The Electronic Entertainment Expo, E3, is now a week away and rumors about new IPs, release dates, and new services have been running rampant.
To the surprise of nobody, Nintendo has been getting there family-friendly backsides handed to them in the console market. And although I, like many other gamers out there, love Nintendo, it seems as though the future might be grim for Nintendo. Of course, Nintendo is still sitting on mounds upon mounds of that Wii money, the WiiU continues to under perform compared to the Xbox One and PS4. However, with the success of Mario Kart 8 Nintendo just might be on the long awaited upward swing we’ve all been hoping for since the launch of the WiiU. During E3, I think they have a real chance to leave us all in awe.
– Since Nintendo is continuing their trend of opting out of live conferences and just doing Nintendo directs, it will leave them open to announce major titles and other things during all three days of E3 and on conference day.
– One of the Nintendo directs will be dedicated solely to The Legend of Zelda.
– Nintendo will debut a brand new trailer for Hyrule Warriors which will reveal a handful of playable characters as well as the official name of the game and it’s release window of Winter 2014.
– Speaking of Hyrule, Nintendo will then begin speaking about the Zelda series and how it has grown and matured over time before finally showing a trailer for the newest 3D Zelda game for the WiiU. It will be the first HD Zelda game and will have a significantly darker tone to it in the vein of Twilight Princess.
– The Zelda Nintendo direct will end with the reveal of Ganondorf in Super Smash Bros. WiiU and 3DS
– Another Nintendo direct will be dedicated to all of the third party games that will be coming to the WiiU and 3DS.
– A new 2D Metroid game will be announced for the 3DS. It will follow Samus after the events of Metroid Fusion.
– On the heels of the Metroid 3DS announcement, Metroid Prime 4 will be announced. It’ll take place a few years after Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. It will star an older more battle fatigued Samus as she tries to save the last remaining colony of cloned Metroids.
– Nintendo will announce Super Mario Galaxy 3 for the WiiU.
– Super Smash Bros. WiiU and 3DS will both get release dates. The 3DS version will be available the week after E3, while the WiiU version will come out during the Holiday season of 2014.
– Super Smash Bros. will also receive a slew of new character reveals that will round out it’s final roster. One of the revealed characters will be Pac-man since Bandai-Namco is developing the new game.
– Finally Nintendo will announce a new iteration of the WiiU that does not require the Wii gamepad. However, since a large amount of games require the game pad, Nintendo will begin selling the game pad separately.
Although I realize most of my predictions are first party-centric, what third party developers have in the works for Nintendo is still a mystery. I do believe that this is the year that Nintendo actually does get the third party support it’s been lacking. I also think it’s about time Nintendo will start turning the WiiU around by having a ton of amazing games come out of the woodwork.
What do you think of these predictions? Do you agree with them? Disagree? Let us know in the comments below!