Nintendo at E3 2003

Nintendo's E3 2003 was all kinds of lame. It's almost hard to do an earnest recap of what the show brought to the table, because this particular year is already so well-remembered for being just outright terrible. E3 '03 has been a running joke for years, the go-to example of an expo that Nintendo just got wrong.

The Big Announcements

The show's biggest lasting contribution might not even have been any Nintendo product, actually, but the underwhelmed reaction that Nintendo's announcements there inspired in those witnessing the failure happening right in front of them: he Internet-famous meme "The Reaction Guys" got its start with IGN's own coverage of Nintendo's E3 2003 press conference.

That's Matt Casamassina, Craig Harris, Chadd Chambers and Peer Schneider all honestly reacting to Nintendo's presentation that year – they were so bored by what they were seeing that they couldn't help but go deadpan for the duration of the event.

So why all the sad faces? Well, Nintendo's biggest announcement of the year was Pac-Man Vs. Seriously, that was the biggest announcement. That was just the beginning of Nintendo's connectivity push, though, as the company then pressed on to focus attention on The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures and Square Enix's Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles.

Ironically, many of the games Nintendo was featuring that year were actually quality, big games. The trouble was that Nintendo announced them prior to E3 -- so Mario Kart, Pikmin 2, Twin Snakes, Resident Evil 4 were all known quantities to the audience by the time E3 rolled around. Trained to expect major unveils, gamers and the gaming press alike walked away unimpressed and skeptical that the focus of the event, the GBA-tethering-concept, would find an audience or backing from other developers.

The Big Games