Nintendo for the past few E3's has been a disappointing to me. Not only have they shown a trend in pushing their core gaming audience aside for a stronger focus on their more casual audience. Their third part support has also been week with impressive third party games being few and far between, a trend which has been occurring since their N64 days. Their first party support has always been strong and this year was no exception. A new Zelda, which after a glitchy stage showing proved to control much better without other technological interference, new Kirby, new Donkey Kong, a Mario sports title, and a remake of Goldeneye. For the core gamer this was an extremely strong showing of support for the upcoming gaming season. Third party support still looked a little week but in all honesty this was something I did not expect to change. Their first party was fantastic, even more so than usual. With titles from nearly every major franchise including the surprise announcement of Goldeneye. Where Microsoft stumbled with their showing of games Nintendo soared.
It got even better with their unveiling of their new portable 3DS, the first 3D handheld system to enter the market. My current DS is a first generation one where I have a sizable collection of DS games for it. I enjoyed it quite a bit but was always disappointed with their lack of touch screen usage and general disappointing selection of third party titles with the exception of JRPG's. The 3DS was different. It was the exact opposite of the business creed of Nintendo with their handhelds. A technological powerhouse with revolutionary 3D and gyroscope technology and a very strong selection of games including strong third party support.
Along with the revival of a new Kid Icarus title, big Nintendo titles were also shown in either demo or video form. Star Fox 64 3D, Mario Kart, Pilotwings, Paper Mario, and an Ocarina of Tine remake headlined Nintendo's offerings. As for third party Resident Evil, Ninja Gaiden, Dead or Alive, Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell, and Kingdom Hearts were also shown. As for the 3D aspect from what I saw worked well, and without glasses or other features. Combine this with a strong showing of support from first and third parties, and you got the attention of all kinds of gamers. Nothing else like this has ever been produced before and with some of the strongest support seen for a handheld since the Game Boy, the only flaw of the 3DS presentation was an absence of release date and price. Either way I was blown away, Nintendo was back inf prime form and I cannot wait to reap the results.
Sony's conference while not as exciting as Nintendo's or filled with as big of surprises as Nintendo's I was still very impressed with what they had to offer. Most of the games shown were titles that we were previously aware of. A few new surprises were the announcement of a new Twisted Metal game, a Sly Cooper collection, and the biggest surprise of all: Steam coming to PS3. Gabe Newell himself took the stage and made this surprising announcement his claim of Portal 2 being the best on the PS3 was certainly a surprise to the gaming community since Newell's alleged dispute with Sony in the past during the release of the Orange Box. It seemed that surely if Valve were to release a Steam application for consoles that the more favored 360 would be the candidate. Color me surprised. As for the rest of Sony's lineup the Move was heavily promoted however while they had a collection of casual games for the Move the amount of games waiting to be supported with new Move controls through patches was exciting to see. Sony seems to want to use the Move for more than casual games and with the Move working fantastically with SOCOM 4 and Gran Turismo 5 it just might be enough to get the core gamer interested. The price was admittedly steep but for a collection of Move, the "nun-chuck" like attachment, and Eyetoy but a single Move remote can be used with a normal Duelshock 3. A nifty idea and proof that Sony really is pushing this to a much broader audience beyond the casual one. A premium Playstation Online service was announced. The features seem very similar to what 360 offers and while my initial fears was that the free service would be striped to allow more of the features for paying customers I was happy to hear it was not the case. The premium service offered great incentives like game trials and free content, while keeping the same features for free members. As of right now it sounds like a win, win situation. Hope it stays that way.
Oh and Kevin Butler, I officially love that guy. Sure he's an actor but he is charismatic and entertaining and just the spokesman a video game company needs to get the customers excited for their product. His speech was arguably one of the highlight of Sony's conference.
Strong showings from two gaming juggernauts. The future of gaming still appears to be in good hands.
No comments:
Post a Comment