Nintendo Noise Maker

Nintendo's annual pre-E3 press conference in Atlanta on Wednesday delivered the goods. Games that only days ago were unknown to the electronic entertainment press are now completely out in the open, free of Nintendo's watchful eye.

This afternoon's press conference began with a short overview of the industry and how well it did last year. Then Lincoln turned his attention to Nintendo and its successes of the past year. Howard Lincoln, Nintendo'schairman, went through the numbers and told the crowd that the video game industry in the US looks like it will be very big in 1997. The estimated total sales of hardware and software will come in somewhere around $4.9billion in sales. That's growth of 28% over the 1996 fiscal year. After getting numbers out of the way, everyone was introduced to the real stars, Banjo and Kazooie.

The game, whose official title is Banjo-Kazooie, can best be described as a three-dimensional Donkey Kong Country. As the keeper of that game, Rare has honed their skills in making action-platform titles, and Banjo-Kazooie looks great.

Nintendo also showed a third-party developer video, which included interviews with Chris & Tim Stamper (from Rare Co. Ltd.), Colin Gordon (Boss Game Studios), and members of Iguana, Angel Studios and others.

Probably the biggest surprise coming out of the developer video is that Core was shown as an N64 developer. While the video did not show any footage of a Tomb Raider game that they might be working on, it's not a very big leap to say that Core is on board as an N64 developer and is working on games.

Following that, the crowd was treated to a video of upcoming N64 titles that are coming up through the end of the year. Included in those were F-Zero 64, Yoshi's Island 64, Zelda 64, Body Harvest and Conker's Quest.

No news of a price drop came out of Nintendo's press conference on the hardware side of things, but the software side will see a price decrease of about $10-$15 off of the $69+ that most stores are charging for new N64titles. Effective immediately, Nintendo has lowered the cost of manufacturing for third party companies, which will result in lower game prices all-around.

On the question of the 64DD, Howard Lincoln took a wait-and-see attitude. "When we get exactly right, we will introduce it," he said. It was also confirmed that the 64DD wouldn't see retail shelves until at least Spring of 1998 in the U.S., with the current Japanese street date remains at March. It was also confirmed that the DD will have some kind of online capability, although it's not known at this time exactly what form thatwill take.

To top the advertising budget that they spent last year on the launch of the Nintendo 64, they are putting together a $200 million, 6-campaign media blitz dedicated solely to the games that Nintendo has.

Here's a quick look at the games that Nintendo showed off today. More information on these games will be forthcoming as the show progresses:

Major League Baseball Featuring Ken Griffey Jr. - Developed by Angel Studios, Griffey is the first game to really take full advantage of Nintendo's under-utilized Sports label. Angel used motion capture technology to get Griffey's batting nuances down and create the most realistic players possible in a polygonal baseball game.

Banjo-Kazooie - Banjo's the Honey Bear, Kazooie is his lovable Red Crested Breegull. In a kind of 3-D Donkey Kong Country, the two are out to save Banjo's girlfriend from the clutches of an evil menace. To do it, he has tocollect puzzle pieces scattered throughout the game's 16 different worlds. Banjo-Kazooie will be released on November 24th.

Conker's Quest - Rare definitely got the 3-D action-platformer category down. Conker's Quest is a story about a Squirrel named Conker and his friend Berri. The two are in for some high adventure in this interactive adventure game that takes full advantage of the N64's 3-D world-generating capability. Conker's Quest becomes the first game to be published solely by Rare, although Nintendo will be distributing it.

GoldenEye 007 - Based on the movie of the same name, Rare has taken this movie license and turned it into a first-person perspective action title. Venture with 007 through a number of locales, following the plot of the movie. GoldenEye is scheduled for an August 25th release and is also Rumble Pak compatible.

Body Harvest - Not much more than a seven-second clip was shown of Body Harvest, but it looks promising. Imagine a game that's a cross between Mechwarrior and Blast Corps, and this is it.

F-Zero 64 - Man! Talk about not wanting to show much of this game! Nintendo showed a clip at the press conference that was probably three seconds in length. What was there was incredibly impressive, moving at a 60 fps rate. We're told the game will feature four-player simultaneous action, and will be released in the US during the first quarter of 1998.

Zelda 64 - Coming in January to the US, Zelda 64 looks very impressive even at this early stage. At one time it looked almost as if Zelda 64 would use the Mario 64 engine, but it's evident now that this game will be somethingtruly different.

Yoshi's Island 64 - Taking the SNES classic to the next level, Nintendo has put Yoshi in a 2-D world with 3-D rendered characters and backgrounds. Some of the most impressive graphics ever seen in a side-scrolling action game complement what should be Miyamoto gameplay in rare form.

Mischief Makers - This Treasure game will be coming to the US very soon (try October 13), but unfortunately we have heard that they will not show the game on the floor. This excellent side-scrolling action game is bound to keep hardcore platform fans happy until Yoshi appears on the scene.

Nintendo also has many more games for the SNES and Game Boy, which we'll tell you about tomorrow.