E3 Press Conferences

So this year's E3 Press conferences have been interesting, predictable but interesting.

Microsoft pushed too hard with Kinect. Sony pushed too hard with Move. Nintendo...well I'll get back to Nintendo.

So my highlights from all the major conferences has to be the new 4 player co-op IP's. Overstrike from Insomniac games, a crazy spy shooter with some great comedy, and Furious Four from Ubisoft. Both did not reveal any gameplay, but provided some nice trailers, with some great aesthetics. The games have great potential and I will be watching them closely.

Microsoft seems to have forgotten their audience. Pushing Kinect to the Core gamer is in my opinion a big mistake. Quite possibly the funniest instance of this is with the Ghost Recon Demo. A guy in an awkward stance opening and closing his right hand like he is ordering 5 drinks, and holding an imaginary TF2 minigun like a heavy with his left hand. It is embarrassing enough for most to play motion controlled games, but how awkward do they want to make it to play core games? I cannot see anyone preferring that system over the standard controller.

Sony announced the NGP is called Vita, which was no surprise as it leaked a while back. Sony, having leaks, crazy I know. Vita looks intriguing but I am in no rush to get one. Sony apologised, and rather hard for the outages of PSN. As a non Playstation owner I couldn't care less, but it was nice to see that they care.

Nintendo, Where to begin. Let's review the precursive moments that lead to the Press conference. Me and my friend sat on the sofa, streaming the conference to a 32 inch TV, it's about 5 minutes before it is due to start . We begin joking about "So what do you think the new console will be called?" I ask "I bet it's something like the Nintendo Us" he says, "ooh even better, The Nintendo You, or better yet just the letter U". We managed to come to the same conclusions the Nintendo marketing team did in under 5 mins. We continue joking around, "Wouldn't it be great if Nintendo partnered with Steam?" I say secretly praying to whatever deity that would listen that it doesn't happen. "No, i've got it!" He remarks; "They partner with EA and Origin." Now this didn't actually happen however it was hinted at, throughout the whole 'close relationship' speech EA made I was verbally cringing that they might blurt it out at any moment.

So Nintendo actually pulled their finger out. They managed to get some 3rd party support for this new consoller (console + controller). What they showed of the line-up it seems Nintendo might be back in the game of appealing to the core.

Oh and the 3DS lineup seems pretty cool, no real surprises though. I will be buying quite a number of remakes this year.