When these mouthpieces for corporate hype machines don't clap, that says something.
It says, "Where are the bald space marines? I don't understand this business babble! You're making my head hurt! Where are the babes and guns?!?" Game journalists still don't know how to fit the Wii or Wii customers into their idea of what the game industry is. They still don't realize how important Wii Fit was and regard its 15m+ sales as both a travesty and a fluke.
It all depends on what you want out of E3. If E3 is a big "hardcore gamer party" for hyping next year's games to the kinds of people that drool over these shows, then Nintendo's presser was an absolute failure. If it's a trade show, then Nintendo did a great job unveiling its corporate strategy. The only trip-up I saw was the way the vitality sensor was unveiled. While it seems pretty clear to me that their goal is to keep selling games to the Wii Fit audience, they made the mistake of unveiling this thing without a game. But it's certainly more newsworthy than Microsoft announcing that a bunch of predictable cross-platform sequels are indeed coming to its console.
New Super Mario Bros Wii is
by far the biggest announcement. NSMB on the DS is not just one of the best-selling DS games, but one of the best selling games of all time. The demand for a 2D Mario platformer appears to be as high as ever, and that's what Nintendo's bringing to the Wii for this Christmas. It's potentially bigger than if MS had announced FFXIII exclusivity. 2D Mario with 80 levels, Yoshi, new power-ups, 4-player co-op/competition, and the return of the Koopa Kids? That's huge.
I think this was Nintendo's most aggressive E3 since 2006. Did journalists realize that? No, of course not. They think revolution in the industry is about some pompous blowhard making a game about Norse cyber-gods that nobody actually buys. But Nintendo unveiled that they are actively trying to dominate the market on women gamers, reminded everyone that Motion Plus is coming out soon with actual games, smacked everyone in the face with 2D Mario, and topped it off with two major sops to the incredibly whiny "hardcore" fans with more Mario Galaxy and a Team Ninja Metroid.
