E3 2015: What's Coming For Nintendo?

Nintendo Co., Ltd (ADR) NTDOY said that it will focus on games being released in 2015. That means Wii U and Nintendo 3DS can look forward to trailers and demos of "Mario Maker," "Yoshi's Woolly World" and a 3DS port of last year's "Hyrule Warriors." "Star Fox" is also expected to make its global debut. There are many things Nintendo indicated it will not talk about, however, including the new "Legend of Zelda" game. Nintendo will also refrain from discussing its mobile game plans or its next console. This could leave a void for the "Pokemon" maker, but can it be filled with a healthy lineup of new announcements? "Nintendo is staying pretty low key at E3, so I don't think that there will be much announced, if anything," Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter told Benzinga. "Thus, no, I don't think that they will do anything at E3 to drive console sales. They might cut price to $249, as it is probably a good time to do so, but they historically wait for holiday for price cuts." Pachter said that he didn't think the new 3DS is "all that compelling." He said the platform is great as is but has received limited publisher support because the installed base is not as large as that of the original Nintendo DS. "I think it will continue to be a profitable business for them, but think they will keep having problems on the console side," Pachter added.

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'Another Punt'

Asif Khan, CFO of Virtue LLC and CEO of Shacknews.com, told Benzinga that he thinks Nintendo's E3 presence will be "another punt this year." "They're trying to make it to the next system at this point, the NX," said Khan. "I don't expect a whole lot out of them. I think we'll hear about Star Fox [and] there's rumors of Metroid. At this point they're just trying to make it to next year." Khan said that he tries to set his expectations as low as possible for most companies at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. "It worked last year with Sony," Khan added. "Sony actually had a great press conference. [But] the problems Nintendo's facing are not just specific to them. Microsoft and Sony may be selling more hardware, but they're all struggling to create new, original software. This whole generation has been one of re-masters and reimagining and trying to re-launch existing IP." Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.