Although E3 didn't officially begin until today, there were already plenty of press conferences and announcements on Monday. Although a majority of the week is filled with updates and suprises on new games, each year the Big 3 of Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony are always the most anticipated. It's the console developers that ultimately shape the future of the industry. Usually at this point we'd be seeing announcements of new consoles in development, but with the state of the economy and the price of current systems, nobody expected to see that. The current generation is finally becoming affordable and Blu-ray is just becoming the mainstream standard. So with no new consoles, what did they have to show?
The simple answer: HARDWARE
MICROSOFT
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The big announcement from the Xbox 360s proud parent is was already announced last year, but this time around it had a new name and more to show for it. Project Natal is now known as Kinect and shows promise to be the next phase in gaming. Kinect's motion capture camera allows stronger interaction with gaming by making the player the controller. Showcased this year was new titles featuring the hardwares ability to recognize different actions and its possible implementation. I think Kinect is what Nintendo wanted the Wii to be, that fully immersive gaming experience. Personally, I hope they can achieve more than a collection of crappy carnival games. There's plenty of promise for Kinect to reshape gaming but ultimately it's up to developers to create something people will enjoy.
The other big announcement in hardware was the new Xbox 360 Elite with a 250GB hard drive with included wireless internet. Honestly, I can't believe it took this long. There's been more rumors flying around about an HD Wii being in the works than the 360 having wireless included yet you'd think once the PS3 came out as wireless, it would have been the first hardware change to implement. But then again, they did have that whole overheating problem to work out.
NINTENDO
Oh Reggie Fils-Aime, where do you get your ideas? I'm not saying the President of Nintendo of America is a creative developer, but more of a creative salesman. I've long had a real disdain for Reggie because of how he comes off when selling the Nintendo brand. Sony and Microsoft give the others credit for what they do and show some honesty, but I've never really noticed Reggie really acknowledging successes of the other two or Nintendo's own short comings. What has me so riled up this year is his statement that NPD data shows the Wii is the most played system by its owners over any other system. Anybody I know who has a Wii has it collecting dust. Now I'm not saying Nintendo is lying, but just being creative with statistics. I've got a background with conducting studies and experiments so the first explanation that came to mind was who owns a Wii. I give them credit for having a huge install base, but I think that skews the data. How many grannies and college girls actually own a PS3 or 360? I want to see a study done by people who do own more than one system and see what that data says.
But anyway, on to their big sell. This year it was about returning favorites from Nintendo's classic games, including Kid Icarus, but their main feature was on the next handheld, the 3DS. The promise from Nintendo is the 3DS will offer 3D gaming in the palm of your hands. I've already expressed my opinion on 3D as being the wrong direction for entertainment but the 3DS comes off as even more of a gimmick. The inclusion of a camera in the DSi seemed a little unnecessary for me since I already have that with a phone, but the 3DS claims to be able to take 3D pictures. Ultimately, I'm not against Nintendo handhelds. I enjoy my DS for it offering a solid experience in 2D gaming but I don't see the need for 3D. How immersive of an experience can you have when it's on a small screen between your hands? Nintendo also has the difficulty of trying to impress people without actually being able to show them something. The 3DS is something that needs to be experienced in person and I can see it being a challenge to convince cautious consumers. However, if 3D is the future, I think the 3DS is the way to go with technology offering an experience without headache inducing glasses.
SONY
Sony didn't really bring anything new as far as their main feature this year, not even a new name. The Playstation Move is a motion controller utilizing the Playstation Eye with a 1:1 movement ratio. Most of their conference was demonstrating the new peripheral with gameplay styles and expressing its potential. Although not earth-shatteringly impressive, it looks like the Playstation Move is what the Wii wanted to be. It has more precise motion control and the lollipop-like light on the end offers new gameplay options on top of just waving your arm around. I don't see the Move having a place in every household, but again, it is up to developers to make software that will define its success.
Another matter of Sony that let me breathe a sigh of relief was the clarifications made of Playstation Plus. Rumors had been circulating about Sony going with a paid system for their PSN services similar to Xbox Live. The concern was much of the paid services of Xbox Live were free for PSN. The question was were these free services suddenly going to have a fee. I was happy to see that the free services were not changing. Instead, premium services will be offered with beta access, faster downloads, and exclusive demos. I'm not sure if I'll go for the Playstation Plus, but I was glad to hear the current services wouldn't be changing.
Oh, and one more thing...
TWISTED METAL!!!!!
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