E3 - 2009

For those who haven't seen E3, here is a brief overview:


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Microsoft's Press conference details follow:

- Rockband: Beatles. Yeah, a whole game devoted to the beatles... (Not exclusive, but has a single, yes... A single track that is exclusive for the 360 version.)

- CoD6 - Modern Warfare 2. They showed a brief bit of the gameplay. (Not a 360 exclusive.)

- Tony Hawk: Ride. A game that uses a custom built skateboard type device for a controller. (This game is not 360 exclusive.)

- A demo of Final Fantasy 13, along with the prospective release date of spring 2010.

- Halo 3: ODST. Set just before Halo 3... You play as a rookie soldier.

- Forza Motorsports 3. "The definitive racing game" as called by the designers of the game. A bit pre-emptive but the demo and breif gameplay footage didn't look too bad. The customization tools that allow users to completely customize their car, create videos of it and do all sorts of other neat stuff they wouldn't tell us about.

- Metal Gear Solid: Rising. A new installment of the MGS series... Unfortunately not much was shown about this.

- Splinter cell: Convictions. Some gameplay footage of this new splinter cell game. (This one may be a 360 exclusive, but I can't remember for sure if they said it was.)

- Crackdown 2. Just a trailer for the game.

- A new game (Sorry, the name escapes me at the moment, Shadow something perhaps?) that is a sidescroller with elements of castlevania and metroid. (Is 360 exclusive and will be available on the XBL market place.)

Then the 360 gets a few upgrades...
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Last.fm
All are added to the 360 in a special custom format.

The video section of XBL made the videos available in more regions and in 1080p (high definition). They also said available instantly... But I'm not sure what that means, because I thought they already had streaming video.


And for the major announcement about the hardware... Project Natal.
Ditch the controller, the 360 (with this software/hardware bundle) can now use full body recognition and voice recognition technology to allow the user to control the 360 with just their hands. (Think the eyetoy or live-eye or whatever Microsoft's camera was called, only expanded a bit.)


So for everyone now... What are your thoughts on these news events?


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Nintendo's press conference details follow:

- Super Mario Bros (Rev). Taking the classic Mario brothers and redesigning it for the Rev. New graphics and a multiplayer mode that allows up to 4 people to play together. Is set to be released Holidays 2009.

- Motionplus and resort plus. A bit more showing the motion plus addition and 3 more minigames from the series. (3 point challenge, archery, skydiving.) Comes out in July.

- Red steel 2. (Shown at the Ubisoft conference...) Requires use of the motionplus. Showed a demo of it and gameplay footage of one of the levels.

- RevFitplus. Expanding on what the first Revfit did, this adds much more to it.

- Vitaility sensor hardware attachment. Used to detect heart rate. (And allow people to relax more.)

- Final Fantasy: Crystal Bearers. Not much was revealed.

- Kingdom Hearts. A unique version of Kingdom Hearts for the DS... Not much else was revealed.

- Golden Sun DS. Continuing the series from 6 years ago now on the DS.

- Mario and Luigi: Bowsers inside story. A sequel to the Mario & Luigi rpgs from the GBA/DS.

- Mario vs. Donkey kong: Minis march again. Features a custom level designer...

- A new Wario ware. With game creation functions.

- Super Mario Galaxy 2.

- The Conduit. (available in 3 weeks)

- Resident Evil: Dark side chronicles. Apparently featuring Leon and Claire Redfield.

- Deadspace: Extraction. Explains the events that lead up to the original Dead space.

- Metroid: Other M. (2010) A seemingly 3rd person metroid game that is said to explain more of the story of Samus.


So now that Nintendo's conference has ended, how do you think it compares to the Microsoft one? Did Nintendo step up and dethrone Microsoft or is Microsoft's still more impressive? And what do you think of their announcements?



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Sony press conference details follows:

- Uncharted 2: Among thieves. Competitive/co-op multiplayer. Game play footage and a bit of the cinematics from that level.

- MAG. Live gameplay footage of a 256 player battle. Debuting this fall.

- Assassin Creed bloodlines. (PSP game coming soon.)

- Final fantasy Dissidia. Launches August.

- PSP Go. (not really a secret... but unveiled anyway.) Available Oct 1st at 249 US/Euro.

- Gran Turismo PSP. Talked about many of the features of it. (800 cars in game, wifi trading of cars, multitudes of tracks and game modes.) Also showed a short demo of it. (Releases Oct 1st.)

- Metal gear solid: Peace Walker. (On PSP.) 10 yrs after MGS3. Showed a breif trailer of it. (Coming 2010.)

- Resident Evil. A remake specifically for the PSP.

- Little big planet (PSP). Announced but not much more was said.

- Motorstorm: Arctic edge. (PSP) Announced but not much more was said.

- Monster Hunter. (PSP) Announced but not much more was said.

- Agent. (PS3 exclusive.) 1970's spy game.

- Assassin's Creed 2. Showed a gameplay demo. Based in Italian renaissance with Leonardo Davinci as weapon/tech designer. (Holidays 2009 launch date)

- Final Fantasy 13. (Spring 2010) Showed a video of it, including more gameplay footage.

- Final Fantasy 14. (PS3 exclusive.) An online based game. (MMO.)

- Tech demos of Motion Controller. Think the Rev's remotes coupled with the eyetoy. (Launch Spring 2010.)

- Modnation Races. (PS3 exclusive.) Kart racing with customizable characters, cars and tracks. Showed gameplay footage of creating a track as well as some racing footage. (2010 release.)

- The Last guardian. (PS3 exclusive.) Showed a trailer for it.

- Gran Turismo 5. (PS3 exclusive.) Showed a trailer.

- God of War 3. (PS3 exclusive.) Showed gameplay footage. (Due for release March 2010.)


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Now that all 3 major players have gone and made their announcements, which looks the best? Who made the best showing at E3 this year? Did Sony topple the others? or did Microsoft's first showing hold strong? Or did Nintendo take it?
Please give your reasons for your answer. (Blatant fanboyism will NOT be tolerated. So if your only reason is: "Cause <system or company> is teh roxxors" Then don't even bother posting it.)

In my opinion...nintendo takes it again. Idk....i think e3 was overall Abysmal this year. at least nintendo had a better conference then last year.

Here is why nintendo takes it this year....True...MS and microsoft had some interesting things to offer...people are fawning over Natal...and some people are semi-interested in the motion controller for sony.

But What hurts MS and Sony is the fact that alot of what they demoed are cross-platform games. If people don't have a 360...they see the pc sticker and say..."oh thank God...I don't have to buy a 360" same thing as sony.. and that's is seriously going to hurt them.

Nintendo on the other hand demoed stuff STRICKTLY for the wii and DS. So if they want to play the nintendo stuff they only have 2 options....1. Emulate...not recommended as it will more than likey lag and can get you in law trouble. 2. Buy a wii, or ds and play the game. I myself am a perfect example...I saw the pc stickers on most of the games and I was extremly happy. Can't wait for Ruse and Splinter Cell.

In addition...most of what EA and Ubisoft showed were Nintendo only. So This makes nintendo very strong in the market. If you want to maximize profits...then stop demoing 3rd party content at E3 unless it's console specific.

I was watching E3 with all the other Huge G4 fans and we were watching the MS conference. The reaction to Project Natal and Milo.....A Resounding "ehh" it's interesting and all that...but some gamers just don't want that....they just want games and not new ways to play them. Milo? creepy...that's all i got to say on the G4 fans behalf. oh and Joy ride? MS...seriously COME OUT WITH YOUR OWN IDEAS! STOP RIPIING OFF THE MII SYSTEM FROM NINTENDO!

As for sony...the motion controller? again...a resounding "ehh" It's just a motion controller...we've seen it on the wii already...The key word is "controller". people are expecting great things.....and what do we get? A CONTROLLER! again people want games games and more games.....so for the sake of my fingers...I think i've made my point. A lot of Sony was PSP....kinda got old after a while. Now Im sorry....but a lot of people were hoping for sony to do something that would let them keep the lead....and again imm sorry....but keep dreaming. Last year...Sony FINALLY made a profit and their over priced monster of a system. If they just made a profit last year. What on earth would make you think that they will take the lead in the market when the wii made a profit soon after it came out? and people were hoping for a PS3 price drop? All week long I kept telling them keep dreaming.. If they are smart...they will announce a price drop...And when they were done...I couldn't help but just laugh out loud. You can't price a system at $600 and expect it to sell! Especially with todays Economy!. It would have been smart of them to drop the price....the key word being "smart". It doesn't work sony. If people are poor, and people are jobless, why would they buy a $600 system with money they don't have? Ok...fine you got God of War 3.....that's not enough to make them buy a PS3. And admit it.. people are only buying the PS3 because it's a blu ray player....I rest my case.

But Nintendo seems to get it. Content is king. What are they missing? They didn't say anything about them teaming up with Nvidia for a graphics upgrade equivilent to the deathbox 360. That kinda upset me. but in due time im sure.. Im very pumped for mario galaxy 2. I remember talking to people about after galaxy 1. And everyone, including me, was thinking, we'd like to see another mario game after galaxy....but there's not a whole lot of topics out there that are better than a space epic....the solution? DO THE SPACE EPIC OVER AGAIN! I almost cried when I heard the Galaxy medly during the video for galaxy 2. I can't get enough of the soundtrack. and Im looking forward to new super mario brothers. Im actually excited for the wii vitality. Im ADHD and you all know I have aspergers syndrome.. that kind of peripheral will help someone like me the most. If i ever get that...i'll be using it whenever I can to train myself. By training...I mean i can use it daily to change my everyday heart reat. Simply put....If I use it enough and get used to it..heart rate will adapt and my life will change. But that's all I got for now.....maby i'll post some more after other conferences the next few days......sry to make you read so much.....but i think i made valid points.

Quite frankly Nintendo had the worst showing... Sure they had stuff that was all exclusive but that is largely irrelevant because some of it was either rehashes of stuff that had already been done or an expansion for an existing product.

Super Mario Bros - That same game from 1985... only with new graphics and 4 players. Fantastic... But didn't they do a remake of this game already on the DS? Yeah, I thought so.

And then the resortplus and fitplus... Expansion packs for the existing games... Sure they offer a bunch of new game modes but really it's just another bunch of minigames bundled together. And even the fitness "game", I can't see too many hardcore gamers wanting to play that one much at all.

And the stuff that wasn't a rehash or expansion pack was kind of ho-hum. I mean Deadspace: extraction, Kingdom Hearts and Resident Evil: Dark Side Chronicles all look like just tie ins to the larger franchise from other platforms... Kinda like sloppy seconds for Nintendo.

And that Vitality sensor? Hahaha, the uses on that for real games are highly limited. Even the casual or fitness games are limited. Overall it's going to end up a fairly useless attachment, possibly used for a few games but not much else. And if you really want a heart monitor... you can just go buy one dedicated to that purpose and save your Rev for gaming... Like it should be used for.


I will say that the different between Sony and Microsoft's motion systems is that Sony's looks actually useable for games. (Real time strategy as a mouse like interface, or first person shooters.) Kind of like Sony figured out how to do what Nintendo couldn't. (That is make the Rev's controller work in real time. Now, I know Nintendo has the motion plus attachment... but that's kind of sad they had to release an attachment to do what the controller was supposed to be capable of when it was released. )

As far as Microsoft's project Natal goes... I have serious doubts about it. I can't see it being used for too many real games, and it probably won't allow you to play your existing games at all.

The speech recognition feature also brings a few issues to mind, seeing as how speech recognition has been on computers for years, the problems with it being that firstly, it requires considerable levels of training the computer to react to your voice... Secondly, the more people you have the longer the true voice recognition software will take to implement properly and work as they show it.


And look at what Sony offered. Most of it was actually exclusive to their system. So it's really only the 360 suffering from the cross-platform issue here.


And as far as the price of the PS3 goes... You do realize that when you figure out the cost of the PS3 vs. the 360, the PS3 actually comes out cheaper. (Yes, I've done the comparison.)

But you, know, I had made a mistake... I compared both systems thinking they were on equal terms... That they had roughly the same features. But I was wrong.

There is one key thing that seperate the PS3 from the 360...
A wireless network adapter. Being that the 360 you need to buy one for it, while for the PS3 it's part of the system already.

So, how does this affect the comparison of the systems?
Well if you include the cost of the wireless adapter into the cost of the system, then it makes this the final total...

Xbox360 (Normal version) = 299$
CoD4 = 50$
Wireless adapter = 99$
Online costs (XBL Gold membership for a year) = 50$
Total cost = 500$

So... Shock horror. If you buy an 80 gb PS3 you actually pay LESS than if you bought all the stuff necessary for a 360 to do the same thing the PS3 does.

As for why people buy the PS3... Because it is actually a quality piece of hardware. The blu-ray player is also a nice adition, but playing the PS3 games is another reason. (inFamous, Resistance 1&2, MGS4, etc...)

To be honest, I was largely unimpressed by all three conferences. Nintendo's only saving graces are the new Metroid and Galaxy 2 and if you want to count it(I know I would) No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle. Everything else they offered made me quite disappointed. Microsoft was essentially once again releasing nothing but FPS games and another Forza, which really doesn't do much seeing how you're still buying the same game but with new features slapped on to make you feel important. The new Metal Gear game had little to no coverage other than the fact that it stars Raiden. As far as I can tell, this is Kojima's way to let all the 360 fanboys know that he wants their money too. And "Project Natel" left me laughing myself into a coma. Sony's conference actually made me want to buy a PSP with what they showed of Metal Gear Peace Walker. However it seemed like they pretty much just made more effort into getting the PSP to sell more units as the PS3 section showed mostly games we already have a good idea about and games that are most likely going to end up being bargain bin titles.

I'm still laughing at the sudden hypocrisy that the gaming industry is caught up in right now. Three years ago they said motion controls were gimmicky and now Sony(Fixing their mistakes with the SixAxis Lair fiasco) and Microsoft(Essentially just making a smarter EyeToy) are attempting to get in on the waggle-action by seeing if they can fool the "hardcore" audience by offering what Nintendo's been doing for the past three years now, albeit it being covered in that glossy hi-def coating. E3 was quite a disappointment for me this year. If this show is supposed to get me to want to support any of these companies, they'd better get their acts together because I don't know if I can survive off of playing The Beatles: Rock Band, NMHDS, Punch-Out!!, and whatever else can hold my interest long enough.