E3: Nintendo Keynote - Part 1

Nintendo's keynote event at E3 started with Cammie Dunaway (Nintendo of America's executive vice president for sales and marketing) talking about mother's day and her own amateur snowboarding career.

Before the assembled masses could drop off to sleep, she then revealed, you guessed it, a snowboarding game.

Shaun White Snowboarding, to be precise. The man himself, who your humble reporter is in complete ignorance of, begins to demonstrate the snowboarding balance board business.

Cammie herself replaces him on the board, to demonstrate how easy it is to control the game. She begins tilting from side to side to control the snowboard, which, despite being quite a predictable control method, does looks like it works. The game will be out by the end of the year, Cammie announces. Just in time for the winter snow ... oh, hang on.

Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, bounds onto the stage and gets stuck into a slideshow of himself and his personal history in the videogame industry, including a look at the ill-fated GameCube.

Apparently, the DS has changed the shelf life of games, which is a bit far-fetched really. The DS has also expanded the gaming audience, which is probably true, to an extent.

"The teams that make Mario and Zelda are hard at work," he says, but more casual gaming is also a key element of Nintendo's future strategies.

"At Nintendo, we believe there's progress in destroying the psychological barrier," he says, cementing this strategy in the minds of the audience.

Animal Crossing was the first game unveiled by Mr Iwata, with Katsuya Eguichi interviewed about the title. It will be coming out this year and looks suspiciously similar to the GameCube and DS versions, but there isn't that much you can do with such a simple premise really.

There is a city to explore, in which exists an auction site, a room and fashion designer, a hairdresser and so on. Exciting.

WiiSpeak was then revealed, with a Team Speak-style theme and a community 'fishing' application bundled with it. Yeah, fishing. You can then visit other players villages and do 'things' together, using the voice options to communicate.

Reggie Fils-Aime (Nintendo of America president) is next up on the stage, talking about the lifetime global hardware sales of consoles. He is confident sales of the DS will be around 100 million by the end of the year, which is quite impressive.

Speaking of success stories, Fils-Aime informs us that 19 third party games have exceeded 400,000 sales, with 11 publishers reaping the rewards.

Star Wars: Clone Wars was then demoed, followed by Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party and Call of Duty: World at War. The latter will be using the wii-mote, which is an interesting concept if it works.

If is a big word, of course. There will be a co-op mode included, with one player using the zapper and the other manipulating the Wii Remote. A modern, visceral Duck Hunt? Perhaps.

Cammie Dunaway makes a return, revealing Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades, before Spore, Will Wright's latest genre-defying behemoth, is hinted at for the DS as well.

Song-share will be available on Guitar Hero: On Tour Decades, so you can take your version of the game around and swap songs with other versions. Possibly.

A big piece of news followed this - Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars was announced. It will be set in modern day Liberty City, with new characters and missions.

It'll be heading your way come Winter, according to Cammie Dunaway.