Rather than a standard E3 press conference, which Nintendo has abandoned in recent years, the gaming giant will kick off their part of this year’s show with a “spotlight” presentation focused on Super Mario Odyssey and other games coming to the Nintendo Switch in 2017. Surprises will likely be minimal as the company focuses on leveraging Mario and other upcoming games to move Switch units in the 2017 holiday season and keep the console’s strong launch going, but unexpected announcements are hardly out of the question.
The “spotlight” begins at 9AM PT/12PM ET, and you can watch live up above. That presentation seems like it’ll be short, however, with their usual “Treehouse” stream starting at 9:30AM PT, just half an hour later. It seems like we’ll get an extended demo of Odyssey followed by tidbits on other known Switch games and maybe some information on the system’s forthcoming online and virtual console functionality. There could also be some 3DS news in store, but don’t expect much, as Nintendo is very committed to the Switch this year.
There’s certainly room in there for a new game announcement, but with the focus on 2017 efforts specifically, it seems likely that would be limited to a port of a Wii U game, similar to the recent announcement of PokkĂ©n Tournament DX—a Wii U game getting new life on the Switch. Personally, I’m hoping to hear that a Smash Bros. port is in the works, which is already expected enough not to steal too much focus from the known Switch games, like Arms, Splatoon 2, and Mario Odyssey, that Nintendo wants to push.
The Treehouse stream, starting right after the main presentation, will, as in years past, offer a more in-depth look at Nintendo’s upcoming lineup, including games shown and/or announced during the spotlight. (As well as, potentially, some smaller announcements that they didn’t want to clutter up the main presentation.)
That will run all day today, tomorrow, and Thursday, with the stream starting at 10AM PT/1PM ET on the latter two days. Interrupting those streams will be separate invitational tournaments to showcase Splatoon 2, Pokkén Tournament DX, and ARMS. Splatoon is set for today at 2:30PM PT/5:30 ET, Pokkén for tomorrow (Wednesday) at 10:30AM PT/1:30PM ET, and ARMS for tomorrow at 3:30PM PT/6:30 ET.
To watch everything, you can stay tuned to the stream above or head over to Nintendo’s E3 2017 website.
(image: Nintendo)
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