Early E3 2021 Conferences Proving Nintendo Still Does it Best

Nintendo has been putting out digital, prerecorded shows for a good long while now, and have perfected the art of creating an entertaining show without leaving bored fans behind with endless explanations about single games. Unfortunately, others haven’t found that out – both Geoff’s Summer Game Fest and Ubisoft’s own event were long, drawn out video experiences that left me with a bad taste in my mouth. So what has Nintendo done differently? Let’s take a look.

Nintendo will be hosting a 40 minute Nintendo Direct on Tuesday, June 15th, followed by three hours of Nintendo Treehouse. The 40 minute show will be quick hits – I assumed 3-4 minutes per title – of upcoming games coming to the Nintendo Switch, providing watchers enough information to get them excited, while not spending too much time and losing out on fans who aren’t fans of, say, Pikmin.

Geoff and the Ubisoft team should take notes. If you read Daniel’s article on why he was bored for most of Ubisoft’s event, you’ll know what I’m talking about. While I’m generally excited for all the Ubisoft titles coming out, a games show should hit me with the high points and move on to what is next, filling in all that additional information in secondary shows after the fact, like Nintendo Treehouse. Instead, Ubisoft gave us LOOOOOONNNGGG looks at things like Rainbox Six, Far Cry, and more. Exciting for me? Sure. For others, may be not.

Nintendo Treehouse is perfect. It’s a great space for Nintendo to show off upcoming games in more detail, talk to developers, and so much more. It keeps their games presentation tight and moving, so that fans are getting as much as they possibly can in those 40 minutes. The entire time I watched Summer Game Fest and the Ubisoft Forward, my assumption was the companies were trying to milk these presentations and make them as long as possible. And it kind of sucked.

Learn from Nintendo folks, it’s a good strategy. Unfortunately, I’m expecting more of the same from Square Enix and Xbox today.