blackcherry said:
I think this sums up my attitude towards the whole conferance.
QFT. This, and Nintendo's presentation this year fits so nicely in the "Birdmen and the casual falacy" article (quite a nice read about Nintendo's probable strategy, google it up), it's haunting. While Sony and MS have first laughed then scratched their heads then ripped off Nintendo (probably too late), Nintendo now announced a load of titles, including many dear returning franchises for the old core of Nintendo gamers. They are now effectively bridging the gap between the casual and the hardcore, one step at a time. I give'em 2 or 3 years to announce a new console, at which point Sony and MS will slap their collective foreheads, while their gamers are disgruntled at the amount of shovelware that has since invaded their systems. Touche!
And that, and for making a presentation that was not boring, and didn't trash talk other systems, is why big N takes the crown this year.
As for Sony and MS, it's hard to say which was worse. But despite the typical cheesy MS shenanigans, i'd have to say Sony was worse. Why? Constant self pats on the back, throwing cheap jokes at other systems, a lot of boring montages (side note: with some really awful music selections), a lot of very still and dull moments, don't care about Kevin Butler, or the PSP ad campaign, or the Coke deal, or the truck, those are all just irrelevant and cocky marketing tricks. As for games, it evens out if you strip off multiplatform titles, and Gabe Newell's surprise just strikes me as a "wtf" moment after their history. And yes, the Move looks relatively accurate, certainly more than Kinect, but it's pretty much a more precise and advanced Wiimote. Kinect is not, for now at least, and probably never will be, for the hardcore titles, but at least MS had either the lunacy or the balls to go in a slightly different direction, instead of just iterating the Wiimote. And as for hardcore titles, the Move may actually be very precise (it remains to be seen, or rather, experienced), but i doubt it will be enough to pry the mouse from my hand. The folks at Sony may very well be shooting themselves in the foot by trying to use one solution to all kinds of games and gamers, while MS is goin' for the whole no-controller motion solution pretty much only for casual, while keeping the controller for the rest. Or it might be the other way around, only time will tell.
