Live Blog from the Nintendo Press Conference

We're live at the Nintendo press conference!

9:35 - The lights are dimming, they're starting.

9:36 - Miyamoto comes out dressed as a conductor and is using a wii controller to conduct an on-screen orchesta that's playing the zelda theme. He's speeding up and slowing down to prove it's real.

9:37 - He finishes and the crowd goes wild!

9:38 - He turns areound and now there's a guy behind him playing a truck racing game. Excite Truck. Now another dude is playing Red Steel.

9:39 - The concert ends and here comes Reggie. "If all you want is next generation, you're in the wrong place." He's downplaying the importance of graphics.

9:40 - On to a brief Wii logo video, now they're showing people pick up controllers and play drums. They're showing a bit of the tennis game. Now a very similar golf game. Some more orchestra conducting, but no game footage to go with it.

9:41 - First Mario sighting!

9:42 - She held the controller up to her ear... Because that thing has a speaker in it? Pilotwings? That has to be pilotwings. And some Metroid Prime 3, just for the heck of it.

9:43 - There's WarioWare, showing people spinning hula hoops, shaking bananas, all kinds of madness!

9:44 - There's Zelda, showing a guy aim the hookshot with the controller. Bow and arrow, too. There's an on-screen reticle for aiming. Now he's fishing. And that's the end of that video.

9:45 - Reggie's back out. He's welcoming the audience, says they'll answer some questions... But not all. Sure Reggie, I know plenty of people who have never played a video game!

9:49 - He's talking a lot about feeling. And he says there'll be no price and date announced here. But then he goes on to say that it's coming out in the fourth quarter of 2006.

9:50 - Now he's on to talk about the name. Says they weren't surprised by the response. Comparing it to other brands again (Lexus, Ikea, Google). But I actually liked all those other brand names when I first heard them. Wii? Still not feeling it.

9:51 - Showing a video. Metroid Prime 3's subtitle is Corruption. Dragon Quest Swords! Fire Emblem. Super Mario Galaxy! SD Gundam G Breaker. Excite Truck is a really crazy name.

9:53 - Tecmo has a golf game. Wonder how the boob physics are. Why are people chering for obscure anime games?

9:54 - End of video and Reggie's back to talk Zelda. He's calling it the best Zelda game ever and it'll be available at launch. But is it still a GameCube game?

9:56 - He just officially called that thing a nunchuk. Man, that's just lame. (and Wii-Remote it seems) He also called it "the Wii version." The graphics look pretty sharp, but it's not easy to tell if this is Wii-native or not.

9:57 - He's aiming the bow. And he's confirming that the controller has a speaker!

9:58 - Lunging forward in combat causes a shield bash.

10:00 - This game looks pretty awesome. He's used iron boots to stick to a hanging magnet. This doesn't look like GameCube graphics. He's rotating the nunchuk to execute spin attacks, which looks kind of cool.

10:01 - And we're back to Reggie. OK, there will be two versions of Zelda.

10:02 - More video. It's Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Now on to Super Mario Galaxy. Bullet Bills look mean! Mario looks pretty awesome.

10:03 - New franchises. 3 of them. Excite Truck. Well, isn't that technically an old franchise? The video just locked up behind him. Or maybe that was the end. Yeah, they're short clips. Project HAMMER and Disaster are the other two.

10:05 - Now on to third party. Hyper Sonic and Final Fantasy: CC. Madden NFL 07 and Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam. Rayman... SpongeBob... Not much time spent on those.

10:06 - 27 playable Wii games on the show floor.

10:07 - Is he going to start talking about Virtual Console? Oh, no, it's a Red Steel demo. He's shooting stuff, but they aren't showing it on screen. They showed it for a splitsecond, but the back screen is just the Wii logo. Dude, turn around and look, we can't see your game! There we go. The guns and cars look squashed, like a widescreen game being shown at 4:3. A few pretty blurry, ugly textures in there.

Yeah, I don't know. I know it's not supposed to be about graphics, but this just looks kind of bad. Action seems OK. You aim the remote at the screen to blast fools.

10:11 - First example of bullet time!

10:13 - Decent lighting effects. Yeah, everyone looks all skinny. They must be running this at the wrong aspect ratio. Sword fighting seems neat.

10:14 - Reggie's back to bring on George Harrison. He's here to talk DS. "True gamers" bought into the DS. Yuck. Now they're showing pictures of women holding DS's. See, it's for everybody! [Editors' Note: Stab. Stab. Stab.]

10:16 - Number time: 16 million DS units are out there. 6 million copies of Nintendogs in 12 months. 1.3 million users have used their DS online.

10:17 - George is talking Brain Age and how it sold to older players in Japan. Touch Generations is the name of a line of DS games for people who don't play games, like Sudoku Gridmaster.

10:18 - Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is coming to DS in two flavors, Blood and Crip. Starfox DS! Diddy Kong Racing and Yoshi's Island 2, also. A new Starfox game with online would be neat. Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam will come to DS and support online.

10:20 - Zelda DS contunues to look rad. Cut to DS video clip. Mario Hoops 3 on 4. Star Fox DS looks nice. That girl loves her DS! She loves Super Mario! I love her!

10:21 - Elite Beat Agents! It's Ouendan! But with different visuals, it looks like. Mario vs. DK sequel! Sweet!

10:22 - Satoru Iwata is taking the stage. He's talking yet again about how Nintendo is taking a different approach in order to bring in new players.

10:24 - OK, is he going to show Virtual Console stuff?

10:26 - He's talking about how its business model could make a game like Tetris possible again. I guess that means they'll have newly developed games there.

10:27 - Now he's complaining about load times. The DS sleep mode has spoiled him.

10:29 - Wii Connect 24 is the name of the online service. It'll fetch stuff online while it's turned off. Like new weapons, vehicles, etc. Animal Crossing is being used as an example. Get village visits while the system is in standby.

10:30 - More smiling women on the screen! We get it! You want non-players to start playing!

10:31 - The tennis game is part of a compilation caled WiiSports. Available at launch, also has golf and baseball. WiiSports has a really basic look to it, but it's got style.

10:32 - Iwata is finished, Reggie is back. Are they going to ever talk about Virtual Console stuff? Oh, Reggie's going to introduce the contest winners to see who gets to play the Wii first Miyamoto's coming out to announce the winner.

10:35 - He's playing tennis on the big screen. He's running back and forth... Will the movement required be a factor of the screen size?

10:36 - Here comes the contest winner. Here also comes Iwata and Reggie to play against Miyamoto and the contest winner. The three Nintendo guys have their faces in the game.

The contest winner seems to be doing OK. Is it really his first time? I'm sure all three of them were at least shown stuff ahead of time.

10:38 - Match over, Reggie's back to talk YET AGAIN about how graphics don't really matter and the other common themes.

10:40 - They're done!

Mario looks really great. Beyond that, like they keep saying... Playing is believing. So I guess I'll have to go play it tomorrow and see how it goes!

For another take on Nintendo's E3 2006 press conference, check out News Editor Tim Surette's live blog of the event.