Lawrence.com

by Kevin Augspurger, guest bloggerE3 2006 is already over, and the dust has begun to settle from the seemingly colossal events which took place last week at the event. If you would have asked me or pretty much any other gamer which next-generation system they thought would dominate the market over the next five years two weeks ago, their response probably would have been something to the effect of "The PS3 is going to smash the 360, and the Wii is going to just be off doing its own thing and Nintendo will be forced to close up shop." Now there are a lot of variants on that statement that you might have heard, but that's what the general consensus was leading up to the press conferences which took place before E3 officially started. Now, however, after an amazing chain of events, the situation is much, much more different than it was two weeks ago, and the momentum shift between the three consoles is nothing short of drastic. Between the press conferences and the actual show floor itself, all three console manufacturers, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony all tried to answer the doubts and questions surrounding their next-gen efforts. Would Sony's system really be powerful enough to have games like those shown at 2005's E3 conference? Would Nintendo's Wii controller be more than a simple gimmick and truly revolutionize the way people play videogames? And would Microsoft be able to hold their ground against the oncoming PS3 with the Xbox 360? This year's E3 truly had some surprises for everyone.The best company to begin focusing on would most likely be Nintendo. Their expectations were the lowest going into last week, and their promise of a revolutionary new way to play games with the Wii was something that many were skeptical of, even the most hardcore of Nintendo fans were beginning to waver in their allegiance to the Big N, especially after the official name of the Wii was announced. It was almost like the "shot heard 'round the gaming world." However, things changed quickly at their pre-E3 media briefing, as the press got their first glimpses of how Nintendo was truly going to challenge the status quo in videogaming, and it looked like fun, and entirely relevant to the gameplay in what they showed. After the press conference, attendees were clamoring to get their hands on the Wii themselves, and see exactly what the new controller was capable of. So frenzied were they in their want to get their hands on the system, that a line outside of Nintendo's booth grew so long so quickly each of the three days of the event, that organizers had to cut off the line at around 10:30 AM each day, just to ensure the people at the back of the line would get a chance to play the Wii that day. Once inside the fabled land of the Wii, the attendees of the show were able to try out Wii games to their hearts' content, and the response seemed to be almost universally positive. And not only did the Wii really come out swinging, but Nintendo's DS had a phenomenal showing as well. Both third-parties and Nintendo themselves had a full range of potential blockbusters on their hands with the portable system that is slowly beginning to outsell the PSP. Oh, and did I mention that Nintendo announced that the Wii would launch this fall with new Metroid, Zelda, AND Mario games available on Day One? Talk about a must-have system, the Wii turned heads and made everyone take notice at the show, and things couldn't have gone better for Nintendo at E3.So while Nintendo had a phenomenal show, Microsoft came into the event with a lot of doubt clouding their vision of what they thought "next-generation gaming" should be with the Xbox 360. Sony had given consumers a lot of ammo over the past year to make it seem like the 360 would be obsolete by the time the PS3 launched, and that they would have the franchises like Grand Theft Auto that people would have to get a PS3 to enjoy. So what did Microsoft do about it? They set out to crush those doubts, and prove to every gamer that they weren't going anywhere, and that they have some great games in the works. Microsoft's press conference mainly focused on the new games coming out in the upcoming year or so for the Xbox 360, including some potential "AAA" quality games like Too Human, Gears of War, and of course, the big daddy itself, Halo 3. Most of these games were expected to show, but the quality was far beyond what most had imagined. The second generation of 360 games looked better or on-par with all of the games that Sony had shown for the PS3. Also announced were the new wireless peripherals from Microsoft, including a wireless headset for Xbox Live, and a wireless steering wheel. Microsoft did have one cool ace up its sleeve though, when they they announced that Grand Theft Auto 4 would release simultaneously on both Xbox 360 and PS3, and that the Xbox 360 version would be the only one with exclusive episodic content that would be released after the game's initial release in the fall of 2007. After this though, people were very anxious to get their hands on the games that Microsoft had shown, and they were not disappointed.Microsoft's presence on the show floor with the Xbox 360 and the Windows gaming platform was an attraction that was constantly packed. The real stars of Microsoft's booth were the games for their platforms, including Gears of War, Too Human, Dead Rising, and Lost Planet, just to name a few. After the dust settled from E3, Microsoft definitely reassured their Xbox 360 owners that the great games were going to keep coming, and that they had just as much to offer as Sony did to entice new 360 owners, and perhaps even a lot more with their Xbox Live gaming service expanding to the PC and mobile phone realms, too. And then there was Sony. With all the expectations and promises they had made in the past year about the PS3 and its capabilities, this year's E3 was supposed to be its time to shine. This would be where Sony showed its dominance over the videogaming world, and bring both Nintendo and Microsoft to their knees. Once the lights came down on their pre-E3 press conference though, things began to unravel very quickly. After showing off some less-than stellar games coming soon for the PSP, which really seems to be hurting now, just a bit over a year after its initial release, the presenters quickly moved on to what they knew everyone wanted to see, the Playstation 3, the true next-generation of gaming, according to Sony. So how did they usher in this new era of gaming? By showing 10 minutes of Gran Turismo HD, which seemed to be an exact port of Gran Turismo 4, just running in 1080p high-definition. The crowd seemed confused and befuddled by this completely underwhelming spectacle, and that set the mood for the rest of the event. After proclaiming they didn't need gimmicks to succeed, minutes later Sony was showing off their newest Eye Toy Card Battle game for the PS3. Sony showed off completely lackluster and uninspired games like Genji 2 and Resistance: Fall of Man. All of which resulted in some pity clapping after they were shown. In fact, the only PS3 game that even garnered any sort of real applause was the Metal Gear Solid 4 footage shown, and that was mainly because it was Metal Gear Solid 4. But I've come to the conclusion that Sony is run by masochists, because things got much worse for them after that. They announced an exact launch price and date for the PS3. Yes, for just $599.99, you too can get games that look less appealing than many currently available Xbox 360 games, and a Blu-Ray DVD player. Oh yes, and there's a $499.99 version, available as well, but it should not even be considered as an option, as there's no HDMI output, which results in Blu-Ray DVD playback relegated to ¼ of the television screen due to copy protection issues. There's also only a 20 GB built-in hard drive on the cheaper PS3 (compared to 60 GB on the more expensive version), no memory card support of any kind, and no wi-fi support at all. Oh, and it's not upgradeable, unlike the Core Xbox 360. And Sony wasn't even done then, either. They then announced the most blatant rip-off possibly of all-time within the gaming industry. They announced the "innovative" "6 degrees of tilt" in the new dual shock controller for the PS3. Obviously, everyone knew that the new controller functionality was tacked on at the last minute, and only put in because they had to copy Nintendo in some sort of way, and they also copied Microsoft a bit by putting a "home" button in the middle of their new controller as well. This did not go over well with those in attendance. Everyone left the media briefing with a new air of doubt hanging over Sony. What happened to the demos they showed last year? What happened to the talk of a "much more powerful" system? Apparently Sony balked, and Microsoft and Nintendo were more than happy to step into the picture to pick up their slack. Now many of the people at the show just figured that Sony had a bad press event, which could have been a fair assumption, until people actually got their hands on the system on the show floor. Underwhelming is probably the most positive thing I could say about what I saw from the PS3. When playing Warhawk, I could tell the controller functionality was added at the very last minute, and seemed like a gimmick with my complete inability to aim at anything I wanted to, even after getting used to the controls. Plus, a lot of the games they had were either uninspiring or retreads of games people had played on PS2, like Heavenly Sword, which garnered the title, "Goddess of War" on the floor because of its extreme similarity to Sony's hit franchise, God Of War. By the time the second and third days of the floor show came around, the real buzz was on the Wii, and many were completely bypassing the Playstation 3 kiosks in order to get to the Wii line, and the wait to play a PS3 game was down to about 5 minutes, at most. Sony showing completely underwhelmed even their most devoted supporters, and they definitely now have more questions surrounding the PS3 than they have answers to give. Since it's all over now, it's my opinion that the fallout from last week is really beginning to show through. Nintendo has all the momentum going into this fall with all of the positive press and word-of-mouth that they'll get from people at the show who played the Wii and realized just how revolutionary it's going to be. Microsoft still looks like they're in position to hold comfortably at #2 especially when their stellar line-up hits in the coming months. The biggest blunder is definitely Sony's, though. They didn't deliver on any of their previous promises, and now questions are popping up surrounding Blu-Ray, their pricing strategy, and the "true" power of the Cell processor. It looks as though Sony is going to have an uphill battle facing them after this holiday season. The hardcore Sony fans are still going to buy a PS3 because they "have to have one," but it will be very interesting to see how many college kids and parents buy themselves and/or their kids a 360 or a Wii instead, because of the huge difference in price, and because of the graphical similarities between the 360 and the PS3. The coming months will be very fun to watch, and the battle for the next-generation will truly be a sight to behold. This is definitely a great time to be a gamer, no matter which systems you enjoy playing.