E3 2010 thread of E3-ness and MASSIVE LEAKS
- Thread starter firehawk12
- Start date
DOH!!
Jumping back and forth between several sites.
Also Microsoft itself was heavily playing up the idea of the 360 as a "home entertainment" center. So frankly, I had some of same thoughts PKerr had, and I don't think that's necessarily an unreasonable take on what we saw today. MSFT themselves were in our face, beating us over the head with it being something else besides a game console. So it was easy to overlook the glimpses of Halo and Gears.
Honestly? I expected some kind of surprise to counter act the Kinect stuff... but the moment Matrick said that every game was going to be 360 exclusive, it dashed my hopes.
I mean, even a FF13 Versus on 360 announce would have been hilarious just for the internet meltdown. Instead it's a bunch of trailers and 5 minutes of CliffyB playing Gears. Heck, they didn't even bother doing guided demos for the shooter stuff, so all you got was CliffyB grunting at his coworkers as if he was playing on Xbox live.
At some point I wrote that I wish they brought back Yoko Ono for this year's conference because at least that would have shook things up a bit.
Information wise it was a bust and content wise it was just dry as hell. Not James Cameron describing blue aliens at Ubisoft dry, but fairly close.
Sweet Christ. If, and I mean if, this is accurate, Microsoft really has lost its shit. $149 for Kinect.
I really hope Nintendo just decides to drop a bomb tomorrow and announces a $149 Wii with Motion+ and Sports Resort.
You'd think that Microsoft would have learned from Sega's horrible attempts to extend the Genesis' lifespan via hardware add-ons back in the '90s, but given that every single person involved with the creation of the original Xbox is long-gone from the company (guys like Seamus Blackley, Kevin Bachus and Ed Fries, people who said "focus on the games, don't fart around with optional add-ons, just make it a killer games machine"), I guess not.
I really hope Nintendo just decides to drop a bomb tomorrow and announces a $149 Wii with Motion+ and Sports Resort.
You'd think that Microsoft would have learned from Sega's horrible attempts to extend the Genesis' lifespan via hardware add-ons back in the '90s, but given that every single person involved with the creation of the original Xbox is long-gone from the company (guys like Seamus Blackley, Kevin Bachus and Ed Fries, people who said "focus on the games, don't fart around with optional add-ons, just make it a killer games machine"), I guess not.
Naw, this wasn't nearly as bad as Ubisoft last year (the first E3 conference I actually turned off). Nor was it as bad as Nintendo last year either.
Anyway, anyone who's surprised at the focus on Kinect needs to get some perspective. Of course there's a huge focus on it, they've spent a lot of money and effort on it and it has the potential to grab them some of the massive casual audience that the Wii has. It doesn't appeal to us... but it doesn't have to. It's not even supposed to. Why is it so offensive to hardcore gamers when companies try and target additional demographics?
Anyway, anyone who's surprised at the focus on Kinect needs to get some perspective. Of course there's a huge focus on it, they've spent a lot of money and effort on it and it has the potential to grab them some of the massive casual audience that the Wii has. It doesn't appeal to us... but it doesn't have to. It's not even supposed to. Why is it so offensive to hardcore gamers when companies try and target additional demographics?
Is that a place holder price? It seems strange that they'd go out of their way not to say how much the thing costs only to have GS post it on their site moments after the conference ends.
Also, apparently Dust was revealed to be an official XBLA game during the pre-show... which just reminds me - why didn't they highlight any games during the Xbox Live part of the presentation?
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmSAQwbbig8[/yt]
If I saw that during the presentation itself, I probably would have gone away satisfied. If CliffyB announced Shadow Complex 2, I would have said best conference ever.
Also, apparently Dust was revealed to be an official XBLA game during the pre-show... which just reminds me - why didn't they highlight any games during the Xbox Live part of the presentation?
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmSAQwbbig8[/yt]
If I saw that during the presentation itself, I probably would have gone away satisfied. If CliffyB announced Shadow Complex 2, I would have said best conference ever.
I don't think offensive is the term I would use. I can't speak for anyone else, but my concern is this, will they "dumb down" games to take advantage of this new Kinect technology? Will they take time away from developing traditional ("hard core") games to develop for this?
Perhaps that's not a valid concern but again, I don't think it's unreasonable to be a little concerned on that front. I remember arguing with someone on this board about the Wii when it first come out and they had the same concerns I'm voicing now, and back then I was basically making your argument on behalf of the Wii. And now a few years later I see Microsoft and Sony desperately trying to copy Wii, all of a sudden I have the same fears this other fella had.
I wish I could remember who it was so I could offer a proper mea culpa, because I think he may very well end up being right.
gh4chiefs has nailed it.
I'm not offended by it at all, I just fear the dumbing down to appease the casual gamer.
And the sad thing is the fact that both M$ and Sony are just copying the Wii to appease it's shareholders all the while the shareholders don't get the fact that Motion control is a gimmick that just happened to work for Nintendo's newest "toy" because bottom line that's all the Wii was in terms of it's sales. It's last years "Toy" gimmick that everyone had to have.
I've seen it year after year with Cabbage Patch Kids to Tickle Me Elmo to those hand held digital pet things (whatever they were called).
Everyone and I mean EVERYONE that I know that has a Wii (And I've bought 3 for various gifts) played it for a week or two, maybe a month and now it's a dust collecting nick-nack.
The simple fact that the Wii has 50 gazillion systems out there and the lowest attach rate pretty much proves my point.
The casual gamer is just that, casual.
Casual = low software sales.
Do they honestly think that a causal gamer is not only going to go out and buy an XBox 360 or PS3 then spend more money on it's gimmick attachments?
Personally, I want the industry to appeal to casuals with games like Heavy Rain, not FitnessSportsDanceAdventure.
I don't have a problem with shifting gears to the casual side, but for me there wasn't anything on the hardcore side that was remotely surprising or interesting. It'd be as if I was shown trailers for Star Trek 2 or Transformers 3 before sitting through Sex and the City 2. The feature isn't what I'm there for and the trailers are for things that are so obvious that my cynical, blackened heart is unable to express any positive emotion.
I don't have a problem with shifting gears to the casual side, but for me there wasn't anything on the hardcore side that was remotely surprising or interesting. It'd be as if I was shown trailers for Star Trek 2 or Transformers 3 before sitting through Sex and the City 2. The feature isn't what I'm there for and the trailers are for things that are so obvious that my cynical, blackened heart is unable to express any positive emotion.
So motional controls are to console gamers as console games are to PC gamers? 
I don't think it's a serious concern. Games are a business and as long as traditional games are still profitable (which they clearly still are) then developers are going to be making them. Which is again why I say that perspective is so important. What happened in the PC market is that a significant chunk of the consumers moved to consoles and so developers followed them. For developers to stop making traditional games, the gamers who buy them would have to, well, stop buying them. And that ain't happening anytime soon.
I don't think it's a serious concern. Games are a business and as long as traditional games are still profitable (which they clearly still are) then developers are going to be making them. Which is again why I say that perspective is so important. What happened in the PC market is that a significant chunk of the consumers moved to consoles and so developers followed them. For developers to stop making traditional games, the gamers who buy them would have to, well, stop buying them. And that ain't happening anytime soon.
They didn't want to repeat Sony's "$599!" moment that quickly became a meme that haunted the PS3 until the Slim came out last year. The audience at the press conference obviously weren't buying into the Kinect marketing, the most they were doing was politely clapping when they were supposed to. To release the price after that performance they ran the risk of eliciting gasps from everyone rather than cheers.
Well I hope you are correct, but everytime I buy a 360 game in the future that's "Kinetic capable" or a PS3 game that's "Move capable", I'll find myself wondering "OK what did they have to leave out of this game in order to put that stuff in?"
If they just make separate games strictly for these motions controllers, then fine. But when the motion controls starting showing up in Halo and Gears of War, then I think it's time to be concerned. And from a video I saw today after MSFT's conference, Sony is showing a game where they've already started intergrating motion controls into mainstream, "hard core" games. I'm not sure which game it was for sure, but it looked like it could have been the next SOCOM game.
So again the question becomes "What was sacrificed from game play to intergrate these motions controls?"
Yeah, the coverage becomes focused on the device and not the price, but a GS store page update seems rather graceless. I suppose GS just wants to have a product page ready just for pre-orders.
Anyway, the way information spreads in this industry is sometimes a joke.
Anyone else watching G4's live coverage?
Right now they're showing EA's thing.
They just finished demoing Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Now they're talking about Dead Space 2.
EDIT: Oh, and they showed a bit of Halo: Reach's campaign just before EA press conference started. It looked ok.
Right now they're showing EA's thing.
They just finished demoing Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Now they're talking about Dead Space 2.
EDIT: Oh, and they showed a bit of Halo: Reach's campaign just before EA press conference started. It looked ok.
Yeah, I am. They're also doing the "watch people play" thing. I guess I need someone to put this stuff in context because I didn't really see anything cool about the racing (they were pimping "Auto Log") and with the Dead Space demo, it just looks like the first game in a new setting.
How does Hot Pursuit look - any better than Undercover?
Screw NFS and Dead Space, I wanna see The Old Republic!
Something tells me there will be something to see in the next hour
Now they're about to do a live 24 player demo of the upcoming Medal of Honor game, which takes place in Afghanistan.
I can't imagine anything going wrong.
Yeah, this is pretty gusty
