Tuesday, June 15, 2010, 11:55 AM PST
[
General]

Fresh out of the E3 Nintendo press conference, I have a lot of things to take stock of. Nintendo did a fantastic job showing us tons of upcoming titles, all along side the announcement of the 3DS. New and exclusive games for almost every single one of their heavy hitting IPs, Nintendo truly showed that the Wii is not out of the race when it comes to making hardcore games. But the familiarity that makes us so comfortable with the expectation of high quality is hurting Nintendo more then helping.

Gameplay of Epic Mickey
New games for Zelda, Mario, Kirby, Donkey Kong, Dragon Quest, Golden Sun, Golden Eye, Metroid, and Kid Icarus is pretty impressive, but it's also pretty safe. A full line of sequels, ports, and spin-offs can make for some pretty nostalgic games, but the worst part of nostalgia is that we've seen it all before. Some Epic Mickey gameplay did throw a streak of originality into the mix, but not enough. Some would argue that even the new Mickey game is a follow up of sorts to the classic Castle of Illusions.

Many of the third party developers on board with the 3DS, almost all of their prospective games being sequels and ports
It seems to me that indie developers are the only ones creating original IP's on Nintendo consoles nowadays. Can't any big name developers think of something original, or is Nintendo going to continue banking on the same stuff that works? And how can a company that leads the hardware innovation frontier be so far behind when it comes to software? Unsettling questions amidst an otherwise beautiful line-up.
[Edited By Moderator]