Once again, the amazing, little chunk of water and rock that we inhabit has nearly reached the halfway point in its unlikely, yet miraculous orbit around the equally unlikely, yet miraculous ball of fire that hangs in space. This fantastical marker illustrating our current place in time can only mean one thing: E3 season is here!

If you’re reading this, then the chances are pretty high that you don’t need any long-winded introductory article describing our excitement for E3 2018; however, the mere existence of these words decrying the need to write such long-winded, perfunctory introduction sections has already defeated the intentions of skipping said perfunctory introductory section – so here we are.

There is never any shortage of hype going into an E3, and this year is no exception; however, E3 2018 is different.

Change is in the air.

Just as we have finished settling in to the rhythm of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releases, rumors have started to circulate about the next wave of consoles.

Sources have confirmed to NerdBacon that PlayStation 5 development kits are now in the hands of a number of developers, and that work has already begun on the future of electronic entertainment.

A year after introducing the Xbox One X to the market, Microsoft is already recruiting eager young craftsmen (and women) to construct their vision of the next generation.

And Nintendo, always the non-conformist in the group, is filing patents for a mysterious new piece of technology.

So suddenly the focus of E3 2018 has shifted somewhat away from the anticipation of incredible new software, to the rapidly approaching generational shift, and how each of the companies will position themselves for the next generation of gaming.

This makes E3 2018 the last year of the status-quo – not just the status-quo of this generation of consoles, but the status-quo of how we go about the business of actually playing games.

Streaming technology has advanced exponentially in the past few years, creating a world that is becoming increasingly service-based. The idea of requiring a player to purchase a specific box on which to play the games of a specific company will one day soon, become extinct.

The final console generation is coming. The question is: will gamers be ready?

Beyond these gale-force winds of change, an entire hurricane of change threatens the gaming landscape. A storm which keeps the occupants of the loftiest ivory towers at Nintendo, Sega, and Sony awake at night: the titans.

Just as Microsoft’s entry into the gaming landscape in 2001 quickly forced Sega to exit the hardware business, the threat of a titanic company such as Apple or Amazon entering the gaming landscape looms large.

How long could the big 3 last should one of these titans decide to enter the home console business?

A shift to a more service-based gaming eco-system that doesn’t necessarily require NASA certified graphics cards, but relies on seamless delivery from a cloud-based infrastructure, makes the arrival of one of these behemoths a very real possibility.

So as we prepare ourselves for the arrival of E3 2018, take time to look around, smell the digital roses, and appreciate everything wonderful that is gaming. This is going to be an incredibly exciting year with a number of titles that will be announced which will certainly melt down a plethora of gaming forums across the internet.

Appreciate everything you’ve come to know and love about gaming for the past 35 years.

This will be the last E3 before everything changes.

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Every year, NerdBacon examines the three major console manufacturers and takes a look back at the key decisions made on their journey to E3. Recently, we began our series with Microsoft, and what lies ahead as they enter E3 2018. Today we look at Nintendo and examine their meteoric resurgence with the Nintendo Switch, as well as the immediate threats that could stymie their full potential.

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The Road to E3 2018

Nintendo rode into E3 2017’s extravaganza on a metaphorical white horse relishing it’s deservedly attained role as the conquering hero.

After weathering the lean years of the doomed-to-fail Wii U, as well as the decennial appearance of the “Nintendo is finished” and “Nintendo should quit the hardware business and go third-party” pundits, the company had finally caught a bit of lightning in a bottle with the release of their latest hardware, the Nintendo Switch.

The Switch personified the duality of Nintendo’s business practices – that is to say, a rather conservative Japanese company that consistently makes small, safe moves until a wild bug bites them in the ass and they decide to turn the gaming industry on its head.

Combining the best aspects of home console gaming, with a liberal dosage of forward-thinking thanks to the incorporation of portable functionality, the Switch leveraged it’s concept and excellent marketing and succeeded in capturing the hearts of a young generation that appreciated having a full console experience at home and on the go.

In short, the Switch became trendy.

Yes, Nintendo was part of the “it” crowd once again, and the Switch was hot commodity for several months after the system’s March 2017 release, with many retailers having difficulty keeping the device in stock.

While the Switch hardware itself was succeed in capturing the imaginations of the mass market, it was a renaissance in the company’s software divisions that truly helped propel the system’s meteoric rise in popularity throughout 2017.

The Switch was accompanied by long-anticipated The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, one of the finest titles the company has ever produced. This was followed up by a definitive port of Mario Kart 8, the intriguing fighting experiment, ARMS, and Splatoon 2 within the first six months of release.

At E3 2017, Nintendo would call upon it’s greatest property, Super Mario, to help put the exclamation point on the console’s first year with our pick for the game of the year: Super Mario Odyssey.

As we entered 2018, it truly felt like Nintendo’s hot start would never cool down and that the company could do no wrong with the Switch. The company easily sold more Switch units in the first 9 months on the market than their last effort, the Wii U, sold in its entire 4 year life-cycle.

As it stands now, the Nintendo Switch is poised to hit the 20 million mark by the mid-point of the year. Sales of the Switch are bringing it on par with the number of PS4 units sold in Japan during it’s first year on the market, while the estimated growth potential will help it close in on Microsoft’s Xbox One for second place globally by the year’s end.

Anticipation over what Nintendo had planned in 2018 quickly elevated to frenzy and slight hysteria.

A sort of “Direct Fever” (the rampant internet speculation as to when Nintendo would publish one of its hallmark Nintendo Directs to announce new titles) began dominate numerous social media and popular forum posts.

Fans waited, and waited – and then we got Kirby…

And while Kirby: Superstar Allies was a competent title, the series has never had the, ahem, “star power” (pun very much intended) that Nintendo’s other flagship titles have had.

As we got deeper into 2018 the questions began to grow louder:

Where was news on Metroid?

What the heck was Retro Studios working on?

Where was that 2018 Nintendo Direct!?

Nintendo eventually did let fans take a peek behind their iron curtain and showed that the company had two mega-ton bombs in Super Smash Bros and Pokemon Let’s go Pikachu/Eevee; however, given the incredibly hot start that the Nintendo Switch had out of the gate in 2017, it’s disappointing that the most major release for the company so far in 2018 has been a new Kirby game. The lack of vibrancy so far in 2018 also raises eyebrows given the ardency of Nintendo’s assurances that the Switch would not suffer the same gaps between major game releases that the beleaguered Wii U suffered.

While the Switch debut’s of Super Smash Bros and Pokemon will undoubtedly be home runs for the company, Nintendo does have an uphill battle that they will have to fight: the launch of their online paywall, the Nintendo Switch Online Service.

This new service will now force players to shell out some gold coins to be able to play games online, a feature that had previously been offered for free throughout Nintendo’s last two console generations. Nintendo does plan to sweeten the pot by offering a rotating list of classic games from their legendary library, complete with online play, but it remains to be seen whether or not customers will balk at the prospect of now having to pay for the privilege of online play.

The most glaring question for Nintendo’s online service will be how much support Nintendo will give to developers.

Both Sony and Microsoft have done very good jobs of creating stable environments and providing assistance and dedicated servers for developers when it comes to online play, while Nintendo has notoriously taken a very hands-off, approach. Nintendo must dig deep and look beyond using their fledgling online service solely as a vehicle for making a few extra bucks, and figure out what makes PSN and Xbox Live so successful. Otherwise, lack of developer support will drive developers away and the online service will become a huge millstone holding the Switch back from further success.

Another big question for Nintendo is how the company will evolve and respond to an industry that is becoming less centered on delivering

content on proprietary hardware, to one that is centered on delivering content as a service. Nintendo has always been adamant about their desire to create hardware for specific experiences, so it’s unfathomable to see them partnering with one of the Titans like Apple, etc; however, it’s a question Nintendo will have to face someday.

One final potential stumbling block that the company might have in their immediate future is over the fan reactions to Retro Studios’ next project.

Of all the Nintendo-related speculation that had taken over the internet in the first part of 2018, the most passionate discussions revolved around what the beloved saviors of Metroid and Donkey Kong would introduce for Nintendo’s wonder machine.

Would it be another Donkey Kong?

Could they be reviving another dormant Nintendo franchise like Earthbound, or Eternal Darkness?

The supposed answer has left many scratching their heads in disbelief: Star Fox.

Not just any Star Fox – a Star Fox racing game.

Rumors (which NerdBacon has confirmed through our own independent sources to be true) surfaced in May claiming that Retro’s long-awaited arrival on Switch would be a spin-off racing title for a series that had just seen a disappointing release a little under two years ago: Star Fox Grand Prix.

Given Retro’s propensity for quality, we have no doubt that Star Fox Grand Prix, whatever form it takes, will probably be pretty awesome; however, after all of the intense speculation regarding that studio over the past year, the prospect of a new Star Fox has much of the gaming community scratching their heads.

It’s these three points: the lack of a major 1st half release, the looming uncertainty of Nintendo’s online plans, and the disappointment over Retro’s as-of-yet-unannounced project that have congealed together to create a sense that momentum is slowing for Nintendo’s hybrid, at least in the first part of this year.

At E3 2018, Nintendo will rely on Smash and Pokemon to rally the masses into a good old fashioned Nintendo love fest, which they will no doubt be able to do. They will also need to show that third-party support for the Nintendo Switch has not regressed, but is getting stronger. Fortnite’s impending launch for the Nintendo Switch, (which NerdBacon exclusively broke in April) will be a key rallying point for other third-party developers and consumers to the Nintendo Online Service.

Overall, Nintendo has done a fantastic job with the launch and the first year of the Nintendo Switch and support for the Switch, as well as the company as a whole, is still astronomically high. While they will one day have to answer some very tough questions about their place in the industry as the shift to service-based gaming occurs, it’s a battle that they’ve fought before in other forms.

If there’s any company that is insulated enough to survive the landing of an Apple or Amazon, it’s Nintendo.

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Predictions

Thanks to numerous leaks over the past few months, we have a good idea of what Nintendo will show at E3 2018.

The company has already stated that Super Smash Bros will be the centerpiece of their E3 2018 presentation. The game will take center stage during the Nintendo direct, we’ll see even more of it during the ensuing days of Treehouse live coverage, and there will be a pro invitational tournament taking place as well.

The two biggest stories coming out of the Smash reveal will be:

What does the roster look like?

And will it bridge the gap between the fans who prefer Melee, vs the fans who prefer Super Smash Bros for Wii U?

We feel that the Switch version of Super Smash Bros will go back to a faster style of gameplay that will appeal to fans that still keep the nearly twenty year old Gamecube version active to this day.

As far as surprises go for Nintendo’s E3 2018 event, we expect to see a quick gameplay look at the next Metroid game, as well as an official title. We also believe that there will be another surprise 3DS title revealed during the Treehouse stream: The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening remake!

We also expect there to be SOMETHING on Earthbound.

While the dream of a revival being developed by Retro Studios seems to be dead, the hope for a new title in the series, or at least a port of Mother 3, is too strong for Nintendo to ignore.

Finally, we also think that at E3 2018, the time is right to finally see what Takashi Tokita’s “top secret” Nintendo Switch project is. Tokita, who was one of the director’s of the legendary SNES classic, Chrono Trigger, has been working on something for Square Enix since at least April of 2017.

Our bet is that Square Enix has been slowly building towards a revival of Chrono Trigger for some time – either as a direct sequel, or as a rebuilt remake of the original. (Not a crappy iOS version – a real, honest-to-goodness remake).

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Those are my thoughts on Nintendo’s road to E3 2018. Now it’s time for your thoughts!

Let us know what you want to see out of Nintendo at E3 2018, and don’t forget to tune in to NerdBacon for complete coverage of all the major press events and stories at twitch.tv/nerdbacon!

You can find our complete stream schedule here!