E3 2008 - Commentary and Rumors
The major press conferences of E3 are over. It was interesting to see what was said, but even more interesting are the omissions and the rumors flying around. Here's my take on the three major presentations, notable omissions and and some rumors that are making rounds. Microsoft(Notes from Microsoft's presentation) Microsoft did an apparent last-minute edit to their presentation. Bungie's new title was nowhere to be seen, and the only word we have is from Bungie, confirming that their planned announcement of something was pulled by their publisher (which is still, exclusively, Microsoft).  Bungie's front page For the last several months, we've been building toward a reveal of something exciting that Bungie is working on. We were looking foward to sharing that with our fan community during the week of E3. However, those plans were jsut changed by our publisher. We realize that many of our fans are disappointed by this turn of events; members of the Bungie team share that disappointment. When the right time comes, we look forward to sharing this exciting announcement with you. Until then, we appreciate your continued support and patience.
Harold Ryan Conspiracy theorists jumped in quickly to claim that this was a planned move to make a bigger PR splash. Others say that Bungie's version is true, and the reason for this move was simple; Microsoft is busy working on their own motion controller (one that does 1:1 tracking, much better than the default WiiMote). Bungie's game is developed for this new controller. Microsoft heard about the Wii MotionPlus 1:1 motion sensor thingy, and there were also some (untrue) rumors about Sony pulling off a similar announcement to copy Wii's controller. So they decided to wait and see what the other major players had in store - and once it became clear that neither Nintendo nor Sony had anything unexpected to trump Microsoft's plans, the Bungie announcement was not needed. They could safely postpone the whole thing. Perhaps in Leipzig? To add further twist to the story, according to the MTV Multiplayer Blog, Microsoft’s head of Xbox business Don Mattrick confirmed that Bungie's game is a new Halo title. Not Halo Wars, not the previously-announced Peter Jackson project. Something new.  FF13, so shiny! Other than that interesting omission, Final Fantasy XIII was the real bombshell. Rumors say that even Sony was caught a bit off-guard. Exclusives such as Fable 2 and Gears of War 2, while nice, were not really news. Mii-cloned Avatars and the new Xbox UI were also a bit disappointing. I guess it will be an improvement over the current dashboard, but to me it looks like it wastes massive amounts of screen estate to present a "cool" interface. I hope it works well in practice. As E3 has traditionally been all about consoles, the only truly interesting piece of PC-related news was the fact that Square-Enix's The Last Remnant would get a PC version. That alone, while interesting, is not nearly as interesting as the door it opens. Presumed PS3 exclusive only last week, the chances of a port of Final Fantasy XIII also for the PC just went up considerably. We already knew that Square-Enix uses Crystal Tools with Final Fantasy. Crystal Tools is a multiplatform engine that uses PC as the base platform to cut down development costs, so a PC port is technically possible. Nintendo(Notes from Nintendo's presentation)  Sword fighting in Wii Sports Resort Nintendo had a bit dry presentation with lot of powerpoint slides about the fact that they are filthy rich. Animal Crossing was not a surprise, and neither was a follow-up to Wii Sports (Wii Sports Resort), but I guess Wii Music qualifies as one. Sure, bits of it were shown already last year, but what was a neat tech demo an year ago has been truly fleshed out as a game that screams "Nintendo". No other company could really put out anything like that, and I'm sure it'll sell bazillions - just like Wii Fit is doing right now. Evil rumors say that "Guitar Hero On Tour Decades" for the Nintendo DS is a very recent idea from Activision to continue milking the surprise hit that is "Guitar Hero On Tour". I guess even Activision didn't trust that the game would work on DS, but once you sell over 300 000 copies, it proves you wrong. The fact that the "Decades" version didn't even have a logo in the presentation (they just used Guitar Hero On Tour logo) would support the rumor about it being a very late addition to the lineup, as is the fact that their only real announced feature was the ability to share songs. No information on the song lineup or anything like that. I was also surprised by the distinct lack of, well, anything related to Zelda or Mario. Sony(Notes from Sony's presentation) Sony had a flashy show, but it was yet another minor disappointment, with almost no genuine surprises. Sure, the video store is neat and everything, and Sony has all the major studios lined up for content, but what about games - the reason people buy games consoles. PSP keeps failing to provide anything truly unique that would fit a portable format like, well, most of the first-party Nintendo DS games that truly fit their respective format. There was also a distinct lack of strong exclusives on the PS3. MotoStorm sequel and God of War III were pretty much expected and should be good, but the rest - Infamous and MAG - were a bit "meh" in my opinion. Also, while both God of War III and MAG trailers looked visually impressive, all they had to show at this point was pre-rendered video, which translates to "late 2009". It's like Sony is grasping straws to have anything impressive to show... Killzone 2 "target renderer" anyone?
God of War III teaser
Home was still promises. Looks better than before, but it's another case of product still deep in development, shown to the public far too early. Rest of the lineup seemed to be mostly multiplatform titles - Call of Duty, Prince of Persia, Mirror's Edge, Ghostbusters, Fallout 3... heck, they even used Metal Gear Solid 4 in their lineup, and that's already in stores. DC Universe Online, while not PS3 exclusive (There will be a PC version as well), was mildly interesting - shame that I have zero confidence in SOE's ability to pull it off. The notable omission was Final Fantasy XIII. Evil rumormongers claim that it was supposed to be a part of Sony's lineup, but it magically went missing as soon as Microsoft had dropped the bombshell that it was no longer a PS3 exclusive. Oh, and that promotional video of developers boasting how great it is to develop on the PS3 and how they are now finally able to tap the full power of the whole system... it looked to me like one of those terrorist videos where captives are forced to read canned statements at gunpoint. I'm sure Sony used wads of cash instead, but it still felt really forced and lame - if Sony's hardware is as great as they say it is, they wouldn't need to do bits like this to try and shore up the image of the platform. Winner of the great three-way duel of press conferences? While they all were a tad disappointing, the winner of this round is Microsoft. Nintendo has just gone a bit too far to the casual side, while Sony seems to be fumbling around - unable to get solid first- and third-party exclusives.
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