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.

Microsoft

Of all three, I was the furthest off the mark on Microsoft, although I still got a lot right.

Correct:

Rock Band 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV DLC were pushed, although in fairness neither were promoted as heavily as I thought they would be.

Dashboard Update and Price Cut – I called both of these. However, the Dashboard update turned out to be a much bigger deal than I expected. More on that later.

Lips – Unveiled just as I suspected. Pretty much everyone was predicting the same thing, though.

Incorrect:

Halo Wars, Halo Chronicles, Alan Wake, Forza 3 - None of these titles were shown, for some reason. Very odd.

Crackdown 2 - I figured MS would have been smart enough to find a way to make this happen. Perhaps I overestimated them

Haze 360 – Here’s a case of me underestimating MS. I figured they’d grab a PS3 exclusive to unveil, but I thought they’d grab something minor, like Haze. Ubi would earn some more cash of this underperforming title, MS would gain a formerly PS3 exclusive title, both would win. But instead, MS grabbed a much, much larger PS3 title: Final Fantasy XIII. There’s so much to say about this move that I’ll be devoting a future post to just this deal – but not everything I have to say is positive.

Kojima Game – Again, dead wrong. I know for a fact this project exists, but I was off on the announcement timing. Tokyo Game Show, perhaps?

Sony

Although I didn’t call the announcement of Zipper Interactive’s Mag, I was correct on most of my Sony predictions.

Correct:

PS3 Price Cut – The 80 gig model is dropping to the price of the current 40 gig, $399.

New PSP Bundle - Featuring Ratchet and Clank: Sizes Matters and National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Yay? An older game and a movie no one likes. Despite showing a few new PSP titles, this system is still struggling to move software.

Blu-ray, Home, and Gran Turismo – Plenty of Blu-ray cheerleading on display, a new glimpse at Home, and Gran Turismo shows off GTTV, car shows you can watch on your PS3. Pretty boring stuff, in my mind.

No Uncharted or Heavenly Sword (or Genji) Sequels – I was sad to be right on this one. Well, not about Genji.

God of War III teased – Pretty much a no-brainer. I thought Jack Tretton blew the excitement of the announcement, though.

Incorrect:

Afrika and LA Noir – Neither were shown. But do you really care?

Nintendo

I made the fewest predictions about Nintendo, and my biggest one was largely thematic, so I’ll dispense with the Correct/Incorrect format for the Big N. I was right about Animal Crossing for Wii, but then again so was everyone else. I did call a new Wii Sports, and was wrong on new Wii Colors and a lack of new peripherals, although Wii Motion Plus is more of a refinement than an completely new add-on.

The big claim I made was that this year’s conference would be the point that it became clear that Nintendo is done with the core gamer. That’s not the type of claim where I can say “yes I’m right,” or “no, I was wrong,” as its a subjective opinion. However, it does appear that I was correct on that claim. The new Grand Theft Auto was a surprise aimed at core gamers, but that’s a third-party publisher. Nintendo didn’t announce a single thing aimed at the hardcore audience. The big surprises were Wii Sports Resort and Wii Music, both titles aimed squarely at a family audience. With no condecension intended, I can’t imagine anyone over the age of five playing Wii Music, unless of course they are the parents of said five-year-old.

Obviously, it’s too soon for another Mario, Zelda, or Metroid game, but the complete lack of any product aimed at core gamers tells me Nintendo has chosen its direction and is sticking to it. As I said in my Nintendo prediction post, it’s a decision that makes sense. Why spend millions on costly top-shelf game development when casual games are raking in the money? Until Nintendo sees a reason to shift directions (in other words, the current model becomes unprofitable), Nintendo will be producing family-oriented content exclusively, with only occasional bones thrown to the aging Nintendo Legacy fans.

Overview

All three press conferences surprised me in their own ways, but mostly in ways I didn’t expect or agree with. Nintendo basically flaunted its market leader position, making it clear that the company saw no reason to change their direction. Big software announcements would make no difference to them – they’re in first place now, and they’ll still be in first place after E3.

Microsoft had, in my mind, the best of the three conferences, although its show was far from flawless. From a business perspective, everything MS unveiled makes a lot of sense – the new features coming with the next dashboard update add a lot of smart new content to Xbox Live, further extending the 360’s dominance in an area where it is nearly uncontested – community. Sony and Nintendo can’t come close to Microsoft in terms of online community, and with the addition of group chat, online casual games, shared video watching and more, Microsoft is continuing to pull ahead.

Microsoft also unveiled games aimed at capturing some of the Wii’s audience, a group that Microsoft desperately wants a piece of. The games they showed, such as Scene It, You’re In the Movies, and the pair of new Rare games aren’t bad attempts to do so (except for maybe You’re in the Movies), but I suspect it’s too little, too late. Nintendo owns this crowd. Microsoft should focus on an older, hipper crowd that hasn’t yet purchased a console. With games like Lips, Rock Band 2 and cool features like streaming Netflix movies to a friend in another location, I think they could do it. But first they have to realize that the family audience is never coming to the Xbox 360.

Of course, Microsoft’s big announcement was Final Fantasy XIII. It’s big news, and as I said before, I’ll be writing an article about it. But for now, it only underscores what I think was Microsoft’s big mistake: they announced nothing for the core Xbox gamer. Sure, they showed Gears of War 2 and Fallout 3, but what’s on the horizon for the Halo/Call of Duty/Madden fan to anticipate beyond early 2009? These gamers don’t care about Japanese RPGs, and if there isn’t something for them to look forward to, their attentions are going to drift elsewhere. They may not gravitate towards another console, but they may lose interest in gaming as a whole, and be paying less attention when Microsoft finally announces its next be exclusive.

But enough about Microsoft. The big shocker of the show for me was Sony. All Sony had to do in order to “win” E3 in the minds of the gaming audience was show off its very strong line-up of first-party titles, including Resistance 2, Infamous, LittleBigPlanet, and Killzone 2. It did do that, but they were spread out through a long, lifeless, energy-draining performance. The announcement of Zipper Interactive’s MAG lacked punch because those who watched the show were forced to sit through what felt like hours of discussion on the PS3’s new movie download service – a feature that’s been available on the Xbox 360 for a long time. Sure, Sony didn’t have a lot of new stuff to hype, but focusing on things like downloadable movies, upcoming PS2 games and a few new PSN games made Sony seem weaker and more desperate than the company really is. Sony could have served up a fast-paced, action-packed look at their exciting games. Instead we got a yawnfest that diminished the effect of games that are individually all looking pretty great.