Blog FeedE3 2007 - Nintendo, Sony Et Al.
Getting up yesterday morning the first item on my agenda was to catch the Nintendo E3 press event that was in the morning. This show was really as unimpressive as you can possibly imagine. For one thing it really served as a platform for Nintendo to talk up their sales success to the press and they really didn’t show much in the way of games. The biggest announcements from this show were release dates for Mario Galaxy & Smash Brothers along with the completely unsurprising unveiling of Mario Kart for the Wii which will have online multiplayer.
Miyamoto showed up to show off a big game at the end of it as usual - but instead of an awesome game we got Wii Fitness. I don’t believe it’s possible to be more disappointed. Instead of getting a new character franchise which the Wii could desperately use, they took the time to show me how I can do step-aerobics on my game console. Oddly enough the only games really present on the DS were Brain Age 2 and Zelda. For a system that is leading the whole world in sales month after month, it’s really surprising they didn’t show us but a few games. We saw none of the rumored titles like New Super Mario 2, no 2D Metroid, no Smash brothers DS. Nothing new which was a major disappointment.
Sony on the other hand had the best showing of any of the platform holders. They started out with a montage of PSP games but this still left a little bit to be desired. It’s quite surprising that something like Final Fantasy Crisis Core didn’t make a showing at this event, after the heaps of praise the game received when it was shown at Square’s event in Japan for it’s astounding graphics on a portable. The only bright spot was seeing the new God of War game. There was a redesign of the PSP on stage but it wasn’t any of what anybody wanted. It needed to get a second analog stick for camera control and some kind of internal memory so they could handle downloadable stuff with the PSP as a media device. But to no avail - it just got lighter, thinner and a TV-out. Yeah stuff on a PSPs native resolution is going to look super big, blown up to 25+ inches… or not.
Then however they got to the PS3 which looked fantastic. They showed a bunch of really good looking games for this year and for next including Uncharted Drake’s fortune and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. They also announced that they secured console exclusive windows for 2007 on Unreal Tournament 3 and Haze. While none of these are earth shattering announcements they show that the PS3 has a bright short term future and if you buy one the drought will be over this fall. But then they got to some of the unannounced first party stuff and we saw games like inFamous - a crackdown style sandbox game from the makers of Sly Cooper which looked amazing, and appeared to have a more narrative focus. Next they showed the long awaited Gran Turismo 5 which looks to be one of the show stealers if you’re into racing games. And last they finally unveiled Killzone 2 and that one looked fantastic. It didn’t quite live up to the prerendered game they showed in 2005 but it was pretty close. The gameplay looked intense and all in all it was the best trailer shown on any game by any of the big 3.
In addition to the platform holders, the big third parties now have press conferences at the show and EA actually has had a great show so far. Rockband was shown at both the MS and Sony press event and it looks like it’s going to be an awesome experience playing Drums, singing and rocking on the guitar. Burnout Paradise looks like a strong return to form on that franchise. Spore gets to be at the show for the 23rd time in a row and it still sounds totally crazy. Medal of Honor Airborne is a question mark where shooters are concerned but Crysis is not. That one looks like it’s got a combination of amazing customization with the unmatched technology on that. Finally, they also released a demo of NCAA Football 2008 to Xbox Live which shows off how much smoother these games are at 60 fps unlike last year’s 30. These games are definitely going to be better than the previous football titles.
While a bunch of other publishers had press conferences there wasn’t a whole lot of amazing stuff revealed at any of them. Konami revealed Silent Hill 5, Activison showed off some Guitar Hero 3 but that’s about all I’ve caught wind of.
14th July | Reply
We must be living on different planets. I found nothing regarding the Nintendo Press Conference to be disappointing. Sure, Wii Fit isn’t something that’s going to make me run out and buy a Wii, but it certainly is a good thing.
Why is it a good thing? Wii Fit is probably going to sell millions, though if I were Nintendo I’d guarantee this by creating a Wii/Fit bundle. This is exactly the kind of thing moms and outside audiences want to see from the video game industry. Instead of creating couch potatoes and solitary weirdos, they will see Wii Fit and by extension, the Wii as a healthy addition to a household.
Aside from that, they released the most important information Nintendo fans needed to run out and buy a Nintendo Wii this year: Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Brothers: Brawl being released within a month of one another. Honestly, that’s all I need. Between those two games, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the Wii has all the character franchises it needs. Which leads me to ask: why on God’s Green Earth does Nintendo need another character franchise and wouldn’t you be the first person to criticize it?
Finally, one small game announcement slipped through that should make all the world happy: Advance Wars DS 2. That would be the sequel to your Game of the Year for 2006, I believe. That’s probably all Nintendo needed to show to have a great show.
As for Sony: they get a big “Meh” from me. Sure they showed off a bunch of games, but none of them do a whole lot for me that I couldn’t find, or an analogue thereof, on the XBox 360.
By the way, can anyone explain to me the hype surrounding Killzone 2? Wasn’t the original a lackluster sci-fi shooter that didn’t do very well? It’s like Sony is living on some other planet where Killzone is almost as popular as Halo and that a Helghast or whatever it’s called is as popular or recognizable as the Master Chief. The whole thing smacks of ridiculousness.
While we’re on another planet, what’s up with Sony snatching defeat from the jaws of victory…again. The “price drop” has been confirmed to be a fire sale. the current $499 60GB version with hardware-based backwards compatibility is going to be replaced once supplies run-out by the new $599 80GB version without backwards compatibility will be on the only model on sale.
Wow. So, aside from the news coming to light that every single, as in 100%, of Xbox 360s sold are faulty and candidates for the “red ring of death” I’m still more interested in a 360 and a Wii instead of a PS3.
15th July | Reply
Let’s see Nintendo needs a new character franchise as it would show tha they’re committed to developing new IPs for traditional gamers and not just recycling their previous franchises with Wii. And no, I wouldn’t be the first one to crirticize it if it were of the quality of say Pikmin or Animal Crossing as opposed to say Luigis Mansion or that kind of thing. As for Wii Fitness the people who would buy that don’t buy this stuff in response to what they’re reading about in the monthly issue of EGM or a daily visit to Gamespot.
I don’t know why they really didn’t show any of the DS stuff. Like they have Advance Wars and Contra that king of thing but none of it was on display at the press conference.
As for Sony I don’t know what you could find that’s so similar to say Ratchet and Clank or MGS4. And even though yeah you could play Forza Gran Turismo looks soo much better than Forza and they actually end up with different driving experiences if you get down to the brass tacks as Forza focuses on being a game about racing whereas GT really focuses a little more on car collecting. Both are really good at both but they have offsetting strengths and weaknesses. inFAMOUS looks like it’s setup to be a more narrative kind of game than Crackdown.
Killzone 2, the appeal is it’s a great looking shooter. Just watchingthe game it looks pretty fantastic. Also the firstgame had so many problems because it was a PS2 game but it really had some neat ideas in there mixed in with framerate hiccups and problematic textures caused by it being on what was a reletively low power piece of hardware. I don’t think Guerilla ever really intended it to be vaulted up right next to Halo it just sort of was PR running wild.
17th July | Reply
Is it me or is the Wii Fit begging to have sports games for surfing and skiing developed for it? Sounds like the best thing to come out of E3 as far as I’m concerned.
Seriously, I am so bored of games that need a gamepad to play. Lurching around on a board sounds much more fun in a similar kind of way that jumping up and down with a fake guitar is. It’s nice to finally see a bit of imagination at last rather than watching Sony and Microsoft crank out the same stuff that we’ve played time and time again.