As an owner of a Wii and a DS, I was probably looking forward to the Nintendo press conference this morning the most for this E3 Media and Business Summit.  Remembering last year’s press conference, you needed to have realistic expectations about this year’s event – realistic expectations that this press conference was not for the hardcore player or even an average gamer like me who follows the industry, but rather for Good Morning America, the Today Show and Oprah.

With expectations set firmly in place I watched a typical Nintendo montage and out walks Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Cammie Dunaway.   Where is the normal face of Nintendo, Reggie Fils-Aime, President of Nintendo of America?  Ah, they’re showcasing a female executive that loves playing and making video games.  That is slick.  No wait, it’s because she broke her hand snowboarding and they’re going to show a balance board game.  It turns out to be Shaun White Snowboarding.  Shaun White, gold medalist in snowboarding is there to demonstrate with Cammie using the balance board.  The graphics are looking very Wii this morning, but the game looks fun.  Two things wowed me about this presentation: one, that Shaun White easily beats Microsoft’s putting the pop singer Duffy on for 4+ minutes, especially when Cammie did something on the screen and Shaun says, “Yeah, that was tasty,” and two, that I may begin rethinking my decision to not buy a Wii Balance Board.

Nintendo’s global president, Satoru Iwata walks out onto the stage.  That means it’s speech time.  Seeing Iwata = no game announcements.  He talked about paradigm shifts and other business jargon.  This is when I jumped into our very own Pwned.com’s ShoutBox to see many people calling for games.  With my realistic expectations for them to talk about girls and old people play video games firmly in place, Mr. Iwata did not disappoint.  Nintendo announces that they want to engage players and put smiles on our faces.  Sure, why not.

Animal Crossing: City Folk is officially announced.  This game is all about connectivity to your world, your friends and the community of users at large.  Visiting other people’s cities + sending messages in game or via Wii Message Board are nice but are overshadowed by the introduction of the Wii Speak room microphone.  Please, Nintendo, please do not make this only work with Animal Crossing.  We users need this to work with Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and if not these 2 retroactively, it better work on all games moving forward.

Finally Reggie takes the stage.  Somehow it just doesn’t feel the same without him.  Of course, with him on stage, that means it’s numbers time.  His focus is on how people’s expectations for a console’s lifespan needs to be rethought.  Why?  It is because DS and Wii are selling like no other console before it.  Okay, let me sum up what Reggie said, “DS and Wii are destroying the competition, we own the casual market, Wii is NOT a fad.” 

That’s when they started to show games.  Nothing new here with Star Wars: Clone Wars, Rayman’s Raving Rabbids: TV Party and Call of Duty: World at War.  Call of Duty could be interesting, but let’s face it, if you own a 360 or PS3, you’re going to want to buy this on those consoles…it just looked so gray and …icky.  The DS games were next.  Guitar Hero: On Tour, Spore Creatures and a new Pokemon Ranger game were all shown to emphasize the exclusivity of the titles on DS.  I wasn’t sure why they were pushing this so hard until they announced Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Stories.   I’m curious if Rockstar created something new for the DS, or if it’s just a horrible port of a previous endeavor.

Next up was Wii Motion Plus.  This is an add-on peripheral that they claim will bring 1-to-1 motion to the Wii.  I’m skeptical, of course, but Cammie and Reggie up on stage dueling it out with swords make it look passable.  This Wii Sports Resort is basically Wii Sports 2 with better motion control.  All I’m saying is that if LucasArts takes Wii Motion Plus and makes a Star Wars game with 1-to-1 lightsabers, that’s 1 million copies sold instantaneously.  If Clone Wars will support it, they are already buying Ferraris.

The announcement of Wii Music started with a man playing the drums using a wiimote and nunchuk as the sticks and using the balance board for the foot pedals.  Gah, I really may have to buy a balance board now.  It looked impressive to see this man going to town in a way that leads me to believe that I can do that, too.  Shigeru Miyamoto, the famous game designer, joined the drummer on the stage “playing” a saxophone.  Miyamoto explained that Wii Music fits perfectly with Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Fit to engage users in Nintendo’s family of games.  Wii Music is for an average gamer like me.  Even without being able to read music or have rhythm, the game basically follows what you’re doing and makes you look good.  I will admit that while I enjoyed their 6-person concert, I really hope that it’s a bit deeper than just pushing buttons with no skill.

Overall, this press conference all comes down to expectations.  The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 fanboys and girls got exactly what they wanted: a press conference with only a few games with “crappy” graphics.  The Nintendo fanboys and girls were disappointed with the lack of big reveals or hardcore games.  The thing is, Nintendo was not speaking to satisfy any of these groups.  They were speaking to the Wii Mom who bought a Wii, Wii Play, Wii Fit, Mario Party 8 and most likely, Carnival Games. 

And what about me you ask?  My expectations were met.  Nintendo had a press conference that leveraged their market leadership and their momentum to continue the trend by reaching out to the casual market.  They hinted that a new Mario and Zelda were being worked on to appease the hardcore fans, and no doubt the Wii Speak voice chat system could be great, but when all is said and done and Reggie has walked off the stage, I still want to know where is my expanded memory solution!