Finally

This year’s E3 was universally declared pretty uninspiring by all corners of the video game world, and despite some debate on which company came out the best overall, there’s widespread agreement that Microsoft and Square Enix’s announcement of Final Fantasy XIII on the Xbox 360 was the biggest announcement of the show. Clearly, this is a big coup for Microsoft and a substantial blow for Sony. However, the victory and defeat are both more psychological than substantial Naming the FFXIII 360 announcement the biggest news of the show is more indicative of how bad this year’s E3 was than anything. Read on to learn why FFXIII on Xbox 360 isn’t as a big of a deal as people are making it out to be.

E3 Press Conferences: The Aftermath

Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo have all finished up with their big E3 press conferences now, and as a whole this year’s show is even less exciting than I expected. I made predictions on what each of the three platform publishers would and wouldn’t show, and in some cases I was pretty accurate, and on others… not so much. How did I do over all? Let’s take a look.

E3 Predictions the E3rd: Nintendo.

Ok, time to finally get around to my overdue third E3 predictions column. Nintendo has released its E3 line-up, and it’s pretty damn boring. A Mario baseball game, a revamped Kirby game, and a casual online game ported to the Nintendo DS. Whee. The big announcement of the show has widely been discussed already - Animal Crossing for Wii, and that one’s almost certainly true. I’d say the odds of an also-rumored Punch-Out game are only about 50/50.

So, what else might we see from Nintendo this week at E3? I have my thoughts, but you’re not going to like them.

Predictions Update

Nintendo Predictions are up next, but I haven’t had a chance to finish them up yet. In the meantime, it looks like two predictions from my Microsoft column have already been confirmed: You can check out a little bit about the Karaoke game Lips here, and the Xbox 360 price drop may already be in effect.

I Can’t Hear You, Snake.

A few readers have expressed interest in hearing my final thoughts on Metal Gear Solid 4 after I posted about my initial disappointment. Unfortunately, that might be a while. My PlayStation 3 isn’t outputting sound right now, although it’s more likely a problem with my reciever or audio cables. But until I get it figured out, MGS4 is going to have to wait.