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Nintendo talks about their approach to E3 over the last three years, possibility of returning to live presentations in the future

by rawmeatcowboy
17 June 2018
GN Version 5.0

The following comes from a GamesBeat interview with Charlie Scibetta, senior director of corporate communications at Nintendo of America...

GamesBeat: Does it feel very similar to the last two years, where you had Zelda dominating one year, and then Mario the next, and now it’s Smash? Is that a reliable strategy for you?

Scibetta: Every year we look at the content we have to show and we figure out what’s the best way to bring it to life at the booth. Two years ago it was Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. We took the booth and turned it into an immersive world of Hyrule. It was literally the only game in the booth. Last year Super Mario Odyssey—the booth was themed like New Donk City, and we had other games there, but if you walked in you definitely got the impression that it was the Super Mario Odyssey year.

This year it’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but we also have a lot of other games too. We’re leaning on it heavily, and you saw that with the amount of time we covered it in Nintendo Direct. But I can tell you that’s been our philosophy the last three years. It was based on what we had to show that year. What we’ll do in the future will all depend on what we have to show next year and the years beyond. It’s worked out well for us so far because the games were deserving of that kind of focus.

GamesBeat: Is there a reason you’re continuing the Directs online as opposed to in person?

Scibetta: We decide each year what to show in the booth based on the content we have. We also do the same when it comes to what we want to do in Nintendo Direct or a presentation. In the past we’ve done presentations where we brought thousands of people together and demo’d live on stage. With the last four or five years, we’ve done more of the video approach. It’s really whatever we think is the best way to bring those games to life.

We think that Nintendo Direct recently has been a nice way to do it, because we’re able to package interviews and gameplay and fine-tune it so it’s a nice tight presentation. It’s an efficient use of time. It’s a good way to bring these games to life in a video format. In the future we might go back to a presentation. We might stick with video. We might do something completely different. But it’ll all be based on what we have to show that year.

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