Wii will also not power off completely when you press the Power button. Apparently, it will stay powered up enough to keep access to the internet for things like software addon delivery and, like in the Animal Crossing example, stay connected so friends can still visit your city and drop things off for you. Of course, I can hear all the security maniacs getting all up in arms about how it doesn’t shut off when you want it to… but, actually, I haven’t heard any, yet. I think it’s awesome, personally. I mean… you have never, in the history of Nintendo games, ever had to give personal information to a game. How could it be a security risk?

Then! After they showed everything off… they announced the winner of a sweepstakes I’d never heard about, and the winner was allowed to get on stage with Reggie, Satoru and Shigeru to play a 2 vs 2 tennis game… at E3… with the 3 coolest people in the world. Oh maaan. They even played TWO rounds, because the first went really quick. I think it was a tie, in the end.

Before this, I forgot to mention, Shigeru showed off single-player Tennis. It was hilarious! He didn’t speak English very well, so while he was playing, he had a translator up on stage with him. He’d say a few words in Japanese, and then translate… blah blah blah. Anyway, every now and then, you’d hear him go “aaah!” in between Japanese explanations whenever he’d miss the tennis ball… he was running all over the stage just like a real tennis match, hehe. It was sooo awesome!!!

So anyway, that was the conference. I’ve seen it a few times now, hehe. …and now, here are some very Nintendo-positive E3 news snippets for you to chew on:

TG Daily reports that, by 10am on the first day, lines to play the 27 games (on more than 27 Wii stations) reached up to a 6 hour wait for 5 to 15 minutes of playtime. 6 hours. Sony and Microsoft’s lines were only a 5 MINUTE WAIT.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl had it’s trailer premiere today. Looks like everything we ever hoped for, folks. It’s amazing… with confirmed online multiplayer capability.

Slashdot polls put Nintendo popularity at 47%, with Sony at 16% and Microsoft at 9%… the third poll option was a stupid buffer option carrying 26%.

Microsoft, for whatever their reasons, has essentially said “Nintendo is awesome”.

I love Nintendo.