Winning the Night

Yet that's exactly what the company's slickly stage-managed but disastrously badly planned and conceived reveal was. From palpable excitement at the first glimpse of the innovative new controller, by the time Iwata and Fils-Aime had finished showing off their new baby, much of the audience was left completely unsure of what they were seeing. Later pronouncements from Nintendo and the launch of embargoed coverage on various websites cleared up the confusion - it's a brand new HD console, not just a new Wii controller - but if it can bewilder core gamers this much with its E3 conference, Nintendo is clearly going to have to think bloody hard about how it's going to get the message about Wii U out to a mainstream audience.

Wii U is, however, an extremely interesting device. The company's demos of how its unique functions can be used in games showed some great ideas, but it'll be up to developers to discover what approaches resonate best with consumers. As a social device and a game platform designed for a busy living room, though, it's unique and potentially very appealing.

If it can bewilder core gamers this much with its E3 conference, Nintendo is clearly going to have to think bloody hard about how it's going to get the message about Wii U out to a mainstream audience

It's what Wii U's presentation says about Nintendo strategically that's most interesting of all, though. For years, the company has been accused - not always entirely fairly - of ignoring its core audience, the same accusation which was levelled at Microsoft for this year's conference. This week, Nintendo's theme was about bridging the divide between its core devotees and the new gamers who had been won over by Wii and DS - and the company did more than just pay lip service to that concept.

The trailer reel for third party support on the Wii U was a powerful statement of intent in itself. It was unmistakably stacked with core, adult gaming titles - to the extent that it was actually quite jarring to see it at a Nintendo event. Headshots in wargames and graphic fountains of blood in action titles are more common fodder for Microsoft and Sony events; in building a reel around game franchises like Ghost Recon, Alien and Ninja Gaiden, Nintendo was pinning its colours to the mast. It wants the core back, and on this showing, it's prepared to make a pretty hefty bid for them.

Supporting the same idea is the company's positioning of the 3DS - arguably a much more pressing concern than Wii U, which remains at least a year away from market. 3DS needs great software urgently, and within minutes of the conference starting, Nintendo had pledged Mario Kart, Starfox, Mario and Kid Icarus games by the end of the year. Along with Ocarina of Time later this month, that'll build out a pretty creditable first-party line-up - and crucially, one filled with franchises Nintendo fans love and core gamers generally appreciate.

Before thinking about winners and losers, then, let's look at who each company chose to speak to. Microsoft, already the darling of the core gamer audience this generation, threw them a sizeable morsel in the form of Halo 4, but lavished attention on the casual market it hopes to conquer in the near future. Sony, reeling from bad publicity, appealed directly to the core market by focusing on its software line-up and delivering a strong message with a competitive PS Vita price point.

As for Nintendo - it set out a plan to be everything to everyone. It wants core gamers back on board. It wants casual gamers to keep believing, and crucially, to keep buying. It wants to deliver big-hitting first party titles but it also wants Wii U and 3DS to be home to seriously successful third-party games. It's almost limitless in its ambition, yet it requires quite a big leap of faith to assume that the firm will be able to keep all of these plates spinning at once. "Ambitious" is the positive interpretation. "Unfocused" is the rather less charitable one.

Who won, and who lost? That depends entirely on what kind of gamer you are - because this year, more than ever, the three platform holders had each decided to play a completely different game to their rivals. Microsoft certainly lost face with the core audience, while Sony regained a little - and Nintendo? Nintendo posed more questions than it asked, and opinions on whether Wii U is inspired or ridiculous are already being strongly defended both within the industry and without. For all that, though - it's clear what's going to be the talk of E3, and of the weeks following. If that kind of mindshare is what "winning E3" means, then Nintendo just walked off with the trophy again.