E3 2019: E3 Nintendo Direct, start time, how to watch, livestream, full schedule and more – CNET

Surprise, E3 2019 is sooner that you think, and while Sony is skipping this year, Nintendo will be out in force.

This week has already been a big week for Nintendo, with the announcement of Pokemon Sleep among other things. Most recently, Nintendo also provided a release date for Pokemon Sword and Shield. But E3 is almost certainly going to be bigger as Nintendo seeks to cement the incredible success of the Nintendo Switch. 

This year E3 takes place between June 11 and June 13, as always, at the Los Angeles convention centre. But the big announcements and news will break ahead of the show. Sony, Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft and Bethesda do this through live conferences traditionally. Nintendo used to do that — now it runs a Nintendo Direct.

What’s a Nintendo Direct?

It’s a shortish video presentation where Nintendo display its upcoming wares. They started in 2011 and have quickly become a thing. At E3 Nintendo tends to release a major Nintendo Direct ahead of the show. It tends to save a number of major announcements during these videos, or showcase major upcoming Mario or Zelda releases.

When does it start?

Well it depends what timezone you’re in! Here’s a brief list of timezones…

June 11 at 9 a.m. PT 
June 11 at  12 p.m. ET 
June 11 at 5 p.m. BST
June 12 at 2 a.m. AET

In short, it sucks to live in Australia.

How do I watch?

The easiest way to watch the E3 Nintendo Direct is to head to Nintendo’s homepage. But Nintendo also traditionally streams the Direct on its official YouTube page and its Twitch page. Personally I’ve always found the YouTube page to be faster and more reliable. We’ll also be embedding the livestream here on THIS VERY PAGE AT CNET. So you could just come here and watch!

What can we expect?

Well we know for sure that Nintendo is hosting competitions for two of its biggest competitive games Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Splatoon 2. That will happen the weekend before E3 and most likely before the Nintendo Direct alongside a Super Mario Maker 2 “invitational”. Not exactly sure what that will entail.

What will Nintendo show at the Direct itself? A safe bet would be a big outing for Pokemon Sword and Shield, it’s next “proper” Pokemon game for the Nintendo Switch. This is an eighth generation Pokemon game and the first time Nintendo has put a mainline Pokemon RPG on one of its home consoles — probably because the Nintendo Switch is a bit of a hybrid that doubles as a handheld. It’s worth noting that Nintendo is running a Pokemon-specific Direct presentation on Wednesday, June 5, at 6 a.m. PT. That’ll be 15 minutes long. Pretty short.

Most likely Nintendo will show a little at that Direct and a lot more at the big daddy E3 Direct.

The other major title you can expect to see is Animal Crossing on Switch. If I had to bet, I’d say that will be a major focus for Nintendo at this year’s E3. It’s not a new Mario or Zelda game, but it is a big deal. The series has an extremely large cult following.

What about a new Mario or Zelda?

The chances of Nintendo revealing a new major, mainline Mario or Zelda game is extremely slim. If I had to guess I’d say you’d have a better shot of seeing a new Zelda game, but even then the odds are slim.

What about Metroid Prime 4?

Rumours were this game was initially going to be handled by Bandai Namco Studios under the guidance of producer Kensuke Tanabe, but very recently Nintendo had to publicly admit that development had “not reached the standards we seek”. Development of the game has been given back to Retro Studios, who made the original trilogy. A decision that made absolute sense considering the original Metroid Prime is one of the most compelling video games ever made.

Because of the recent shift in development, I’d be extremely surprised (but also very happy) if we saw Metroid Prime 4 at E3 this year. More likely we’ll see this one in 2020.

Upcoming E3 press conferences

Saturday, June 8

Sunday, June 9

• Microsoft / Xbox — The gaming giant’s biggest news was Project Scarlett, its next-generation Xbox, coming in 2020. The new device is up to 4x more powerful, the company said, and like the next-gen PlayStation it’ll include a fast non-mechanical SSD hard drive, and it’ll be powered by custom innards built with the help of chipmaker AMD.  The company also announced that Halo Infinite will launch alongside Project Scarlett next year. Meantime, Microsoft is starting public tests of its Project xCloud streaming service in October, promising people the ability to play high end games on their mobile devices while away from home. While fans wait, Microsoft announced an update to its Xbox Elite Controller Series 2 as well as a slew of new games. And action star Keanu Reeves, fresh off the success of John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum, was on stage to announce his involvement with Cyberpunk 2077, which is coming next year.
• Bethesda — Bethesda kicked off its event with humility over the mixed response to Fallout 76, but quickly went back on the offensive. Fallout 76 got a new Battle Royale mode, Wolfenstein Youngblood received a new trailer and a co-op mode. We got a new game called Deathloop from the clever folks behind Dishonored and Bethesda introduced us to Orion, a piece of tech from ID Software designed to make game streaming better on services like Google Stadia. The lion’s share of attention, however, went to Doom Eternal, which looked fantastic in both single player and multiplayer.

Monday, June 10

Tuesday, June 11

• Nintendo (livestream only) — 9 a.m. PT (noon ET)

We’re there

CNET will be on the ground, covering covering E3 2019 alongside our sister site, Gamespot. We’ll update this page throughout the show as more games are announced.

$289

CNET may get a commission from retail offers.