E3

[Roderick]

So, E3 has started again. Right now, the Microsoft press conference is playing out and so far it's hit and miss. We've just had the big three gaming segments: Resident Evil 5, Fable 2 and Gears of War 2.

This alone shows the rather mehness of the show. All sequels that have been announced way back. It's really nice to hear that Fable 2 is done and, as rumoured, will hit the streets in October. Gears 2 is slated for November 7th. Good to know! But still! Where's the new stuff? (Chances are I'll be eating my words when they reveal some major new game in the end of course)

The current announced road for Xbox 360 is very reactionary as well. The Dashboard is going to get an overhaul that is more reminiscent of the PS3's interface. The Avatars are an unapologetic ripoff of the Mii's. Other big announcements are Buzz-clone Scene It and, you know what? Boring stuff. Some movie game that captures footage of you playing and then puts it in a purposely bad movie trailer. It may be nice, but I think it'll be very repetitive and gimmicky, and it didn't sparkle at all on the stage.

I may be overly negative here. I really am still enthusiastic about the games; Gears and Fable are both huge titles that I'm dying to play. But the conference just doesn't bring anything else to the table. Let's hope Nintendo and Sony bring some more exciting things to the fore.

[Roderick]

Well, the surprise announcement at the end was that Final Fantasy 13 is coming for Xbox 360 as well. That's pretty surprising, actually, and the small 360 fan inside me can't help giggling at the idea that the PS3 is being stripped of yet another powerful exclusive. You have to wonder how much this has cost Microsoft, of course.

Also, the president of Square-Enix came on stage to deliver the good news and give a speech in semi-English, sounding weirdly (yet amusingly) divorced from reality.

[BigJKO]

Something about a Portal sequel for X360 came out of that conference somehow, as well. That's exciting.

[vimes]

It's a very strange announcement - the one about FF13 I mean : both versions got the same release date so it must be something that Square Enix had planned from the beginning of production. That or Sony is paying for 360 version development time (because if it's something new, they had to push back the release date, and it being simultaneous and all, Sony paid for a delay unrelated to the PS3 version)... in any case, I'm more surprised at Sony letting this happen than by Microsoft managing to pull if off.

Isn't it a huge blow on Sony's main market, Asia ? Now that Microsoft has three Square Enix exclusives, Sony doesn't really have an argument for JRPG fans about their library anymore, have they?

On a side note, I wonder what kind of announcement would lead Europe to shift massively to the 360 - seeing as it is Sony's strongest market apparently.

[Roderick]

Oh, I'd also wish to express disappointment at not hearing a beep about Brütal Legend on the conference. There's probably no news at all, but it would've rocked if Tim went onstage to play a demo.

[Ben]

Isn't it a huge blow on Sony's main market, Asia ? Now that Microsoft has three Square Enix exclusives, Sony doesn't really have an argument for JRPG fans about their library anymore, have they?

No. The game remains a PS3 exclusive in Japan, it's being released on 360 in North America and Europe.

[vimes]

Oh... so much for my 'analysis' then.

Good thing though : for once, we Europeans get the better share of a Video game related deal! Hurray!

About Brütal Legend, Schafer seems to have announced that nothing will be revealed at E3 because of the Vivendi/Blizzard mergee but some significant info would be released shortly afterward. Can't find the source again, though.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Final Fantasy XIII on the 360?! Woohoo!!!!

Now just give me Metal Gear Solid and I have zero reason for buying PS3!

[Roderick]

I was a bit surprised by the Sony conference today; specifically at how casual it was. There was almost a feeling of humility: it was mostly just Jack Tretton standing in front of screens calmly explaining, with a soft voice, what was in store for the PS3 and the rest of the Sony lineup of hardware. It felt very genuine, a lot more so than the boastful rhetoric of the Microsoft presentation. It was just so surprising to see Sony take a less bombastic tone.

Drawbacks were the presentation's exhausting length (it felt like two hours, but it must've been closer to 1,5) and, despite the raised sympathy for the platform I now have, still a huge lack of anything noteworthy on the gaming front. Little Big Planet is still the only interesting thing that's exclusive for the PS3 (though Resistance 2 had a very good demo, slightly piqueing my interest). That's a shame, because the hardware is definitely shaping up as easily being able to match and exceed anything the 360 can throw at them. But until they get at least ten or so great games that I can't get on the Xbox, I'm not investing top Euro in a fantastic piece of non-gaming hardware.

[Tanukitsune]

I use the "ten exclusives" rule too, although it's exclusive now means that a certain plataform gets it first while the others... get a different version?

I'm fuming at the fact that Nintendo didn't announce a hard drive for the Wii...

Then again, just because they didn't announce it at E3 doesn't mean it won't be made, although I do have a deep suspicion that Nintendo doesn't care for the "hardcore" gamer anymore and the Wii will soon be all puppy petting and tennis games...

[Roderick]

Quite sensible.

Also, as an addendum, I am amused that I'd describe the Sony presentation as 'humble', when there was a five minute wank-fest of designers ejaculating over the machine. And I still stand by it! That's the amazing thing!

[BooJaka]

From IGN...

"There isn't anything that we can announce today, but we have been thinking along a variety of different lines regarding this matter for some time now," Shigeru Miyamoto told IGN. "So my hope is that sometime in the not too distant future we will be able to discuss some concrete solutions."

So there you go. It's on the horizon perhaps

[Ginger]

Madhouse on the Wii and mirror's edge on everything other than the wii looked interesting, other than that it has been the boredom of sequels.

Really liked the DoW2 cinematic, I love the 40 K universe but I'm not really a RTS fan and couldn't get into the original, it left me wanting a movie of that nature or a 40K MMOFPS.

Oh the building destruction in Red Planet 2 was interesting but mainly appealed to my maths geek side wondering how accurately they model the physics and to what extent they blag it.

Not much else has caught my eye, oh the spore trailer was an entertaining trailer but the aspects of the gameplay it showed made me even less interested in the game, I thought spore was about biological evolution and gaining traits through interspecies sex (a fetish of mine) (this is assumption is based on information from when I first heard about spore 3 years ago) but the biological evolution didn't look dynamic it seemed more "u are on land redesign your creature", after that point it appeared to focus on the technological evolution of the society and ignore the biological progression.

[twmac]

I'm actually a little upset by the Xbox dashboard rethink. I actually like the way they are right now. I mean some of it is my reactionary nature but I don't want them to totally rehaul the interface just after I got comfortable with the previous tweaking they did.

The rest was a bit like being a Coldplay fan and listening to their new album, competent but hardly exciting.

I know it is somewhat of a thumbs forum faux-pas but I'm looking forward to Gears of War 2 but it wasn't that much of a revelation that it was due this year.

[vimes]

Madworld is definitely too freaking violent for my fragile self so Mirror's Edge and the Disney/Pixar/Junction Point thing are what I'm looking forward to ... that and the 1:1 movement detection promised by Nintendo.

[Nick]

or a 40K MMOFPS.

'tis in production. No details really, there was just an interview that didn't reveal much. Hopefully it wont be rubbish.

[Nachimir]

(Oh hey spambot. How's it going? Generating lots of sales today? Good).

I found this summary of Nintendo's press conference this morning:

[Nachimir]

Cammie Dunaway talks about NEW PARADIGMS

[Roderick]

Haha!

[Nachimir]

It seems E3 is now really, truly, catastrophically fucked.

The no-shows list was unthinkable in previous years, and most comments in advance from people this year were basically "I'm glad I'm not going".

[Ginger]

Everyone moaned about it in it's old format, I get that at least then they moaned and went. What sort of format do u think it needs to be to re-inspire the industry?

[Nachimir]

I doubt any revelry of consumer facing stuff will ever do it.

GDC is what inspires developers, because they talk about development, rather than sales, publishing contracts, paradigms and realising synergies.

[DanJW]

I think it needs to be more like comic-con, which everyone seems to look forward to. I guess that would mean lots of small stalls, very few big events, all much more low-key, relaxed and intimate but with lots of choice. As it is it seems like a shouting match amongst the big playres, as to who has the loudest voice.