The press conferences of the big three have come and gone this year, but we will not be focusing on Nintendo‘s conference. We are focusing on the Microsoft and Sony Computer Entertainment E3 conferences of this year. Each of our writers have composed a paragraph of who they think won the conference war and why. Hit the jump for our opinions.
Sal’s Opinion
This year’s E3 2008 wasn’t as hot as it should have been. I expected bombshells like the next Team ICO game, a few new exclusives for the Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3, and more. The announcement that drew my attention most had to be the new Xbox 360 Dashboard as well as the whole Final Fantasy XIII for the Xbox 360 announcement, which was really unbelievable, but shows how easily Microsoft can obtain once Sony-only titles.
My opinion is that Microsoft took this year’s E3. What I heard from Sony was their history and success of the PSone and PS2 when I should of been hearing about more games for the PLAYSTATION 3. Sony showed us more LittleBigPlanet, a few new PLAYSTATION Network titles such as Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty and Fat Princess, two new PLAYSTATION 3 titles which were MAG and God of War III, and videos of some games coming to the PLAYSTATION 3, PSP, and PS2. They presented Resistance 2 as well and that Leviathan was simply awesome. A $399.99 80GB PLAYSTATION 3 was announced as well. Problem was, although most the games shown were great, they were all first-party. It simply wasn’t enough.
Microsoft showed us a gorgeous looking new dashboard for the Xbox 360, adding avatars which add a great new way to interact with your friends, also optional installations for every game to increase load times 30 percent. They showed us an exclusive steal with Final Fantasy XIII for the Xbox 360, which is really a historical blow when you think about it. Microsoft brought in knock-out presentations for games like Fallout 3, Resident Evil 5, Fable 2, and Gears of War 2 as well. We saw how the games were played. We saw new Xbox Live Arcade games like Portal: Still Alive, South Park, Galaga Legions, and Geometry Wars 2. A new Netflix deal was announced as well as a deal with NBC to bring shows like Heroes to the Xbox Live Video Marketplace. The Xbox 360 60GB was also announced for $349.99 as well. It was really more of a show, and that’s why I must say Microsoft took the cake.
Eric’s Opinion
There has been a heated battle about who had the best presentation and stole the show at E3. Now, a lot of people are jumping on the Microsoft bandwagon because of a couple reasons, but mostly due to the Final Fantasy XIII multiplatform news. Maybe I will take some heat for it, but I think Sony had the better of the two presentations. The 360 is also getting a new dashboard. That’s all well and good if it mattered all that much. Its a new appearance, nothing groundbreaking. They are also more or less copying the Home characters/Mii setup with their new avatars. I do not find that all that impressive. A lot of gamers might like it, but again nothing that spectacular there. Most of their games that they showed off were multiplatform as well. Sure there are games like Gears of War 2, but there was not that many big titles of interest. The one thing I did like was the Netflix integration, something I wish Sony had gotten for themselves as that is a great feature if you rent through them. My only concern is whether that means SD movies for download only or HD as well.
Sony, for me, wins due to a few different things. Firstly they actually made their introduction speech, sales figures, etc. interesting with the LittleBigPlanet infused display. They then proceeded to show off a multitude of new exclusive games for Sony. Some of the big titles for the PS3 were God of War III, inFAMOUS, and Resistance 2. They saved Zipper’s Massive Action Game for the closer and it looks like it will be nothing but an epic title once it comes out next year. Then they had PLAYSTATION Network games such as PixelJunk Eden and Fat Princess, which looks absolutely fantastic and Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty. They also showed off PSP games such as the new Resistance: Retribution. All exclusive, all interesting, all fantastic looking. They also released the much anticipated PLAYSTATION Video Store, which already has a plethora of titles.
In the end, sure Microsoft had good press conference and the Final Fantasy XIII news was a sore spot for Sony fans, but I think Sony overall just has more going for them based on what lays ahead in the future and what they showed off. More exclusives, more potential, and they are just getting started.
George’s Opinion
You would think that this year’s E3 could have been more fruitful than it ended up, but each console’s publishers and developers simply continued to cater to their respective install bases. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft’s press conferences left much to be desired thanks to numerous leaks in the days beforehand. Many people will say that Square Enix‘s Final Fantasy XIII announcement was the big bombshell. Series fans have claimed that it will benefit gamers as a whole, irrespective of platform or bias. However, it may actually be the confirmation of an alarming trend in gaming: multiplatform development. Thanks to this wonderful treat, we have all had to wait longer and longer periods of time for companies to finish specific titles (a la GTA IV) while studios under-utilize the capabilities of different gaming hardware (which basically every game produced by EA suffers from).
So what was the positive trend of this E3? Social networking. That’s right, but this isn’t your sister’s FaceBook or your step-aunt’s Myspace. The injection of avatars into Xbox Live, the winding down of development for the virtual world of Home, and the group voice chat peripheral introduced by Nintendo all mark the next wave of console communications and interactions. So, depending on your opinion, we may all be either losers or winners over that. One thing is for sure though: if you can’t get away from your friends or family by disabling your e-mail or turning off your cell phone, they will hunt you down through your console.