Did you miss the E3 Nintendo conference or had to do yardwork while it was on? Yeah, that sucked, but our friend Ozymandias, who is both a gamer and a well written gaming contributor had these thoughts, which are by far the best I have seen.

• Demographic numbers were interesting - it’s positive to see the audience broadening, and Nintendo has to be applauded here.
• The Wii Zapper and Wii Wheel fell extremely flat with the audience - not a single clap of applause, even when announcing they’d be bundled with future games. The magic of the Wii is the pointing controller; embedding it into a shaped piece of plastic just isn’t exciting to me.
• The “innovative” Metroid control is “more of the same” thinking; aiming in an FPS with the Wii controller is wonky, and adding Z-targeting just doesn’t make it any better.

• Nintendo is getting defensive about their lack of comprehensive online system. It was interesting to see Reggie try to point to the Nintendo DS WiFi network as proof of their online commitment, as well as a few more games with online support on the Wii. The problem is simply that these implementations are all per-game, and there’s no platform commitment. I hope and assume there is work going on to eventually allow gamers to select a unique account name (or at least single Wii Code) to play across games and build a friends list. And I assume that will integrate your Mii to act as your avatar. Unfortunately, it’s still not here and Nintendo is falling well behind Microsoft and even Sony here.
• Nintendo is pushing the “healthy gaming” aspect hard; it’s definitely one of the more intriguing aspects of the Wii. Wii Fit looks very, very cool - it’s the first fitness “game” I could actually see people using regularly, and the ”Wii Balance Board” peripheral you can stand on seems pretty capable. The board measures your weight as well as pressure as you shift positions on the board. And the software tracks your progress over time (and allows you to compare with friends). Very, very cool - I think you’ll see a lot of publishers jumping on board (no pun intended) this peripheral.
• Super Mario Galaxy for November 12th. This is probably my most anticipated game for the Wii, and it still looks like a ton of fun. Interestingly, no one applauded the date announcement - maybe it’s just not good enough to hit holiday any more? Weird.
• Mario Kart Online looks like a lot of fun, but my concerns about the online network (or lack thereof) still stand. <sigh>