From my previous post, regarding E3 prior to Nintendo's presentation: "If you kind of wish there were 'triple-A' games in more creative, 'thinking man's' genres, like there were in the 80s and 90s, you will be disappointed... [I wish] there were more 'Zoo Tycoon'-style releases these days."

When the video of Nintendo's presentation today ended, I had one question and several observations floating in my mind. The thought train went something like, "How in the hell is Nintendo 'losing' this generation? They are making, by far, the most interesting, most creative, and by far the highest quality software in the industry; it's not even close. And the Wii U itself is one seriously cool piece of gaming kit!"

I went into the presentation wanting to see more of "X"-- the official name being revealed today as "Xenoblade Chronicles"-- but there was such a deluge of amazing looking games, one after another after another, in a sort of mile-long parade of awesomeness, that the aforementioned Xenoblade Chronicles, as cool as it looked, wound up being sort of an afterthought for me when all was said and done.

My brother mentioned to me the other day that we are in a sort of Nintendo golden age, such is the volume, quality, and creativity of their output, and I have to say I think he's spot on about that.

And about that quote at the beginning of this post: "Splatoon" says hi! That was easily, far and away, the coolest looking game I saw during the entire conference, across all of the presentations. It's the kind of genre-bending, colorful, enticing, high-budget-meets-high-creativity game that we saw in spades in the 1980s and 1990s.

I also note that every single developer that spoke during the presentation said things like, "and this will open up interesting new gameplay possibilities"-- put another way, ludonarrative! And that's why Nintendo's games are so great; their developers are very philosophical and versed in game creation theories.

And I haven't even mentioned yet that they are finally making the Zelda game I've always wanted them to make.