Working Title 7.17.08: Working Expo - The Conferences

Posted by Jordan Williams on 07.17.2008

The Conferences are over, and who walked away a winner? Time to take an honest look at who had the right idea and who got their faces rubbed in the dirt.

Welcome back to the #1 Column to really not care that Dark Knight comes out tomorrow, WORKING TITLE!

Hellboy > Dark Knight.

But movies are not important right now, what's important is that this week is the biggest week in gaming the fantastic and often surprising E3. Of course at the time of this writing I'm only focusing on what the fanboys can use ammo in the ongoing console war: The Press Conferences.

What used to be just a simple keynote speech has now turned into a coming out party for each console and each new game, and it's commonly thought whoever has the better Press Conference gets the most momentum coming out of E3 and take that through the rest of the year. So who stood out this year? Let's find out.


Working Expo: The Conferences



While E3 is three days long, this doesn't stop the masses from all gathering and focusing on a single point. That single point always seems to be the Big 3 Press Conferences they run before the floor officially opens. Now almost every company with a presence runs their own press conference but it truly are the Big 3 that get the most attention. With that said who had the stronger conference and who will walk away a 'winner', what got the fans stoked and what could've been done better?


IMPORTANT NOTE: I, LIKE OTHERS, AM FOLLOWING THE COVERAGE ON G4 AND GAMESPOT TV AND I REALIZE A LOT OF THESE GAMES MIGHT INDEED HAVE FOOTAGE, BUT I AM BASING MY JUDGEMENTS SOLEY ON THE PRESS CONFERENCES. I WILL GO IN DETAIL ABOUT THE GAMES FROM E3 NEXT WEEK


Microsoft



After having a pretty big year last year, Microsoft was looking to keep the momentum going by hyping up it's Xbox 360 console and the new games that will be coming out later this year. They already had big ass money in the way GTA4 and Ninja Gaiden II, but we all know that Xbox's biggest hits will come out later in the year. Let's look at what Microsoft dropped on us.


Games
-Resident Evil 5 gameplay demo along with an official date, March 13th 2009.
-Fable II officially dated for October.
-Fallout III Gameplay demo.
-Gears of War II gameplay demo along with an official date, November 7th 2008.
-Portal: Still Alive will be exclusive to XBLA and will feature new levels and achievement.
-Final Fantasy XIII confirmed to be jumping ship and going to the Xbox 360(along with the PS3)
-Rockband 2 Soundtrack Released
-Other XBLA Games such as Galaga Legions, UNO Rush, and XBLA Community (Homebrew) games announced.

As far as games go, there really wasn't thing NEW per say other than Fallout III. Now don't get me wrong, this isn't a bad thing at all. Seeing as this year a lot of Microsoft's games are going to come out late in the year, the focus of this should've been to make sure that people get hyped for these releases. To me the two big new exciting things were Fallout III gameplay and Resident Evil 5 gameplay. A lot of people are sort of disappointed that RE5 is looking a lot like RE4 (more shooting, less scary) but I personally have no problem at all with that. Fallout II is another controversial thing because there seems to be just a love it or hate it vibe about it.

The fans of the old Fallout series are really shitting all over the new first person "Oblivion 2277" look it has, meanwhile everyone else is stoked because it looks like it's going to be a great game and a great new direction for the series. Personally I was never the biggest fan on the old Fallout, but I am a big fan of Oblivion and the work Bethesda does, so I'll at least check it out.

The focus on XBLA was a pretty good one as XBLA has been under a lot of flack for putting out a lot of shovelware seeing as about 1 in every 5 XBLA games are worth playing and then it seems like unless it's a BIG title no one is ever actually on Xbox Live to play it. So hopefully stacking the lineup with games like Portal and Galaga will help them out.

Of course I'd get stabbed in the face if I didn't mention FFXIII. Now I'm personally not the biggest FF fan that I once was, but not even the WORST fanboys can deny that this isn't a BIG coup for Microsoft. Last year when PS3 was losing all of its exclusives the one thing most fanboys clung onto was that Sony would ALWAYS have Metal Gear Solid and they would ALWAYS have Final Fantasy. Well that reality game crashing down in a matter of minutes when the FFXIII trailer was shown. The fact that Microsoft somehow managed to lure Square-Enix away from Sony just shows how much pull they have (and will continue to get), which can be a good or bad thing.

Bottom Line: While all the games they showed weren't exactly new, they definitely delivered on the front of getting people excited for the remaining year. All of the games slated to come out next year look great and the stuff coming next year looks even better. FFXIII gave them a big boost going in and the XBLA stuff should please some. Overall I think they did very well with the games portion of the conference.

News

A big portion of these conferences are also about upcoming news. Now I'm not going to get into the stats and numbers since that is mostly for the developers and investors to care about. But I will talk about some of the new stuff coming to the console itself.

-Xbox 360 Price drop Confirmed, 20GB being phased out to make way for the new 60GB
-New Xbox Live Dashboard confirmed, will feature new avatars in place of gamer pictures and tags
-New Dashboard will allow for easier community play, picture sharing, and shared movie viewing
-Xbox Live Primetime will allow XBL members (and their avatars) to play real game shows to win real prizes.
-Microsoft has teamed up with Netflix to allow the entire Netflix Library to be streamed from the Xbox to existing Netflix subscribers

Now this stuff isn't really game related, but it does shape up the future of the Xbox 360, but it has it fair share of controversy as well.

First off the price drop for the Xbox has been a long time coming so that's not really a surprise, the surprise was the giant overhaul of the Xbox 360 Dashboard, but it's already hitting some snags. Almost right away a lot of gamers saw this and the Hardcore vs. Casual Civil War started up a new chapter. With that new avatar system being widely regarded as rip offs of the Wii's Mii system, it seemed like the 'one true hardcore' system that was the 360 was not trying to lure in the casuals as well.

What do I say to that?

Shut the fuck up and quit bitching

It's very rare when I see something in the video game world that just annoys me to the point of disgust, but this whole Casual vs. Hardcore shit is getting just ridiculous. For an industry and a fan base that wants to be taken as seriously as a legit hobby they really do hate it when someone 'new' wants to join the party. Personally, I'm not completely sold on the new dashboard as I think it really doesn't mesh well with the image that the system has built up, but I've been told that you will be able to back to the old skool Dashboard if you don't like it which is okay with me.

As for the new Primetime channel and the Netflix partnership, I am actually pretty excited about those. I'm not exactly sure how winning 'real' prices will pan out though. They really didn't talk about the prizes you would be able to win, but I can't imagine them giving away giant cash rewards so I think we'll be looking at free games and free Microsoft points for the most part. As for the Netflix side of things, I can see how this could be big for the people who use the Video Store on the Marketplace, and it does effectively cut out the middle man on the DVD front, so it's a win for Netflix and Microsoft.

Bottom Line: The price drop for the 360 is something that's LONG overdue, but I really don't like these underhanded price drops we are getting with this generation. Whenever there is a price drop it's not necessarily because the price is being lowered, it's because they have released a bigger and better version of the console so they are phasing the one you originally spent your hard earned money on. Netflix and Primetime seem like they could be some good add-ons to improving the community aspect of Xbox Live, but it all really depends on how well they implement it and how many gamers will actually use it. As far as news goes I think Xbox delivered something that everyone can use, but I'm not sure if they WILL use it.

Overall

So, now that the Microsoft Press Conference is in the books, how did they match up? Well I'm going to go ahead and say that Microsoft did its job. They went into these with one intention in mind and it was to throw its weight around and go "FUCK YOU, WE'RE AWESOME". Now how awesome they are is always going to be up for debate, but they showed us what we wanted to see. Gameplay for RE5 and Gears, the first ever look at Fallout III and FINALLY a JRPG that everyone might like. The XBLA support and new style are going to take some warming up to, but it's all about the games first and foremost and I think they delivered. By the way, the dick move of not only taking FFXIII but openly gloating about it was hilarious.

Microsoft's Press Conference gets 4 Birdos out of 5!





Nintendo



If Microsoft as running full tilt into E3, Nintendo wasn't that far behind them. While the big releases for the foreseeable future have been in doubt for Nintendo, everyone knew that going into this Nintendo needed to show the goods to keep gamers interested for the rest of the year and to keep the 'hardcore' fans from bitching. Let's see what they brought...

Shaun White Snowboarding confirmed for the Wii to use the WiiFit board.
Animal Crossing: City Folk dated for Holidays 2008
Wii Sports Resort dated for Spring 2009
Wii Music dated for Holidays 2008
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars confirmed for the DS
Spore and Guitar Hero: Decades are on the way
Star Wars: Clone Wars and Call of Duty: World at War were also confirmed.

...

That's it? Uh...okay. There has been A LOT of flack directed at Nintendo, and I know I am known around here for defending some pretty bad moves but I don't know if I can completely defend this move. Nintendo stated that with the Wii they are going to change the way people play games, which is sort of true and they did show the numbers that proved that it IS working as the market has expanded to the points where everyone wants to pick up a piece of the casual pie. But one thing I think Nintendo dropped the ball with these announcements are that while they are still hamming it up on the casual front, they have let almost every other front fall to the wayside. Now don't get me wrong, Nintendo already proved they can crank out some great games with Mario Galaxy, MP3, and SSBB but where were those similar announcements this year? They promised that there would be something for both fronts here and the closest thing we got was Animal Crossing which is fine and dandy but anyone can tell you Animal Crossing isn't exactly a game for everyone.

Some might say that Nintendo didn't really NEED to throw such a big announcement contest because right now it's currently in first and it can sit back and relax, and others will add to that saying that the 'new' E3 is more of a Trade Show geared at gaining and keeping new developers rather than trying to wow the gamers themselves. Both of these are valid points, but have really big flaws.

You can woo and wow all of the developers and investors in the world, but if you don't crank out decent games that keep everyone happy you will NOT succeed. There are no bones about it.

But let's actually talk about the games they announced. Shaun White Snowboarding look like it's going to be good fun for those who have the WiiFit board and I can see it doing well if it's as smooth as it looked on the screen. Animal Crossing is the biggest name they announced and I'm sure it will do well with people who LIKE Animal Crossing, but I just don't think this was something they should've been banking the whole conference on. Wii Sports Resort actually looks like a lot of fun, especially with the new Wii Motion Plus(more on that later) the Wave Race and Fencing Modes look like they are going to be a really big hit.

But it's obvious they were banking a lot of this on Wii Music, a game that was hinted at two months ago. While it did look like it would be a lot of fun to play, I'm still not exactly clear on what its point is. It's a music game that allows for just open ended jam session gameplay but I don't know how that would factor into the wind instruments and things like the Xylophone. Either way I'm sure it'll sell well but I don't see it being ANY match for Guitar Hero and Rockband, especially after that HORRENDUS group performance of the Mario theme song. Seriously, that shit was BAD.

I'd like to say that Clone Wars, CoD5, and GTA:DS will be awesome...but we didn't really see much of that to go on. Damn shame, too. Speaking of damn shame where the hell was the Virtual Console? I didn't see -anything- for that.

Bottom Line: I'm going to be honest, I get the whole point of what Nintendo was going for here, but as a gamer I am really disappointed at this showing. I understand that E3 is three days long and we could get some Brawl-like announcement out of nowhere that will melt our faces off but as it stands right now Nintendo looked like they didn't really bring ANYTHING to E3 that would keep its current players happy and it really makes the Wii's foreseeable future look mighty bleak.

News

For what Nintendo lacked in games, they tried to make up for with news. There were already some murmurs on the show floor about what was going to be announced, we got a LOT of numbers and stats but when it came to actual news...

WiiMotion Plus was unveiled.
WiiSpeak is announced
New software involving the DS used as an aid for cooking, sports, and travel was hinted on

WiiMotion Plus is the standout here because it's something that can really change the face of the new Wii games down the line. A few people had complained that although the Wiimote had some good motion skills, that it could always be a bit finer tuned. WMP seems to do that without adding much weight or bulk the controller and the demo they gave made it look REALLY good. This could be the thing that makes FPS games on the Wii a viable option or...dare I say it...Red Steel 2?

WiiSpeak is a good concept, I know tons of people have wanted some sort of voice chat for the Wii and have even gone as far as to use Skype on a PC while they play on a Wii. But I don't think I am completely thrilled with the open mic. I get that voice chat more often than not is filled with a lot of vulgarities and idiots, but I think having a mic that's going to pick up not only that, but all other noise in the room INCLUDING the noise of the game itself is just dooming this thing to failure. I hope there's some sort of Headset version that comes out at a later date.

The DS got it's focus with the Pokemon games (which I didn't even bother covering) and GTA but they started talking about how the DS could be used for new things such as helping you find the right terminal for airplane flights, helping you order food and track stats at sporting events and even be used as an electronic cook book.

All things that a cell phone can do, and probably better.

I see what they are going with here, but once again like with the Wii it seems like Nintendo is losing its focus. For a company that was so quick to say it's always been "about the games" when Sony and Microsoft were hocking DVD players and movie downloads, it seems Nintendo is trying more and more to make their consoles less 'video games' and more 'helping tools' and I don't think that's going over well with the fans and I don't think that's going to change.

The news wasn't nearly as underwhelming, but there was one VERY BIG thing that a lot of people were expecting (although Nintendo didn't say anything about it) that was never announced.

That damn Hard drive.

Of course, Nintendo has said for awhile that they didn't have plans or didn't think they needed one, but the point is WE WANT ONE and Nintendo now is just being a bit stubborn not giving us one or at least the ability to store more memory. I think a lot of people expected that to be addressed at E3 and we didn't get anything of the sort.

Bottom Line: The news section showed what we all know to be true, Nintendo is making all kinds of money now. But it also sadly confirmed what others are thinking to be true; Nintendo is losing sight of what its doing. WMP is going to be great, but there's no games that we know of that are going to use it to its full potential outside of WiiSports Resort. The new DS functionality to me is just something that I really don't care about, and I can't really imagine ANYONE caring about it that has a decent enough cell phone. Again, this was pretty disappointing overall.


Overall

As a bit of a Nintendo fanboy who really doesn't care about the business side of things as long as I get some good games to play I can't say I was too pleased with this conference at all. Little bright spots like WiiSports Resort and WMP were fine, but I was really expecting more seeing as all of Nintendo's big guns were drawn earlier next year and it's already in big danger of being BURIED by the 360 and PS3 in the Holiday season. Wii Music was trying so hard to be the big "Wow" moment of the conference, but it really fell flat on the heels of great (and seemingly better) games like Rockband, Lips, and Guitar Hero already on the horizon. Sadly, just due to the lack of anything to really get the masses excited (hell, even G4 stopped sugarcoating it after awhile) I'm going to have to give Nintendo's E3 Conference 2 Birdos!




Sony




And then there was Sony, with Microsoft having a pretty great conference and Nintendo having a pretty bad one, the stage was set for Sony to either do one of two things.

Blow us away or just simply blow.

Sony was riding in a HUGE high with MGS4 setting all sorts of records and people finally turning around on the PS3. They needed to transform that huge boost into huge anticipation, and seeing as Microsoft literally kicked them in the BALLS by ganking FFXIII from right under their noses, they had to come with some epic to do that. Did they?

Games
Resistance 2 footage, confirmed NOT to be fake this time.
Little Big Planet Gameplay footage used for the usual stats and bars. (Fuckin' creative.) Also confirmed to be out October 2008.
130 Title confirmed to be heading to the PS2 in 2008.
Ratchet and Clank: Quest of Booty announced for PSN
Star Wars: Unleashed, NBA Live 09, Patapon 2, LocoRoco 2, Super Stardust Portable, Lego Batman, Buzz, and Valkyria Chronicles all confirmed for the PSP
InFamous and DCU Trailers unveiled
MAG Announced
God of War III announced

Well damn, someone game prepared. Sony was riding high, and they didn't stop here. Kind of funny to say that they seem like the only one who game to E3 with GAMES. Now Microsoft did one up them a bit with actual live game demos, but as far as the sheer numbers though it seems like Sony beat them there. I was a little bit disappointed that we didn't get any true gameplay, but I then again Sony had A LOT to talk about.

Resistance 2 is looking mighty fine, I never got around to playing the first one but I might just have to beat someone up and steal a PS3 so I can play it because now it has me interested. The use of Little Big Planet to deliver the keynotes was fucking genius, it showed how strong that game is going to be and what exactly you could do with it. When they shifted the focus over to the PS2 I was a bit concerned.

I understand that the PS2 is still selling well, but one can't help to think when they are going to let it die gracefully. It's nice that games are still being developed for it, but one can't help but wonder how much greater games like Yakuza 2 and Warriors Oroichi 2 could've been powered by the PS3 hardware. And even then it's a bit of a kick seeing now that the majority of the new PS3 owners won't have a PS3 that can even PLAY these games it seems like they are alienating a market it. We get that the PS2 is still going strong after a decade, but sooner or later you're going to have to let it retire, Sony.

Its funny how the PSP went from being 'that other handheld' to being the one with actual GAMES. The line up isn't that impressive, but it's a hell of a lot more impressive than what the DS brought to the table at its conference.

I was a bit bummed the new IPs didn't get a lot of face time, however. InFamous has been the talk of the town for awhile and all we got was a puny little trailer. This has the potential to be the next saving grace IP for the PS3 in the vein of God of War and we really didn't get to see much of it. MAG looks...alright. I'm not sure if it will take off as well as they are hoping since this type of thing has been tried countless times before and has always fallen flat. Anyone remember Planetside? Ouch.

And then we get God of War, the big PS3 game announcement and we got a pretty good trailer(which looks like it's setting up for a finale) but it didn't seem to put the UNF on the end of the games side of the spectrum as I had hoped. Either way, Sony had all of it's bases covered and brought A LOT of good shit to the table and is showing now that they are ready for a comeback.

Bottom Line: Now with all of that said you might think I am about to sing the praises of Sony. You'd only be half right. While Sony did show up with a lot of games, a ton more than Xbox...the big difference here that almost all of Microsoft's games will be playable by the end of this year. A lot of Sony's games either didn't get a release date or games that will be out next year at the earliest. This really does take a lot of the bang out of the announcements because while it gets everyone hyped, it also reminds them that they won't be playing any of these games anytime soon. Meanwhile with Gears of War 2 and Fable II, we'll be playing those before the holiday season. Overall Sony did well with its games portion, I just wish they had something closer to release to show instead of its 'future' plans. Tretton kept capping all of his game announcements off with "And those will be playable/you'll see more on the show floor." which was just kind of lame, the gamers who aren't there don't get any glimpse at all of this cool stuff? Bah.

News

Sony has partnered with Sony, MGM and others to deliver movies directly to PSN.
Soon a user will share the same data, login and account info through PSN. Meaning PSP,PS2, and PS3 online will be handled under the same account. Accounts will also be accessible through the PC.
PS3 to PSP to USB Sharing will be enabled.
Gran Turismo TV was announced.
PS3 8GB will be released for 399.99
Greatest Hits planned announced. Best Sellers will begin at 29.99

As far as news goes, it was fairly light for Sony. They had all of their numbers and the stats, but I think more people decided to look at the pretty LBP instead of the stats. The Greatest Hits type stuff is good, if not predictable. The 'big' news with them was the announcement of the new PSN movies which just sort of seemed a bit...thin after Microsoft's partnership with Netflix. But I guess it's something that they really needed to get out there to lure in partners. GTTV seems like a big throwaway and will only be a big hit for the super hardcore. You already know how I feel about the underhanded price drops, so I won't bother with that.

Bottom Line: Like I said the news was a little light for Sony, but I can see why since most of it was focused on the games. It's just a pity these games are still a ways away.

Overall

Sony came ready for war, they showed off their guns and obliterated Nintendo and fired back at Microsoft. They had the biggest line up of games out of all three of the conferences, but sadly they couldn't back it all up with footage and hands on time at the actual conference either.

The news really isn't worth mentioning too much seeing as Sony kept it to a minimum. On one hand I'd say Sony's Conference was a huge success because it finally put some of those doubts about their future to rest, but on the other hand you could say that it was a bit disappointing because a lot of the stuff they showed was more of a 'coming attraction' rather than a 'right around the corner' type thing. In my mind, Sony had the good conference and better put together than the others, but the lack of readily available big name games (See: Exclusive) hurt it just a bit. I'll give them 3.5 Birdos. But here at Working Title we don't have the heart to cut our mascot (as voted by YOU) in half, so I'll round them up to 4 out of 5 Birdos.



Who Won?

Of course, this is all anyone really cares about. This is for the bragging rights, this is what will rule the GameFAQs boards at all times.

So who won?


We did.



























Yeah, that's such a fucking cop out. Honestly, if I had to go for a winner I think that while Sony had the better conference and showed us that they have a lot of games coming in the future, I think a lot of gamers (myself included) sort of have a short attention span when it comes to that sort of thing. Sure, it's awesome that there's games coming out but if you're going to tease me I want to be able to know that I can play them in the near future, not this time next year. Nintendo is a non issue because to me they really didn't come to E3 ready to blow any heads off, and then there's Microsoft who didn't have a lot of games to show off, but all the ones they DID show off are almost literally right around the corner.

So if you asked me who 'won' E3, I'd have to give it to Microsoft in a close one. But honestly, Microsoft and Sony both showed up ready to duke it out this year and the next year and a half is going to be really interesting to watch between the two. Damn shame Nintendo is on the sidelines.

But seeing as I know this will be contested, I'll just go head and ask you all.

Working Question

Plain and Simple: Who won E3? What game blew you away?

You already know the answer to the first question, the answer to the second for me will come next week. God Bless G4 and this AWESOME E3 coverage.

Until next time, I'm Jordan Williams...and NEXT YEAR I DEMAND RAMON SEND ME TO E3