The Big Winner of E3 2010

I have watched the Microsoft press conference, the Nintendo conference, and last the Sony conference, and I believe there is a clear winner of E3 this year. What does being a winner of E3 mean? Well every E3 this subject comes up and I suppose the consumers are always the winner. Really there is no winner or loser if one looks at it in terms of all three industries are revealing the future of gaming and all three companies continue to move the game industry forward in the mass media entertainment field. But you know, that's not good enough for us gamers. Us hardcore gamers are not satisfied with that answer. We want a winner. We want to be fanboys and yell obscenities at what might be a cool idea but if it doesn't wow us, it might as well be dog crap. We want closure and a sense of one company is better than another, even if that only lasts for a week in the case of E3.

All three companies had solid parts of their presentations, and not so solid parts of their presentations. Its the company that had the least of these non solid parts that is the big winner of E3. First lets start with what the two losers did right, and why they are the LOO-HOO-OOO-SERS.

Now Microsoft had an interesting dilemma on their hands. Being first means you have the opportunity to set the stage and raise the bar as high as possible for the rest of the show. If they could bring the pain they could have made it very hard for Nintendo and Sony to make it out of the green X's shadow. Microsoft chose to start things off with the unique, "Try to forget this", method. They put the entire audience into white, bluish ponchos and had Circue Du Solei acrobats prance about on an artsy Xbox stage as screens show various clips of Kinect stuff. This idea could have worked had the audience been filled with off the street fans, nerds, and regular people. All that fancy pants weirdness probably would have gone over great and caused a real "Awh, that's cool" moment. But the audience was not filled with regular people, it was filled with reporters. People paid to rate, criticize, and be skeptical of the product your selling. It is their job to be at your presentation and record what they see and experience for the general masses. Doing what Microsoft did was just a large embarrassment to a professional field, no wonder Sony ripped them.
What I did like from Microsoft is the Kinect's ability to stop, play, fast foward, rewind, and interact with your xbox's menus via voice and hand control. This functionality to me seems very sci-fi and an awesome feature. I can't wait to tell my xbox, "Xbox, stop Twilight. Xbox, delete Twilight". What I did not like was the Wii to xbox 360 ports of motion games that bring nothing new and just look even more silly when done with your entire body. Kinectimals, Kinect Sports, Kinect Adventure, whatever the racer is that no one will want to play if it involves holding your hands up for a prolonged period of time, are just a few of the games that are casual gamers' dreams. The problem, the Kinect costs 150 bucks and assuming the casual gamers who bought a Wii don't own the more hardcore game oriented xbox 360, they'd have to pay the 300 dollars for a new xbox as well. That's 450 dollars to get material they can already do on the Wii for 300 dollars cheaper. I just don't see the xbox breaking into the Wii's casual gamer strangle hold. Your grandma will not go from playing with their kinectimal to fraging n00bs in Halo Reach, not going to happen. So Microsoft, despite the cool voice control and partnership with ESPN (yay to live content on my xbox), loses because its opening was an insult to the professionals who came to learn about the future of their Xbox 360 and because the kinect although cool tech, seems more like a gimmick with Wii port content at this point than an awesome experience. Plus other than Halo Reach, Medal Gear Solid Rising, Gears of War, Fable III, and Bulletstorm, the games brought were meh at best.

Sony, like Microsoft, also had an interesting dilemma on their hands. As the last of the major game companies to do their press conference Sony could have gone out on a major high note and made everyone in the room forget everything they had seen thus far, or they could have limped out and just been known as the end, "thank god it's over". This E3 Sony sort of found a middle ground between the two. It certainly was not the epic finish many people thought Sony would end with. Sony tried to inject humor into their presentation as much as possible and occasionally it landed. First the good from Sony's presentation. I liked that they pushed the 3D technology and integrated it into their game demos. 3D games, like HD games on the onset, will be a tough sell because their simply isn't enough 3D sets in people's homes. I believe however that like HD, 3D sets will become more adopted and that 3D gaming will become more common as a result. The sheer awesomeness of a bullet whizzing by your head or "running" to cover that appears to be in front of you is the very essence of "full immersion" that game developers have been trying to bring to people since games were made. Another positive was Jerry Lampert (Kevin Butler) coming on stage. Usually in these sort of conferences, companies like to ignore the existence of all other competitors or refer to competitors in very vague general terms. Kevin Butler broke this non official corporate rule and directly called out Microsoft on their strange opening. And on screen joked at the Kinect's controller less interface quipping that making a gun shape with your hand and going "Phew, phew, phew is fun...if you're a third grader". These sort of jokes were pretty funny and his musings were generally well received.
Now the not so good from Sony. Their entire presentation seemed like one giant commercial. Every damn trailer and onscreen graphic ended with the Playstation musical beep and the "Play-sta-tion" electronic female voice. We get it, you're Playstation, we're in a press conference about your products, we don't need to keep hearing the commercial jingle after every trailer. Every trailer also seemed to only last like 15 seconds. What is everything at their conference being ported to a normal tv commercial right after the conference? Why was Sony's partnership with Coca-Cola relevant to gamers? Maybe investors might care that Sony games and hardware will be advertised on coke cans and products but that is irreverent to gamers. Microsoft's partnership with ESPN actually had meaning to Xbox owners. Also instead of hitting Microsoft where it hurts in the hardcore gamer's eyes, exclusive games, Sony brought almost nothing that hadn't already been known about or leaked on the web. Many of the games they showed in their trailers were actually multi-platform. Medal of Honor, Portal 2, Assassins Creed: Brotherhood, Dead Space, Final Fantasy XIV, all games that got major screen time at the conference and all are games distributed by companies that plan on releasing their games to multiple platforms. Maybe the playstation might get some exclusive content out of these titles but that isn't enough to brag about for the length of time these titles received. The games Sony does have all to itself, Killzone 3, Little Big Planet 2, Heroes on the Move, inFamous, Grand Turismo, and Twisted Metal are all good but its like, ok Microsoft had the same amount of quality content. The titles people thought Sony would bring, Ico the Guardian (something like that) the Agent, and Resistance 3 had no appearance. Also I'm sorry but for Grand Turismo 5, the trailer looked beautiful but it's more or less the same video that has been around for years. The only good thing about it was they finally have an actual release date, which will probably be delayed. Oh I forgot to talk about the Move. It's an HD port of the Wii, nuff said. Apparently it does nothing for your golf game, and orange wire frames do not actually sprout into existence around you. The only positive is that it is cheaper than Kinect. Oh I forgot about the PSP...good, let's all forget about the PSP. Sony, just let it die or give gamers what they want, and what they want is not a street wise, loud, black kid that makes people hate the PSP more than love it. The freakin Ipad/iphone/ipod touch is a better gaming platform than your psp, live with it. Massive Damage...that is all...

Who's left....oh right Nintendo, the big winner. Well let's start out by listing Nintendo's faults. The Wii online experience still sucks, they did nothing to change that. The Wii is still a standard def system and all their games reaffirm that in splendid cell shaded and cartoonish style graphics. Meaning that any game that isn't an Nintendo love child or developed with the standard def limitation in mind will suck. Shigeru Miyamoto is actually pretty bad at his own game and hopefully "wireless interference" was actually the cause of the "1:1" problems with the wii-mote. Mario Sports Mix, Just Dance 2 (why did so many people buy the first one, you don't really dance for heavens sake), and Wii Party proves that there will always be some turds in an otherwise sublime line up of games. Oh and Reggie Fils-Aime looks like a Disney villain..which I suppose is fitting considering the games he show cased. Well that does it for the bad.
What did they do right? Well, for one, they realized what their audience wanted and they brought it right away. No poncho, acrobat bullslapskie, or corporate lame speak about how their console is revolutionizing something bla bla bla. Nintendo started out by showcasing Zelda. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword to be exact. Finally a built for Wii Zelda game where the gamer can use the Wii-motion plus to swing a sword, or whip, or throw a bomb, or shoot a bow and arrow, or slingshot, or throw a beetle, all to (hopefully) 1:1 ratio motion. The game is a cross between Twilight princess in that it is an adult Link, and the cartoonish style of Wind Waker, giving the Zelda world that classic N64 style. What did Nintendo do after releasing Zelda onto the world. Well they only showcased long trailers of major Nintendo titles that have been lost in time for awhile. Kirby epic yarn (something like that) looks like a paper mario like version of kirby that looks simply fun. Donkey Kong Country Returns reminds me a lot of old sonic in that it is fast, epic, 2.5D side scrolling at its best. Metroid is returning to Wii with Metroid other M, and Samus seems to be kicking ass all over again. Now, as an older "youth" I would like to think I have out grown Mickey Mouse in my life, but god darn it Epic Mickey just looks fun. The ability to erase and create the world you are in as well as throw backs to every old Disney character and cartoon make this game generally fun. This years guilty pleasure game for sure. If there is one game I still play on my N64 (honestly, it is the ONE game I play on my N64) it is GoldenEye. It redefined what a shooter was for console gaming and it is being redefined for the Wii. The game will support the classic controller so no wagging for this classic game and I love that. Please bring back cheats developer. I want to shoot someone with the golden gun right from the beginning. Don't much like Daniel Craig replacing Pierce Brosnan as the James but whatever. My favorite part of the conference however was the Nintendo 3DS. A lot of people, and myself figured that Nintendo would release some information about their new 3D capable handheld, like a 5 minute teaser trailer for it, but no one was prepared for the onslaught of info and awesomeness that was to follow. A full line up of developers and games that those developers plan on making for the 3DS was showcased. And it is a lot of developers and games. STARFOX 64!!!!! Sorry...I like starfox, anyway the Nintendo 3DS allows for 3D gaming without 3D glasses by showing depth in the screen. It is NOT the kind of 3D where it jumps out at you, but instead it is like looking into a window. Where things in that window have depth and some things can be in front or behind other things in that window. The level of 3D can be changed by a slider on the 3DS, so if the 3D is distracting to you for some reason, just push the slider down and turn the 3D off. But if you like new things, you'll want it maxed out...TO THE MAX!!11!1! Games like Kid Icarus, Golden Sun, Dragon Quest, Pokemon, all will look beautiful in the 3D format for the 3DS. The 3DS also allows you to take pictures, using its 2 cameras on the front of the device, in 3D. That makes me think of a hologram kind of picture of a person which would be wicked awesome. I'm not sure how 3D movies will work on such a tiny screen and without glasses, but the 3DS will support 3D movie watching as well which I suppose is cool too. The best part is that Reggie didn't just talk about the 3DS, because one has to remember, when it comes down to it, it is a salesman trying to pitch their product to you, they are bound to exaggerate how a product is. Reggie instead had an army of rather hot looking ladies with 3DS's strapped to their wastes storm the aisles and allow every member of the press to try out the 3DS for themselves. This is a salesperson allowing the product to be tested and played by reporters! I know that stuff goes on in the booths anyway but come on, he didn't have to do that but he did and it was [insert synonym for awesome here]. So Nintendo stole E3 this year with its mega reload of games and a piece of tech that actually is revolutionary instead of just reactionary like the Microsoft Kinect and Sony Move. Good job Nintendo.

*got rid of the pictures that for some reason were not working.