Nintendo's conference was very interesting. I have to say out of the 3 speakers for the big 3 I've always thought Reggie Fils-Aime at Nintendo does the best job of explaining things to everyday people.
Nintendo did what it wanted to. It showed off key games on the Wii, such as:
Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (a GC and Wii version will be released)
Super Mario Galaxy
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Those three games within the first year of the release of the system is like hitting the trifecta in Nintendo land. I can't remember a time where the big 3 titles in Nintendos library would be coming out within a year. Now I am guessing that they will be released within the year of the Wii releasing, maybe we'll know more as E3 goes on. Nintendo also showed off a Warioware game for the Wii as well and that will be super hot as well considering how well the games did on the GBA.
They also didn't leave the Nintendo DS in the dust, showing off both the new DS Lite coming in June and snippets of some games, such as:
Yoshi's Island 2
Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
StarFox DS
Obviously the biggest news was the showing of the Wii version of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I'm not sure what kind of differences there are going to be outside of control between the Wii and GameCube versions, but the graphics looked pretty good on the Wii version...could that be a slight upgrade as well? Reggie said it was the best Zelda yet, while the guy playing it on the Wii said it was "one of the best"...guess he didn't attend the marketing meeting.
It is cool that Nintendo will sell a Sports pack at launch with a tennis, baseball and golf game. That will show off the controller really well. So will Red Steel, but anyone who reads Game Informer already knows what the game is all about. The demo shown wasn't the greatest until they showed the sword fighting at the end.
If there's a lasting thought from the Nintendo conference it comes at the end where Miyamoto, Fils-Aime, Iwata and the Nintendo winner are playing tennis. The lasting image is that the Wii is fun, especially in groups/parties, and Nintendo will keep doing what it's done all along.
The one disappointing aspect is that Reggie had a bullet-point image at the beginning that talked about release date/cost. He said it would be released Q4 2006, but he never gave any indication of the price. I'm wondering if Nintendo is thinking about adding Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess to the system and that's why they didn't say a price. I'm going to guess it will be $200 for the system, but what do I know.
After I post about Microsoft's conference I'll do a catch all on my feelings about all 3 conferences and who came out on top in my mind.