E3 2012 Highlights: Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony Shun Zynga and GREE

The 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo, held between June 5-7 in Los Angeles, Calif., proved that despite the worldwide mobile fever experienced by smart phones and iPhone and Android applications users, gaming is a fairly conservative industry in which users cling to their good old consoles.

At E3 2012, the annual trade fair for the computer and video games industry presented by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), powerhouse developers such as Nintendo didn't even addressed mobile gaming choosing to focus instead on emphasizing users' ability to access social information from the Wii U on their browser (which is understandable, given Nintendo’s fear of iOS and Android devices “cannibalizing” its hardware).

Other developers like Microsoft and – to some extent – Sony have been a little more opened to mobile gaming, with Microsoft's “big push” arriving in the form of SmartGlass, an application which shares media content across mobile platforms including – but not limited to – iPhones, iPads and Androids (an innovative concept when compared with Nintendo’s mobile reticence).  

Sony also introduced, albeit unenthusiastically, its PlayStation Mobile, a newly rebranded version of the PlayStation Suite which will certificate mobile third-party devices (beginning with HTC phones). However, the big console guys still think of mobile gaming as the little ugly sister, and don't pay too much attention nor space floor to it.

Even Zynga and GREE, which were largely expected to represent the nascent mobile gaming industry, reportedly ended up with no floor space on their own and relegating to the use of “a small meeting room at the end of the hall” to present its products to the press.   

However, the growing presence of mobile gaming still is a  real threat to traditional developers like Nintendo if they don’t adapt and change, even by taking baby steps like Microsoft and Sony.