E3-Zone: Nintendo Conference

Nintendo brought their A-game to this year’s E3, the only one of the big three to announce a wholly new console and with a volley of fan-favourites. There was so much in the conference, in fact, that some of the important stuff at this conference actually came up afterwards, which we’ll cover separately.

• Nintendo’s big reveal was a game that had been announced last year, albeit only in concept form. Shigeru Miyamoto showed a hands-on of a new Wii title, The Legend Of Zelda: Skyward Sword that makes full use of Wii Motion Plus. The game is purported to be a history of Hyrule, including the origins of the Master Sword. Sword battle features one-to-one motion tracking with the Wii controller, while the nunchuck controls Link’s shield. Other items shown off included bombs, a whip, bow-and-arrow and a free-flight beetle (?!) that allows a better view of the surroundings (and some very impressive draw distance.) There was some interference, and the demo didn’t look as smooth as might have been expected, but with the game not due until early 2011, the development in it’s fairly early days.
• Mario Sports Mix for Wii will be released in 2011, and builds on the plumber’s sporting franchises and games, including volleyball and basketball.
• With 177 million Miis around the world, all of them will end up gaming with WiiParty that involves thirteen party games and seventy mini-games, coming this holiday season.
• Ubisoft’s Just Dance 2 announced, also out this year, and with 40+ new songs.
• Golden Sun: Dark Dawn will be arriving on Nintendo DS later this year.
• Hinted at a few days ago, Activision will be releasing GoldenEye 007 on Wii, featuring Daniel Craig as James Bond. The “remake” of the classic N64 game will support Wii controls and the classic controller, with up to 40 characters in multiplayer modes, including Scaramanga, Jaws and Oddjob. No full word on just how faithful it will be to the original game (or how faithful it will be allowed to be, since the original game was produced by the now-owned-by-Microsoft Rare. More info and trailer here.
• Disney Epic Mickey sets out to turn Mickey Mouse into the video game star he deserves to be: Warren Spector showed some footage of the game which incorporates platforming, puzzle and RPG elements. Mickey himself is armed with paint and paint thinner, giving him the ability to create and destroy environments and characters. Footage shown referenced Peter Pan and Steamboat Willie, with many more Disney properties promised.
• Kirby’s Epic Yarn on Wii is the cuddly characters first solo outing in over eight years, and despite looking like a simple side-scrolling platforming, also includes world-changing effects (with comparisons already drawn to the Paper Mario games.) With the world made out of wool and fabric, environments can be cut, unravelled and stitched together. The game is due this fall.
• One of the few solid release dates given, Dragon Quest soars onto Nintendo DS July 11th.
• And another solid release date for Metroid: Other M, coming August 31st this year.
• Retro Studios who had been responsible for the Metroid Prime series are working on Donkey Kong Country Returns.
• Satoru Iwata then took to the stage to reveal Nintendo’s new portable console, another long-hinted device, the Nintendo 3DS supporting 3D images without the use of glasses. Featuring a touch screen, dual camera apertures that will take 3D pictures, support for 3D movies, an analogue input “slidepad” and a slider that will increase and decrease the 3D effect. Developers working on the 3DS include Konami, Capcom, EA and more, but the biggest reveal of the lot was Kid Icarus: Uprising which will be released for the new console.

Full specs and games are in our 3DS specific post.

Check out our other information on Sony and Microsoft‘s press briefings.