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Press Conference Notes

by David Trammell - May 21, 2002, 4:22 pm EDT

Here's a quick summary of the Nintendo press conference including a list of games shown on video and other notes.

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The gist of the Nintendo press conference was that 2002 is going to be Nintendo's biggest year ever. With Metroid, Zelda, Mario, Star Fox, Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil 1 and 0 and more, there will be no shortage of money to be made in 2002. Peter MacDougal kicked off the press conference with the usual sales stats and moved on to third party support including the Triforce arcade system. Specifically, it was mentioned that most Triforce titles would launch at home and in the arcade simultaneously. The first videos shown were of Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 0 and Eternal Darkness. They were introduced as "Nintendo quality" titles that are mature and exclusive to GameCube. After this, the GBA was given the video treatment with the following titles shown: Metroid Fusion (previously Metroid IV), Game & Watch Gallery 4, The Legend of Zelda GBA (a Link to the Past from the SNES with new multi-player elements), Yoshi's Island Super Mario Advance 3 and Disney's Magical Quest Starring Mickey & Minnie (another SNES port). Iwata took the stage at this point to emphasize the connectivity of Nintendo games (including GBA/GCN connectivity and online connectivity). GBA/GCN connectivity was emphasized over online (citing the difficulty of reaching all gamers and the costs of online gaming as problems), however, Nintendo reiterated its plans to have a license fee-free strategy with the modems releasing this fall alongside Sega's Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II. At this point a video of Animal Crossing was shown where a child pitched the game. Square was mentioned in passing with regard to connectivity, but no new information was given. Notably, the Kirby title demonstrated at previous shows was not shown. At this point Iwata briefly mentioned an upcoming Donkey Kong game for GBA. Finally, Game Eye was revealed which will somehow capture images of your face for use in games.

At this point, Peter MacDougal took the stage again and begin the showing of more GameCube footage. Star Fox Adventures was shown first followed by a compilation video containing footage of Mario Party 4, Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse, 1080º White Storm (beautiful) and Wario World. After this video they really got down to business and showed off Super Mario Sunshine. Miyamoto was supposed to walk onto the stage and demonstrate the game, but instead of walking onto the stage, footage of Mario appeared on the large screens. Miyamoto finally emerged among the audience walking towards the stage with a Wave Bird, playing the game the entire time. After demonstrating the game, it was time for new Zelda footage. After the footage, Miyamoto demonstrated one of the five levels that will be playable at E3. Interestingly, a bug occurred during the demonstration. A dispatched enemy was supposed to drop a large sword, but Miyamoto couldn't find it and was unable to bust through some large boards. The demo was cut short, but the game will be playable at E3 so that the rest of that area can be explored by individuals. The graphics were remarkable.

After the Zelda presentation Miyamoto hinted that there was another Zelda to demonstrate. The audience incorrectly assumed it was a GameCube title (the rumored compilation of Zeldas?) until a the GBA Zelda appeared on the screens. Miyamoto, called up Yoshiki Okamoto from Capcom, Kaneto Shiozawa from Namco, and Toshihiro Nagoshifrom Amusement Vision (Sega) to help demonstrate the game's four player capability. To polish off the conference, some footage of the upcoming F-Zero game was shown with the promise of more footage to be shown on the E3 show floor. The show was closed with a final compilation video showing off many first and third party games including (but not limited to): Super Mario Sunshine, Mario Party 4, Wario World, 1080º White Storm, Star Fox Adventures, Zelda, Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil 0, Dragon's Lair 3D, Zoo Cube, Mortal Kombat 5, Die Hard, Turok 4 and finally the promise of more than 150 games available for GameCube by December 2002. After the conference there was a brief Q&A session where it was confirmed that Rare is still working exclusively with Nintendo (for now at least).

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