Within the last couple of weeks weve had two Nintendo Direct videos online detailing new Pokemon games in the form of Pokemon X and Pokemon Y, and then a huge wave of Wii U news, detailing the likes of The Legend of Zelda Wind Waker HD remake and Wii U Virtual Console plans. Both videos sparked a lot of interest and excitement with the games and services announced. In years gone by we would have to wait for E3, Nintendo Space World or other similar events for new announcements, but with the net taking over everything as it is Nintendo has got with the times now showcases a lot of its new content first through Nintendo Direct videos. So whats wrong with Nintendo Direct videos? Well a lot. Thats not to say they arent useful, exciting and informative, but theres a lot wrong with them, and they could see vast improvement.
One of the biggest problems with them is they are killing the excitement of Nintendo at industry shows, in particular E3. Over the last few years internet leaks of major E3 reveals have been a growing problem for all games makers. The stands and posters get set up days in advance of the press conferences so its only to be expected that if you have a fifteen foot high statue of a Pikmin that a new game announcement is imminent. In such cases its easy to explain why these things appear on Twitter long before Nintendo can announce them themselves. In situations like this Nintendo Direct broadcasts allow Nintendo to break the news themselves, in their own way, and control how information is let out to the media. No bad thing. But the downside is that for the last few years Nintendo has been proclaimed losers at E3, due to boring presentations with a lack of surprises. Over the last couple of years, most of Nintendos big news has been revealed by themselves in the weeks leading up to the big shows. The effect? Nintendo is perceived by the general public as having another bad E3 at the time of the year when the greatest number of people are looking at video games.