E3, Microsoft and Sony first impressions.....

[Howard_Casto]

Now these two companies haven't revealed all of their stuff yet, but there have been a few things talked about that I felt the need to comment on.

Sony:

1.  Vita.   It's a "meh" for me.  I think it will be a "meh" for everyone else as well.  Sony just doesn't get how to make good games for a portable and it's a same because hardware-wize they are almost always superior to nintendo's offerings.  Also the name is stupid, REALLY stupid. 

2.  MedEval Nights (or whatever it's called).  It looks very impressive at first with all the on-the-fly weapons usage and stuff until you pay a bit more attention to the demo.  You don't control the movement of the character!!!  So what you are essentially getting is a polished up version of the kendo battle game in wii sports resort that blatently rips off the general asthetics and even monster designs of your typical zelda title.  I'm rather shocked at this considering Sony always comes up with it's own ideas and never steals things from Nintendo

3. Konami's departure from Sony's Butt.  I saw this one coming with the sales of the ps3 and it might summon the death nail of the company's dominance or even competativeness for that matter.  We are starting to see big sega staples like Metal Gear released on the 360 and there wasn't really any mention of a ps3 exclusive title this year.  Much like nintendo consoles are sold by mario and zelda, sony consoles are sold by solid snake and final fantasy.  With half of the equation essentially gone, I have no dobut that it could hurt sales. 


Microsoft:

1.  New Dance Central Game.  This was a no brainer and although microsoft has absolutely nothing to do with it, this title might keep the Kinect afloat for another year.  Kinect is pretty dead in the water aside from this.  Then again, so is the move and the Wii is in it's death thrawls, so I don't think it is really going to matter. 

2.  New Wii Wheel Clone.  Yeah so Sony fanboys make fun of your console due to lack of serious racing titles, you release a pretty nice, really affordable, force-feedback wheel to shove it in their faces and then just before your major racing title is released you dump it in favor of a open-air casual wheel?  There are a lot of people you can push motion controls on, but racing sim fanatics are NOT some of these people.

3.  New dash with new features.  Meh....  Microsoft seems to keep adding on to it's online interface everywhere but where it counts, namely gaming.  Forget about Bing and Netflix and such, how about setting up a network that doesn't cripple 90% of the online features of all my games unless I buy a gold subscription?


So to sum up, Nintendo's press conference left me a little disappointed and scratching my head, but at least those guys are trying.  M$ and Sony are doing equally crappy jobs with innovation and desicions in terms of direction. 

The clear winner this year seems to be the third partys.  New AC, new Batman, tons of these little niche games are broaden the appeal of keeping your console plugged in.   Yeah, until nintendo answers some questions about the Wii U I'm calling it.  The winner is NOBODY!!!

[Donkbaca]

I think handheld gaming is dead, I just don't think there is a big enough market. Sony is pushing it as multimedia device, but it's 250 bucks and people can get iPhones for way less than that.

The move - meh

The konami thing is kinda a big deal. Really Sony's biggest problem is it's blu-ray player.  Xbox 360 has xbox live as it's biggest selling point, and honestly that is where the market is moving- Internet connected, on demand services.  It fits right in with the brand identity to add things like Netflix and hulu and now live tv. From the get go MS positioned the XBox as a home media center able to handle streaming media, first from your pc and then increasingly with the Internet.  Sony, on the other hand, pushed blu ray as it's biggest selling point. That makes it sort of hard for it to really push on-line, streaming content, because it is this market trend that is the biggest threat to it's blu ray business.  If you were to sum up the points for each system, Xbox - it's a home theater, multimedia pc in your living room; Sony - its a blu ray player. The former is more compelling.

I disagree with the kinect. It's the fastest selling device ever, and it's only been out a year. To me, it's still a big deal.  I think the kinect is a definite threat to the wiis motion control gimmick

[Howard_Casto]

I disagree with the kinect. It's the fastest selling device ever, and it's only been out a year. To me, it's still a big deal.  I think the kinect is a definite threat to the wiis motion control gimmick

I agree with the high sales, but remember how huge guitar hero/rock band games were just a couple of yeras ago?  I think that's what it is.  I seriously think that Dance Central is single-handedly selling the thing, with the other titles getting bought as filler to justify the cost of the accessory.  Also the fact that M$ is offering a new, non-rrod having version of the 360, along with Kinect for about the price of what the wii/360 arcade used to be couldn't be hruting sales either. 

It isn't a threat to the wii/ps3 sytle of motion controls at all.  At least not unless they offer some sort of wand or button-having controller to use along with it.  You are very limited on how you can play without something physical to hold in your hand and some sort of traditional controller to handle player movement across a map. 

I think the coolest thing announced thus-far for it is the new Hulk Hogan game.  Using the tracking system to let you make your own promo's is pure genius!  But then again when it comes time to actually play the game, you use a traditional controller which just shows the limitations right there.