How Nintendo approached E3 2018: quality, esports, and immediate gratification

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
June 17, 2018
Updated June 19, 2025
10 min

It was time that Nintendo held a big show at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) and revealed a lot of new games. But this year, the company decided once again to forego its in-person press event, and it chose to focus mostly on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the big fighting game coming out on the Nintendo Switch on December 7.

That was a bit of a disappointment, considering Nintendo had a smashing success with the launch of the Switch in March 2017. The company has sold more than 17 million units (as of March 2018) and more than 68 million pieces of software. It would have been nice to see a victory lap and a few more surprises out of Nintendo at this E3.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.