E3 2010 round up

Being a gamer like myself there is probably no bigger event than the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo, dubbed E3. Every June the biggest players in the industry gather in the city of Angels and show off the latest gaming hardware and software. A lot of secretes that have been kept for years are usually unveiled here along with new and exciting footages of the games that we already know about. E3 is not just a show it is a extravaganza, for a week in June Nerds and the media gather together for press conferences like its a matter of national importance. The show is usually very flashy as well with things like thirty large displays used at the Sony Press Conference last year and all the craziness that surrounds the booths for each game, oh and the booth babes.

This year is no different, every gamer like myself out there gets excited for E3 for all the cool gaming related news. As my anticipation gets higher and higher with the days getting closer I sudden realized something that could completely ruin my hype level for this year's E3. The theme around this E3 is the word "casual". Corporations are always going with what makes the most money and not what the consumers want, in this case what the gamers want. Ever since Nintendo opened the flood gate with Wii, Microsoft and Sony has been trying to play catch up in this who will get the most casual crowd game. Its a game that hurts us core gamers but it does bring them a lot of money. After all core gamers are still a minority and the casual crowd out weights us by a ton. Its not just gaming industry either, you see it everywhere. Movies started to do this a long time ago when more and more movies dropped the R rating and when PG 13 to gain more casual watching crowd.

So that being said lets see how the big three did in this years E3.

-Microsoft

MS started the show with a trailer of the next Call of Duty, yeah I know you heard it right, another Call of Duty. But at least my fear has been put away by this seeing as Call of Duty is not a gimmick causal game, so maybe the rest of the show won't be too bad. MS followed by showing more core games such as Halo Reach, Gears of War 3, Fable 3, etc. All looked good but nothing surprising. About half way through they introduced their long waited motion senor code named Project Natal, which at this point has been renamed to Kinect. Don't know why because Project Natal sounds so much better. This also marks the turning point of the show, with the bullshit motion sensing sports games that are essentially Wii sports repackaged, and some 5 year old girl petting a virtual tiger to a crazy white guy dancing to nothing at all...the worst part of the show is not even how big of a slap in the face Kinect is to all the gamers out there, its the integration of ESPN on Xbox. For what seems to be an eternity the Sports Center anchors talked about how you can watch ESPN on xbox...holy fuck this is a goddamn game conference so why the fuck half of the show is not about anything game related. My rage is at close to 9000 at this point, I definitely thought MS approached the fail level of Nintendo from 2009.

-Sony

Like Microsoft Sony introduced their own motion sensor device called "Move". Unlike the MS Kinect which is like a camera, the Move is like a controller oddly similar to the Wiimote. Except for the big gay ass purple head...yes big round purple head. And in typical Sony fashion Sony executives comes out with bunch of sales number to impress the media, and long speeches on how great Sony is. So yeah the usual cocky Sony attitude, but in case they forgot this cocky attitude is what landed them in this mess with the PS3. PS3 is in the last place because Sony though they could do no wrong even if it means to charge 600 dollars for a video game console that had ridge racer as the biggest launch title. And for the love of God no one cares about how much PS2 sold anymore this is 2010 not fucking 2000 when PS2 was still relevant, and the success of PS2 doesn't automatically make you the winner of this generation, so stop talking about the PS2 in every fucking Sony conference. Now also like the MS show Sony showed some core games such as Killzone 3, Twisted Metal, Gran Turismo 5(which is never coming out) and...well not much more after that. Everyone said that biggest surprise was when the fat guy (Gabe Newell) from Valve showed up and said Portal 2 is going to be on PS3, well not me. Valve is a corporation so sooner or later they will make a game for the PS3 if they love money, to me all Valve game should be played on PC anyways, there is not much to look forward to consider how GREAT orange box did on the PS3.

I just want to say something about all these motion sensor bullshit. Nintendo frankly figured out something by watching Apple do business. When you can not compete in your own market anymore, you got to differentiate. Just look at how much Gamecube failed again Xbox and Ps2 like how much Apple has been sucking in the personal computer market, exactly the same thing. Now what did Apple do? Instead of spending billions trying to improve the Mac to compete with PC they decided to do something else like Ipod and Iphone. Using what is essentially an already existing tech, the touch screen and make it mainstream. One attribute of the casual mainstream consumers is that they lack of real knowledge on products and is easily swayed by the newest, most flashing tech out there, even though things like touch screen tech has been out for ages. Apple capitalized on this notion and made millions on touch screen Iphone and Ipods. Nintendo is doing the exact same thing, they realized that they can no longer compete in a industry where they helped buiding so they differentiated with the motion controller, even though the motion control tech has been out for ages. But main steam consumers never knew this and because we are easily swayed by the newest, most flashy tech Nintendo was able to capitalize with the simplest and most gimmicky console that I have seen in years. Its not Nintendo's fault but the consumers'. Lack of real knowledge combined with ADD have doomed us all.

-Nintendo

Speaking of Nintendo they were once again the winners of this console war with their shows at 2010 E3, not because they topped both Sony and MS in the gimmicky shovelware but because they actually had the best game related show. Nintendo pulled a 180 on both MS and Sony and showed nothing but core games such as a new Donkey Kong game for the Wii, the new Metroid Wii game, new Zelda Wii game, new Kirby game, along with new IPs...you get the idea. I know Nintendo had a awful showing last year with all the motion sensor shovelware, and they were shamed by all the media. This year they made a concerned effort to show all the core games in a game show and did a good job, I just wonder if they are laughing now at MS and Sony for following what they did last year by pumping out nothing but bullshit. Nothing Nintendo showed was particularly interesting to me but I have to applaud them for learning from their mistake and correcting it in this years E3. Therefore I will have to give the best E3 showing award to Nintendo.

If this year's E3 is suppose to give me a glimpse of the industry's future then I can not say I am pleased with the direction that is going. I am just glad that PC gaming is still somewhat staying the course and not following in this causal mayhem. But with all the big time PC developers jumping ship onto the console wagon its hard to say how long will true hardcore PC gaming last, oh well at least we still got Blizzard and Valve...wait scratch that, seeing the fat guy on Sony's stage almost made me vomit as much as seeing just how fat he really is.