Microsoft ‘went first’ yesterday, the initial conference of the big three is presumably the hardest one to judge because there’s no frame of reference, we simply don’t know what the other two, Nintendo and Sony, are planning. However, unless the latter two royally screw this year’s presentations up, Microsoft have to come a distant third based on what they decided to focus on last night.
You know, it’s not really going to be that hard to top an hour’s worth of Kinect stuff, and with Nintendo reportedly ready to blow everyone away with a new Zelda for Wii and Sony’s sure-fire hits of Killzone 3, LittleBigPlanet 2 and Motorstorm: Apocalypse ready and waiting, it’s already in the bag, right? Focus on the games, and the crowd might at the very least eek out a little cheer now and again.
The relative silence last night during Microsoft’s motion control section (and indeed, throughout the rather rushed, mistimed presentation) speaks volumes: the gaming press wanted to see games – proper games – and why Microsoft didn’t push the likes of Halo: Reach (which looked wonderful) and Gears 3 (again, a must-own) is beyond me. Yes, Kinect has potential, but was E3 really the venue to show it off?
Perhaps not, and especially not when it means not showing the stuff we wanted to see more of. The Crytek exclusive was completely lost in the haze, but could have been something really exciting if it wasn’t just a stepping stone to Microsoft getting to the Kinect portion – a little more hype and, you know, some discussion afterwards would have helped to cement the new game in people’s minds.
Sony know how to do this – they’ve been doing it for the last month with the aforementioned trio of PS3 exclusives. LittleBigPlanet 2 was up first, and will certainly feature at the show for everyone to see, as will Killzone 3 with hopefully a real-time demo. We’ve played the level of Motorstorm that’ll be at E3, and when you see it in motion you’ll know why I was so excited about playing more of that one.
What Sony need to do is remember the target audience, their target audience. Sure, show us some Move stuff but keep it to the proper games – don’t waste 10 minutes on whatever’s happening to EyePet when most of the press seated won’t ever have touched the game. And certainly keep it all real-time, we don’t want anything pre-recorded and faked, thank you very much.
And if you do decide to show PSP2, ensure it’s backed up with one hell of a show, because after the Go, with confidence in the brand battered by high pricing and the knowledge that it was all just a test; a precursor, your buying public will need solid reasons to want to buy into the PSP again. Ensure there are games that only run on the second gen machine, and ensure it’s got a clear purpose.
But really, it’s all about the games. We want to know what thatgamecompany have been up to, we want to see inFamous 2 and all your other first and third party exclusives. We want to see Ico in HD, we want to see the new God Of War running on PSP, and we want a clear, locked down and 100% guaranteed release date for Gran Turismo 5. We want games, proper games.
You’re not going to have Zelda, but you’ve still got a bloody good chance of coming out on top, Sony.
