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 Day two of E3 proper is in full swing and the Big Three have come out and shown their wares. Some of our predictions came to fruition - some of them are still hanging in the air. But when we look back on the past two days and compare Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony's E3 Media Events we need to decide who came out on top. There are Key elements to making such a decision; announcements, release dates and overall impressions are all factors in who had the best showing this year. XAV'S TAKE: It was no surprise that last year Nintendo was the strongest force at E3 - the momentum they had at their disposal with the mystery surrounding the control of the Wii had attendees clamoring for hands-on time. Microsoft was also strong with exclusivity announcements for Splinter Cell V (Now called Conviction) and BioShock and a playable build of the future game-of-the-year Gears of War.Sony was a disaster. High pricepoint, boring tech demos (sup, Gran Turismo HD?) and a general cockiness killed their E3 event. This year - at least in my humble opinion - Microsoft has stayed static in the center while Sony and Nintendo have swapped last and first respectfully.
Sony was an unqualified success this year, as I previously guessed they would be. Much like the launch of the system, the event began on a shaky note but smoothed out over time. The event made fellow PlayStation 3 owners sleep easier at night with gorgeous games for this holiday and blockbuster hits for 2008 (MGS4 ftw!). Sure, I guessed a lot of what was going to happen from the Unreal exclusivity deal, which has been confirmed to be timed-exclusive for PS3 and PC in 2007 to the major focus on HOME and LittleBigPlanet (although no HOME BETA was officially announced for North America, a demo for LittleBigPlanet was confirmed for late 2007 after the event). I was totally wrong on the PSP2 front, though I don't think anyone expected it to be... well, what it was. Video out is nice, especially for us in the industry - but really? Killzone 2 looks amazing. After viewing the trailer in HD on my PlaySation 3 I can say that the game will look as good - if not better - than Gears of War when it ships. How it will play is another talk, as Killzone wasn't an enjoyable experience. Infamous - the cool game with the bad name - Real Time Worlds called and they want their concept back! K, thx. Haze looks great, I'll wait for the updated Xbox 360 version (with Achievements thank you) and we can finally kill the MGS4 Xbox 360 rumor. It's not happening. MGS4 looks nice, but what is up with Meryl's hair? That is some strong ass futuristic hairspray! The creme-de-la-creme was the Raiden v. Vamp fight. Holy god. Incredible animation and one of the coolest ingame cut scenes I've ever witnessed. The graphics on the game don't look as impressive after seeing other titles, but Kojima-san will unleash a title unlike we've ever seen. Sony made me happy to have that system in my home for Holiday 2007. Final Grade: A Microsoft on the other hand was a giant advertisement, and although we've kicked around opinions here at the "office" about how they did, I feel they had a strong second place showing. Make no mistake, the second they announced this E3 was focused on the 2007 holiday season we realized it was going to be more on reiteration and less on invigoration. There were virtually no new announcements for the system other than Viva Pinata Party Animals (which looks pretty nice) and SceneIt? Which... anyway. Sure I couldn't be happier that Marathon: Durandal is coming to XBLA - one of my wishes came true! - but the rest of the upcoming XBLA catalogue looks primitive in comparission to PSN's Wipeout HD and Everyday Shooter. But where Microsoft did shine was in displaying its lineup as one of the best the industry has ever seen. Mass Effect, BioShock, PGR4, Splinter Cell Conviction... oh and something about Halo 3. Solid lineup of exclusives, coupled with multi-platform releases = crying wallet. Also, the always lovely Jade Raymond displayed what is one of my picks for game-of-the-show, Assassin's Creed (they need to tone down the sci-fi matrix effect though). The Halo 3 console? Crickets. That's a public event announcement they just wasted on us media types. I loved Peter making a fool out of himself, it brings humanity into a big corporation. As I guessed Too Human is a ghost and nothing new was displayed, Call of Duty 4 multi-player beta? Cool, I guess since that's all thee rage now. Solid show - but nothing new. The Halo 3 trailer was so thrown together, and muddled... but the game does look beautiful. I'm shocked Bungie would release such a mishmash for the game, but at least we know its coming soon and new info will be dropping like flies. Final Grade: B- Oh Nintendo. What have you become. If we want to talk about what was announced what can I say? Mario Kart Wii? Really, was that a surprise? WiiFit? That was a big hint for a while, but ok... I'll give them that - and I actually really wanna play it. As I said on BitCast #15 (and got a little backlash from saying it) there was virtually no original third-party support on display at the conference. Sure, Soul Caliber Legends was there - and it looks kinda nice. Mario Kart Wii looked like a great GameCube port - but they've gone and ripped out the advanced controls to better suit it to the mainstream (aka casual market). Mario Galaxy? That was there - well technically it was in some nuclear-family's home and I got to hear mom and pop talk about how it is great! I'm super excited about the game - bumblebee suit looks fun but where-the-shit is my kuribo shoe?! Smash Bros. Brawl? Wow, December 3rd? Could that pause be long enough. As a huge Metroid fan - more so than I am a Halo fan - I am still super excited about Metroid Prime 3. But if the argument is that Microsoft had no games we didn't know about on display, look at the list I just gave from Nintendo. Mario Kart, Mario, Metroid, Smash Bros... these are surprises? These franchises are older than some of our readers! Where were the DS titles? No mention of Contra 4? That in itself proves Nintendo has totally skipped its market for the core gamer and now peddles to the casual space more than ever. My biggest complaint? While we hoped Nintendo wouldn't focus too much on their success during the conference, the entire conference was wrapped into it. Every transition was filled with news clips, and sales nods. In fact, if you go back and count I can almost guarantee there was more minutes of video from YouTube on display than gameplay for upcoming titles. We get it, you're winning... but stop blowing yourself on stage and show us why we should turn your console on this holiday season. Final Grade: C- KEVIN'S TAKE: First, some full disclosure: The only press conference I saw from beginning to end (minus some commercial breaks...GRRRRR) was Microsoft's. I saw most of Sony's presser and didn't see a second of Nintendo's. My rankings will be based on the information to come out of them not on anything aesthetic (no, not even Chewy, Reggie Bush or the WiiFit Hunks). Microsoft was the first out of the block on Tuesday night and played it very cautious. I guess the biggest announcement they made concerned Resident Evil 5 making its way to the Red Ring Machine. It's hard to tell since nothing really stands out in my memory. It wasn't that I was expecting some big, surprising news but it might have been nice for them to announce that they would start letting developers use the hard drive because they're canceling the Core System, but no dice. Instead they focused and what has already happened and what is going to happen for the rest of the year. Final Grade: C Nintendo made their way to the stage yesterday and also played it pretty safe. They reiterated their approach for the Wii (appealing to everyone), threw out a couple of release dates, showed off WiiFit (and the hunks...hubba hubba), brought out nothing surprising and called it a day. I'll give them a slight bump in grade since they announced more new stuff than Microsoft did, but my slipping admiration of the Wii was not turned around. Final Grade: C+ Sony: From black sheep to guardian angel. Sony brought the house, the back yard and the whole frakkin' neighborhood to the table this year! MGS4 confirmed exclusive with Kojima right there, the South Beach Diet version of the PSP with TV output, showcasing Home throughout the presser, user mods (!!!) and finally, shutting everyone up about Killzone 2. This is the type of stuff we've been waiting for from Sony. It's good to have ya back, fellas. Final Grade: A JIM'S TAKE: Things went pretty much as I called them in the pre-E3 podcast this past week. Microsoft, not wanting to ruffle any feathers after the warranty debacle, kept a low profile and didn't really announce anything groundbreaking. Video Marketplace going global kicks ass, but again, it's not really a big announcement, it's something we've been waiting on. No new ground was broken at this presser, and so no big marks from me. Final Grade: C- Nintendo kept on target by telling us why they were great for everyone and not just gamers and in the process disappointing gamers who were looking for something that catered exclusively to them. That being said what they did announce was solid and I think they gave us exactly what they needed to. WiiFit looks fantastic, release dates for Galaxy and Brawl are a big deal, and unveiling new product like the Zapper and Mario Kart Wii made sure there was some freshness included. Also - opening up online to third parties was the big coup at this show for Nintendo, basically offering a big fuck you to all of the people who criticized them after Ben Herman's comments. Final Grade: B+ Sony had nowhere to go but up this year, because honestly, they couldn't have gone much lower in public opinion. I don't know if it's the offing of Kutaragi or just a general understanding that they needed to improve their public image, but Sony came out of the gate with both guns blazing this year. The PSP redesign looks fantastic (and I love the Video Out no matter what Kotaku says), upcoming titles looks spot on, and both Home surprised me this year by actually looking not half bad. I think the most important news out of the Sony camp was the ability for PS3 owners to install user-created mods for Unreal Tournament 3 -- a first for console users. Of course, a close runner-up would have to be Sony bringing Kojima out to announce that MGS4 is indeed the end of the road for Snake. That's definitely mixed news for MGS fans -- on the one hand it'll be great to wrap up the story and get some closure, on the other hand it always sucks to say goodbye, and there's the threat of a Metal Gear Raiden series (or something similar) that looms on the horizon. Overall though, Sony knocked my socks off. There was nothing I was hoping for that wasn't included, and a few things I wasn't expecting. Final Grade: A+
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I would say Microsoft did pretty average, nothing great, but I still think there lineup of games is the best and they have solid release dates, and a lot of gameplay footage. I don't think they did as bad as a lot of people are saying.
I think Sony has turned their image around a lot, but I still think they are only getting good E3 ratings because they sucked so much till now. I like the PSP2 announcement (I was holding out for it), but from what I saw they were still showing cut scenes for a lot of games and not actual gameplay. I want to see gameplay damnit. I also hate the fact that they are spouting Cell-this and Blu-ray that, that shit gets old fast, and those technologies don't seem to make a difference, because games are coming out for the 360 and the PS3 and they look the same. I also don't like the fact that they kept saying exclusive like every five seconds when in fact they aren't really exclusives. I don't consider timed releases to be exclusives.
Just my take, but I would say Nintendo worst, then Microsoft, then Sony.