E3 Review and Reaction

Now that E3 is over, let's take a look at what happens and what this means for gaming. Since I only previewed and predicted for the first party developers, let's keep this review and reaction to the system presentations. I will look at the positives and negatives of each presentation, then I wil award each a medal for their performance. To be dramatic, I'll start with bronze and end with gold.

NINTENDO

First, let me start with the disappointment that Nintendo decided not to make a presentation at E3, but rather chose to do a "digital event," the Nintendo equivilent of a podcast. I would understand if none of the major Nintendo leaders could make it, but that was not the case, for Miyamoto and Fils-Aime was there (Iwata could not make it due to health complications). Just think about how Konami does not have E3 press conferences, and how that reflects on their poor games. It's easy to get that same thought about Nintendo. On the same note, I'm disappointed on the length of Nintendo's digital event. Microsoft spent 90 minutes on XBox, which is about average to present a system. Sony spent 120 minutes on PlayStation, which did seem a little long, but can be excused because they had so much to present. Nintendo spent a mere 45 minutes on both the WiiU and 3DS. If the length of the presentation reflected how much they were working on, it would feel like Nintendo is doing half the work the other companies are doing. There was so much to talk about, but they spent so little talking about it. I will talk about this more later.

The digital event begins with a warning: content rated M. I'm thinking to myself, "Woah, Nintendo is starting off with a game rated M? That's so not like Nintendo. This is going to be awesome!" But it wasn't for a game. It was a short skit provided by Robot Chicken. I appreciated the laugh it gave me. I also appreciated that Nintendo allowed it to make fun of itself. But it did take out time to present game, which as I already said, was lacking, and I will say it again later.

When Nintendo got to presenting games, the first one was, of course, Super Smash Bros. I liked the humorous sketch of Iwata and Fils-Aime fighting to announce Miis as Super Smash Bros fighters, although I will admit that it seems like the Miis will be another version of Captain Falcon (Brawler), Link (swordsman) and Samus (shooter). I'm still kind of iffy about the Amiibo. At first, it seemed like a copycat of Skylanders and Disney Infinite, which to me feels like a cheap way to nickel and dime people. But the more I heard of its capabilities, the more I was convinced. The Amiibo give the Super Smash Bros. character RPG abilities and elements. This means that if two people chose Fox, for example, it would not be an equal matchup, as it would be picking the same computer chosen player, the characters might have different strengths and weaknesses. This would make fights a whole lot more interesting. If successful, I hope the WiiU can incoporate this into more games.

Next two more games were announced. First, Nintendo announced Yoshi's Wooly World with an interview and a trailer. Yoshi's Wooly World is pretty much a gameplay sequel of Kirby's Epic Yarn. Shortly after, Nintendo announced Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, a game where Toad becomes Indiana Jones and hunts for treasure. Now even Toad has his own game. Watching both games, I found myself constantly saying, "That's cute" or "That's adorable." That's what these games were: cute and adorable. Perfect for kids and fanboys, but not for hardcore gamers.

I accurately did predict a new Zelda game, but it wasn't exactly what I was thinking. First, Nintendo announced Hyrule Warriors. This game viritually took Dynasty Warriors and put Legend of Zelda characters in it. Therefore, both Dynasty Warriors fans and Legend of Zelda fans will love this game. Then Nintendo got to real the Legend of Zelda game. We got to see Hyrule in 1080p, and it was beautiful. Miyamoto plans to embrace this beautiful landscape by making the most open world Legend of Zelda game yet. That's all we got. We didn't even get the game's name; it was referred to as "Legend of Zelda for WiiU." Later on, we were even told the name character may not even be Link. That's it. It's better than nothing, but I would have loved to hear more. They definitely better share more next year.

As for 3rd party development, we heard about Bayonetta 2, and that was it. Not even in the EA or Ubisoft conference was Nintendo really mentioned. Later on, Ubisoft admitted that they were only making Just Dance 2015 and Watchdogs for WiiU, and that was it for the year. Not even a Raymond game. As I said before, Nintendo needs to show 3rd party support if it wants to compete in this 8th generation console war. First, EA withdrew and now Ubisoft. If Nintendo looses Bayonetta, they are in trouble. They would have to continue on focusing on Nintendo fanboys by rebooting old franchises again. As for Bayonetta, it's nice that Nintendo will package the 2 Bayonetta games together, but since the first one came out on the Wii, and the WiiU has backward compatibility with the Wii, it's really unncessary.

Other games Nintendo showed off at its digital event were Mario Maker, Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire and Splatoon. Mario Maker looks fun to both create and play, even though unofficial mods like it have been on PCs for years. Pokemon Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire kind of scares me. What I really want is my 3rd generation of Pokemon updated to most recent handheld, but it feels like Nintendo is adding too much with things like mega evolutions. Splatoon was an interesting take on a shooter game. Most importantly, it's child friendly, which is what Nintendo always shoots for (no pun intended). The show ended with announcing a new Super Smash charachter and plans for future games. That was it.

The worst part of this press conference is what didn't happen. Throughout the week, Nintendo announced more new games. Not that this was a problem; I see what they were doing. The problem was that they were some the best games, and they did not announce them at their key presentation. Some of these games were Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright, Mario Party 10 and Kirby and the Rainbow Curse. Did you know about these 3 games? You probably wouldn't unless you watched the whole thing. The sad part is these are possibly the best 3 games of the week, and Nintendo kept them hidden unless you watched every instance. Furthermore, Nintendo had a demo of a generic 1080p Star Fox game for the WiiU on the E3 showcase room. The only way the gamer would know about this either playing it at the expo or hearing a reporter report on it. A Star Fox for the WiiU was the most anticipated game. There definitely should have been more coverage of it.

All Nintendo had to do show they were keeping their promise that the first made with the WiiU: good graphics, good online play and good 3rd party development. The only thing seen was the good graphics, thanks to the future Legend of Zelda WiiU game. Online capabilites were left silent. Nintendo focused more on multiplayer on the same console than on different consoles online. What was really lacking was the 3rd party development. Not only did Nintendo not show off any 3rd party games, neither EA nor Ubisoft showed off the Nintendo WiiU. This digital event would not want anyone who does not have a WiiU to want to get a WiiU. Heck, it might even make someone who has WiiU regret they choose this system for their 8th generation console. It leaves them to ponder if they want to buy a new console or become a Nintendo fanboy.

+Positives+: Robot Chicken clips were funny, future plans of new Legend of Zelda game and Star Fox game for WiiU, good graphics displayed
-Negatives-: Best games weren't announced until afterward, no 3rd party backing, silent on online capibilites, short presentation, too many cute games
~Top 3 games~: Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright (3DS), Mario Party 10 (WiiU), Kirby and the Rainbow Curse (WiiU).
*Medal*: Bronze

Microsoft

Microsoft did exactly what I predicted. XBox did what Nintendo usually does: stick to their first party games. During the Microsoft press conference, we heard the most about Halo: Master Chief Collection, Halo 5: Guardians, Fable Legends and Forza Horizon 2. Even if they weren't faimilar franchises, Microsoft spent a lot of time on new first party games, like Sunset Overdrive, Below and Quantam Break. This demonstrates that XBox can continue making good games on their own. The 3rd party game Microsoft did present were the ones they knew had a huge fanbase on their system, like Call of Duty: Advance Warfare and Assassin's Creed: Unity. All these games looked legit. Sunset Overdrive felt like Duke Nukem meeting Left 4 Dead. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare looked so real, I had to take a second look to see if it was really a video game or a movie. Fable Legends made it clear that it abandoned the Kinect gameplay used in Fable: The Journey for going to back to the more true gameplay to the series. The most impressive had to be the Halo: Master Chief Collection. It has the 4 original, mainline games (this makes sense why Spartan Assualt was the Free Game with Gold on Xbox One. Halo 2 got the full update to XBox One graphics, but players can still play on the original graphics too if they want to go old school. For the lover of gamescore achievement points, a player can get 1000 points for each game, meaning they can earn a total of 4000 points. All these games, especially Halo: Master Chief Collection, showed that XBox knew its fanbase.

This did not mean Microsoft's press conference was perfect. It was far from it. The big one was the lack of Kinect. Only two games were announced for Kinect: Fantasia: Music Evolved and Dance Central Spotlight. And I emphasize that they were merely annouced. Neither gameplay nor a cinematic trailer was shown. Furthermore, neither the EA press conference nor the Ubisoft press conference really talked about Kinect either. All of this, combined with the "new" XBox system without Kinect, tells me that Kinect is on its way out the door. On another note, something I did not like was there was too much emphasis on co-op play. It seemed like XBox mentioned it with every game. Clearly XBox doesn't know its fanbase well enough to know XBox gamers don't have friends and therefore prefer single player :-P

Microsoft didn't do well enough to make up from all those years of mistakes to climb back to the top, but they did enough to not finish on the bottom and begin their climb back to the top.

+Positives+: Stuck to old first party franchises, introduced new first party games, stuck to third party franchises they knew were popular
-Negative-: Too much co-op play, not enough Kinect
~Top 3 games~: Halo: Master Chief Collection, Fable Legends, Forza Horizon 2.
*Medal*: Silver

Sony

Sony begin announcing a new color for the PlayStation: glacier white. I think I prefer the black color instead. That wasn't Sony's only new hardware introduced. You would think Sony would talk about Project Morpheus, but they did not, for they had not made more movements forward on it. That was a smart move on their part. They talked more about the PlayStation 4 camera, and how it has helped the improve the gameplay experience, although not requiring it, make a cheap shot at XBox One one more time. Then Sony moved on to more hardware improvements. Sony announced that anyone who has a Sony TV will have access to the PlayStation digital game library. PlayStation also announced a device that will allow a player to play PlayStation 4 on other TVs in the house. Most people weren't expecting hardware announcements years after the new consoles came out, but Sony shocked everyone by announcing so much hardware. The only thing they did not talk about was the PS4 and PS Vita bundle, which I would have loved to hear on how those two worked together. The other hardware left out was Move. Sony should have mentioned how good the new PlayStation camera was that it does not need Move.

What good would all this hardware be without software. Sony did a good job displaying the full line up of video games they had available. PlayStation gave equal time between 1st party games and 3rd party games, showing that PlayStation was dedicated to both their franchises and other franchises. Sony also demonstrated it targeted both hardcore gamers and casual gamers, without sacrificing one for the other. What better demonstration was demonstrating everything from Little Big Planet 3 to Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. If all these 1st party and 3rd party games weren't enough, Sony announced plans to make digital downloads of old PlayStation games from previous generations' consoles, as well as opening up a huge library for indie game developers to upload their games for download. Unlike Nintendo, Sony made its fans proud to own a PlayStation 4. But the best part is that the online digital libary is also available for PlayStation 3. Unlike XBox, Sony demonstrated that it was still loyal to the PlayStation 3 and those who haven't updated from a PS3 to a PS4. This alone should be clear why Sony won this E3.

+Positives+: New hardware, balance between 1st party and 3rd party development, huge game library, still loyal to the PS3
-Negatives-: Lack of Move, no mention of PS4/PSVita bundle, little time on PS Vita games
~Top 3 Games~: Little Big Planet 3, Uncharted 4: A Thiefs End, Grand Theft Auto V.
*Medal*: Gold

E3 2014 Preview and Predictions: First Party Developers

Last year at E3, Microsoft and Sony came up to the 8th generation of consoles with the XBox One and PlayStation 4 respectively. Now, a year later, the consumer population has gotten its hand on these consoles, but only have played a few games on them. This year, Microsoft and Sony, as well as Nintendo, have to reninforce what their consoles will do with their software. Software companies, like EA, Konami and Ubisoft, also have to learn to adapt to these new consoles. Let's first look at the first party developers, who have to both sell their consoles and their games. Let's go in alphabetical order.

FIRST PARTY DEVELOPERS  
MICROSOFT

Last E3, Microsoft screwed up royally. They mostly dispalyed their hardware. They displayed their hardware as a console that turned any HDTV into a Smart TV. They aimed to make they hardware accessible to all, not addressing the needs and wants of the hardcore gamer. Instead, it seemed like they did everything the hardcore gamer hated. They did not allow backward compatibility. They required Kinect. They even allowed developers to add an additional charge for used games. They said to their audience, "Trust me, you'll like it." And the audience replied, "No, we don't," and they booed and hissed. Then Sony introduced the PlayStation 4 and Sony said, "We will never do anything that XBox will make you do." And the audience applauded and cheered. Gamers favored the PlayStation 4 over the XBox One so much that by the end of the E3 week, XBox had to say, "Just kidding. We're just like PlayStation." But it was too late. Now the XBox One was a mere copycat of the PlayStation 4, and it would take them the rest of the year to shake that image off.

Microsoft isn't fully forgiven for that yet, and they won't be able to shake it off this year, so forgot them winning the E3 Olympics. Yet they have the oppurtunity to rebuild. They will have to play it safe. In order to play it safe, they have to pull a Nintendo. They will have to stick to the old 1st party franchises that they and their fanboys have depened on for years. Unfortunately, due to the disappointment of Gears of War: Judgment, the Gears of War franchises has been driven into the ground. But look for Halo 5: Guardians, Fable Legends, Forza Horizon 2 and Killer Instinct: Season 2. As for hardware, look for XBox talking about the hardware update that is the 2 most requested updates by fans, including replacing gamertags with real names. They need to hook their fanboys back to XBox. Once they hook the fanboys, they can then work on getting the hardcore gamers back. After that, they can once again try to appeal to the casual gamer fanbase.

NINTENDO

Nintendo got the head start on the console race 2 years ago with the WiiU. Nintendo promised this WiiU would appeal to you (U), the hardcore gamer, by giving it better graphics, better online play and better third party support. Last year at E3, Nintendo showed its audience it had held true to its word. HD games displayed its 1080p capacities. Online sports games demonstrated that Nintendo players could play online like they could on the other systems. With the exception of EA, most of the third party developers kep true to their word, producing Nintendo game. Furthermore, these games took ahold of WiiU and used its touch screen and cameras to its full use. This added a gameplay feature, so much they both PlayStaton and XBox copied with smart phone apps. Nintendo demonstrated it could compete in the console war, especially with the hardcore fans.

Last year, the 2 big games were Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. Since Mario Kart 8 already came out, Nintendo will probably talk about its success. Then they will go into more anticipation of Super Smash Bros. They will focus on the game being true to fighting games and fighting gamers, such as the use of GameCube controllers and the new characters. I suspect they will introduce another casual Mario game, like a new Mario Party. Then they will introduce a new game from another old franchise. This will be Hyrule Warriors and whatever Legend of Zelda game they have planned. If they are smart, they will intoduce a game for the Metroid series, too. As for the 3DS, they will turn to Pokemon for Pokemon AlphaSapphire and Omega Ruby. These games are great because it brings back the nostolgia of the 3rd generation of Pokemon while updating it for the new hardware. Nintendo has the chance to take the lead in both the console war and the handheld war, and they need to grab that chance.

SONY

As said above, Sony took PlayStation to the E3 gold by simply saying that they weren't going to do the mistakes that XBox made. It's also given them the lead in the console war, in the sense they have sold the most consoles so far. As for the overall PlayStation 4, both hardware and software, they are losing. They need this E3 to present games that people will want to buy and games and will make those who don't own the console want to buy the console. Same goes for the PS Vita. As of right now, the Vita seems like an expensive 3DS. The Vita needs to make itself distinct. It can really do that with games that show off the hardware capabilities.

I expect Sony to take a different turn than Microsoft or Nintendo. Microsoft and Nintendo will stay focused on the familiar franchises. Sony, on the contrary, will focus on new games. The only new sequel I expect is Uncharted 4. All other games will be new. New, creative, original games might drag Nintendo and XBox fanbons away from their systems and to PlayStation. Prepare to hear a lot about the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita bundle. I believe this hints that PlayStation will have more games, if not all the games, will be using the the PS Vita as a PS4 controller, just like the WiiU has the WiiU Game Pad. This should be a good sign for Nintendo, for it will show Nintendo that other hardcore gaming systems still copy Nintendo.