Gametrash E3 Predictions for 2006

The Nintendo Lineup

Nintendo is going to have to pull some stunts in this year's E3, and it's not hard to find out why. First of all, the Gamecube, the youngest system of the bunch when it comes down to sheer game library, is already dying in their arms. The Nintendo DS, their star player at this point, is going to be replaced with the Nintendo DS Lite, which is a direct competitor to waning PSP sales. So, unless Nintendo intends to go ahead and launch the Nintendo Revolution sometime this year, we can all expect one thing- one hell of a lot of Nintendo DS games.

The Revolution, so far as we know, is not going to be directly competing with any of the next-next gen systems (Which will be/are the PS3 and XBOX 360, respectively). Nintendo is going to deliberately under price and under power the machine to make it easier for the non-gamer market to pick it up and play it, which is not surprising since that whole mindset gears most of their games. Gamers will probably never see the Unreal 3 engine touching the Revolution, nor will they see high quality Anti-Aliasing- rather, simpler games with the unique controller-like peripheral. The Nintendo DS is no different, because it in no way has made an effort to be the top of the line graphically, but presents the unique form of gameplay with a touchscreen that has caught the whole portable market by storm.


That being said, it's hard to predict what Nintendo will have in store. Obviously, we will see games like The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess, which has been in development almost as long (If not longer) than the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. No-one knows why this is, but we may finally see the game in something other than a small thumbnail in Nintendo's official magazine, Nintendo Power.

So, what may Nintendo have in store for us at E3?

Predictions:

My first prediction is that we will see The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess take the floor, at least at the Nintendo booth(s). Being as it's their sure shot to make some money on the Gamecube before it goes completely obsolete, there is no doubt Nintendo will milk the game dry. There are a lot of rumors about the game, none of which I even care to type (because they are so obviously erroneous), but all we do know is that Link will be older and more realistic, and the game appears to be quite a bit more dark and adult (Which makes sense, as rumors have it, the Twilight Princess is being worked on by an ex-Resident Evil designer.). Either way, the game is definitely a departure from Wind Waker, which is one hell of a good thing.


Second prediction- the DS Lite will be showcased. The DS Lite is, for all intents and purposes, a remake of the original DS with a sleeker body style (That is much smaller), brighter screens, and some other miscellaneous upgrades. There is nothing new to this system so far as the operating system or the games themselves go, it's the equivalent of buying yourself a new TV to play your NES.

The third and final prediction I have is that Nintendo will finally solidify information on the Revolution, especially regarding the games lineup. The one place Nintendo has been shady about so far as the Revolution goes is the games themselves, and how the system will emulate older games. Nintendo loves their old games sometimes more than their new, and it's obvious that this emulator will feature games that Nintendo fans have heralded over the years (For example, one of the big names that will be emulatable is Square-Enix's Chrono Trigger). The only problem is simply how the system will work, as Nintendo sometimes is unable to completely port games like that to a new system. For example, while it was a good move in marketing, the Zelda bonus disc sold with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which featured four old games and a demo of Wind Waker itself, was notorious for emulation issues to the point where the last game, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, was nigh unplayable. That's okay, though- considering it requires Internet access to download these games, so long as Nintendo remembers that emulators should be stored in the memory and not hard encoded, everything will be well. Worst case scenario, if there is a bug, they send out a patch via the Nintendo WiFi (Unlike Microsoft's setup, which just allows you to play Barbie Horse Adventures and Halo).

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