Nintendo's showing at E3: The good, the bad, and the ugly

                                               

                                                     







Nintendo raised eyebrows when it bowed out of holding a traditional live press conference in favor of a pre-taped video at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) this year. This was doubly shocking because of the importance of this particular E3, where its competitors in the home console market would be pulling out all the stops to showcase their new hardwareand games. Nintendo's latest console, the Wii U, stumbled out of the gate and has been under-performing in virtually all regions. If ever there was a time to make a splash, this was it.
Instead, what we got was largely more of the same. Nintendo's presentation had few surprises, and some of the more interesting titles aren't even going to be released until next year. That said, Nintendo's line-up for the latter half of this year is looking pretty strong.

Nintendo has taken New Super Mario Bros. U and replaced Mario with Luigi for this DLC add-on. Whoop-dee-do, right? To be fair, all 80 levels have been redesigned and now the time limit is just 100 seconds. It's not terribly exciting, but if you can't get enough of that 2D Mario platforming action this is for you. It can be downloaded now for US$19.99 or purchased at retail for a limited time beginning this August for $29.99, so at least Nintendo isn't charging full price for it. etc..