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We Review the E3 Big Three
July 15, 2008
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Tretton, Fils-Aime and Mattrick are all hard-bitten pragmatists. They’ll put a lot of energy into pleasing the media once a year, and then they’ll be glad it’s over for another 12 months. E3 is just a part, and not really a very big part, of the job of shifting consoles and selling content.
Offering a personal view, Edge-Online editor-in-chief Colin Campbell reviews this year’s console manufacturer press conferences…
MICROSOFT
7/10
Everyone agrees that the new Xbox Live dashboard is slick, smart and pleasing to the eye. That’s also the verdict on Don Mattrick, whose cheeky, boyish smile is something of a departure from the lupine grin of his predecessor.
Mattrick made no mention of Moore and you get the sense of a new era, following the senior staff reshuffle at Xbox Towers. Mattrick’s team looks like the collective offspring of a departed big-personality parent; stretching their own personalities and finding they’ve more to offer than they thought. Good for them.
Because this is Microsoft we’re talking about, you can pretty much guarantee a few duff dancing-uncle-at-wedding moments in any presentation. The video of young people at a party playing Lips rang false for me. It wasn’t the absence of booze and drugs so much as the presence of a Zune. Someone really ought to have picked up on that howler.
There was also the potentially gruesome spectacle of Microsoft employees playing You're in the Movies on a faked up couch. In fact, they dodged any awkwardness by being convincingly awkward and funny in a natural way. It turned out to be a nice moment.
Microsoft had plenty of talk about, albeit not as much about hardcore games of the future as you’d hope. Apart from Xbox Live and the Party thing, there was a bunch of movie content deals including NetFlix, now, bizarrely, doing the rounds of E3 as this year’s smartest deal.
What makes Microsoft look strong is a line-up of hardcore games for the near-future that includes Gears of War 2, Fable 2, Resident Evil 5 and Fallout 3. They all impressed the hell out of me during their presentations, although Peter Molyneux might want to take some tips from a kindly sales rep about the difference between features and benefits, and, although Bethesda’s Todd Howard was an excellent host, I didn’t think the Fallout 3 demo showed off the game’s exploration and communication RPGness sufficiently; and the music was plain irritating.
We need a session at GDC next year on ‘How to Present a Demo’ because it’s a science which, as a business, I don’t think we’ve perfected.
I thought the article was well done. Nice work. It's too bad that people get so worked up over the "mine's bigger than yours" arguments. The market is growing at a rate that can foster the big three healthily. I don't understand people who want the console(s) they don't own to "lose" and be wiped off the map. Competition has been fueling innovation, price cuts, and better software for everyone.
Dear Mcool93 and General,
I love how the both of you overreact over another person's opinion. Get a real job, move out of your parents basement and buy all 3 systems. I think your time would be better spent playing the games you enjoy rather then getting upset about something someone else said about your "favorite" system/company.
Its one thing to dispute fact and fiction. To get your panties in a bunch over an opinion, well thats just childish.
You are actually the one who needs to get a real job and move out your parents' basement. Unlike you, I don't read people's opinion, I read articles. FYI, I only check if people replies to my comments, and in this case, you did. But your reply is absolutely ridiculous and unrelated to edge's post.
Sonys presentation was by far the best, microsoft spent 90% of the conference talking about multiplatform games showing that they had very little in there inventory to take up time xbots tell me this why would they cover so many games coming to both platforms? Sony on the otherhand talked about everything coming to playstation and its counterparts and surprised everyone with the same day release of there movie download and rental store which not to mention is by far better then microsoft since mirosoft has universal and thats pretty much it. Sonys exclusive list is amazing while xbox is subpar ill be honest i liked fable and gears but face it thats all xbox has we have resistance2 motorstorm 2 GOW3 SOCOM dc universe infamous littlebigplanet and many more ps3 is only 5million units behind xbox according to microsoft thats kinda sad when they had a year head start also the graphics are basically the same ppl say well thats kinda sad to when xbox had a year head start have u seen the graphics of the ps2 at the beggining of its cycle and at the end huge difference Sony is dominating in sales and is quickly catching up by the way 33% failure rate pathetic i know ppl on there third xbox ive had my ps3 since launch and no problems i bet none of u xbots can say the same.
Rating the quality of the show provided is revealed in the best way when you listen to the audience at that show.
Microsoft obviously had the best show, because people in the audience were literally yelling and shouting with enthusiasm when announcements were made. Sony talked about the PS2 and PSP for 2/3 of their show, and the crowd was never excited. Half the time the crowd barely clapped when Sony showed software, because most of the time all Sony showed was "intro" style graphics with no actual gameplay.
The announcement of Final Fantasy 13 has been called "The Final Nail in the Coffin" for the Playstation 3 for the following reasons:
* Xbox 360 gained the only remaining high-profile third-party exclusive game that the Playstation 3 had left.
* Sony lost the only remaining high-profile third-party exclusive game the Playstation 3 had left.
* Square Enix made it 100% clear that if you like games from Square Enix, then the system you need to own is the Xbox 360, not the Playstation 3. After all, Xbox 360 is now the official system that gets "exclusive" games from Square Enix. Sure, Final Fantasy games are released on both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. However, games such as Infinite Undiscovery and Star Ocean: The Last Hope are being released exclusively for the Xbox 360. Even the new game called The Last Remnant is being released as a timed-exclusive for the Xbox 360.
From a business point of view, the announcement of Final Fantasy 13 on the Xbox 360 was by far the biggest announcement at this year's E3. That's why Microsoft and Square Enix announced it in such a scripted way, similar to the 2006 E3 when Bill Gates and Peter Moore announced Halo 3.
Final Fantasy 13 is now a multi-platform game. This does three things:
(1) Benefits Microsoft sales of Xbox 360, because Xbox 360 now has Final Fantasy 13. This addition to the lineup obviously makes the Xbox 360 even more popular. People on PS3 websites now say they are selling their PS3 and getting an Xbox 360, especially now that MGS4 has been released and they have beaten it.
(2) Hurts the Playstation 3. Although the Playstation 3 didn't "lose" Final Fantasy 13, the Playsation 3 did "lose" Final Fantasy 13 as an exclusive game. From a business point of view, that plays a significant role, because "exclusive" games are what sell systems.
It's bad enough for Sony that the Playstation 3 versions of multi-platform games are always rated with lower scores compared to the Xbox 360 versions. And it's bad enough for Sony that the Playstation 3 always loses Graphics Comparisons with Xbox 360 games. Considering that Xbox 360 now has such a firm reputation for having superior multi-platform games, it makes exclusive games even more important. That's why losing Final Fantasy 13 as an exclusive game was such a devastating blow that the Playstation 3 obviously cannot recover from.
This is the reason why Microsoft announced publicly at the E3 that the Xbox 360 definitely will outsell the Playstation 3 worldwide this generation. The fact that Microsoft had the guts to do that publicly means they are 100% confident of what they are saying. We can now safely say, just like Microsoft did, that the Playstation 3 will finish a distant third in terms of worldwide sales.
It's true that PS3 is losing on the graphics department, but Sony fanboys disagree. They don't care that on the back of the game box, it's written "720p" max for PS3 while most games are 1080p for 360. They don't care that reviews show the lower scores for PS3 games. The only thing that they care (and that's talking about friends and coworkers that support PS3) are that Sony's promises and potentials, that won't be realized.
Nintendo seem to have a very short memory at the moment, one day they will need us again and it could be too late!
Whether it's Edge or Next gen, this site is still biased toward Sony. At the start page, under "We Review the E3 Big Three" link, they wrote "E3 Nintendo Sony". There isn't even mention of Microsoft.
Worst part is that Sony's presentation was deemed a disappointment from anyone else that isn't edge on the Internet. It's obvious that MS presentation had the most impact (ie FF13 and a slew of updates and videos).
one thing to consider regarding gta (or heck, any DS game for that matter)::
DS games don't look all that good blown up on a big-ass projection screen (hell, the developer DS to tv units i've seen even from nintendo display the games in a tiny window on a tv or monitor and most games tend to look fairly hideous at high resolutions). besides, even if they had footage to show, it probably wouldn't be shown at the press conference given the happy-happy all smiles theme going on.
actually, the one game i was surprised they DIDN'T show/mention at the conference was rainbow studios' deadly creatures. an original IP that's innovative, unique and maybe even educational (sort of). that was the most impressive wii game i've seen all year (after no more heroes, of course).
g.
Sony's always had some good pizazz with their presentations. I would personally rate Microsoft and Sony's presentation ability on even par. Though I've seen both bring a flopper to the dance party, if you know what I mean. That being said to me, presentation ability aside, the Microsoft team definitely had some better titles to reveal than the Sony folks, though I think Sony has a better lineup this year than '07. Nintendo would be in last just because it would be nice to get some "non Saturday morning cartoony" games in there, though moving GTA to the DS is a great move. Oh no, here comes your local PTA group to tell you turn off your DS lite when around children!!!
The FFXIII reveal was overblown. Its not like the 360 was doomed once Bioshock was announced for the PS3. Plenty of "exclusives" stop being exclusive after a while. Now, if Square Enix announced that it was not coming out for the PS3, that would be something else. But simply announcing a port isn't really that big a deal.
That said, one of the "problems" Sony has during these events is that they have multiple products out, all of which are important to them. The PS2 is still a cash cow, so they have to dedicate some time to it, even though a lot of gamers simply don't care about it anymore. The PSP is a success, even though it trails the DS, but again, some gamers simply don't care about it. A lot of people just want to compare the PS3 and the X360. But you end up with MS dedicating all of their time to the X360 and Sony only using a portion of their time on the PS3. This makes it seem, to some people, like Sony isn't announcing much, when in fact, they're announcing a lot for the PS brand.
I wonder whether its wise for Sony to announce games like MAG and GoW3 which are in such early development stages. People are too cautious now after what happened with KZ2.
To Mr: Rendszer
Well, the FFXIII announcment was a big "talker" around the net, indeed. But I do not think that the announcment is worth talking about, in many lines.
Microsoft paid for the titles, they have developed a financial relationship with Square and for Squares point of view, this is the only reasonable, financial decision they could take. FFXIII will now ship around 5 million units, on the Xbox 360 alone, the PS3 could never offer them that.
That would be all there is to say about this.
Another thing, this will surely hurt the deveopment, but budget wise and quality wise. It is always harder to deliver a well balanced game to multiple plattforms, I think the title will suffer because of this.
On the contrary my friend. FF13 was considered to be one of the PS3s "crown jewel", alongside of MGS4 and others. How MS got FF13 is not important, but Square must have realised that 360 is a software selling beast and definately wanted a piece of that userbase. So from my point of view, how MS got it isn´t important, but that they got that titel, is.
About the quality of this title, time will tell. As I understood it, this game is being made on the socalled "MT Framework" (or something like this) which basically means that it starts on the PC and then is ported and optimised on other consoles. So yeah, qualitywise we will see.
But that MS got this title, is definately worth mentioning..
My lord I can't believe how one company announces a day and date release in two regions of a major franchise that WAS exclusive to it's competitor and they only get a "7". While the other company shows a very crappy CG trailers of a game called MAG and shows us nothing worth noting and they get a "8". I'm sure Colin Campbell was one of those people who would have swore on his mothers life the Killzone footage a couple years ago was "real time".
I must say, Mr Campbell, that numerically scoring press conferences is exactly what I didn't expect from this website.
Some comments to Venom:
Even though MS did play homage to some things the competitors did have, Sony replied with the "one ID for all" regarding PS-Network and the whole ability to connect to a PC to see your account, friends etc. Trophies is basically sonys answer to achievements and so on. But you said it, maybe nothing (or very little) is new in the biz.
Perhaps the company that can take all these impressions from others and make a compelling package and offer it to consumers, will "win".
And regarding this article...
Why is there no mention of FF13 to Xbox360, which was the only "megaton" announcement at E3 so far? It feels like the article is missing this little happening. The forums of the world and youtube, did certainly not miss this...
How was MAG astonishing ? Explain please.
What struck me about the Microsoft presentation (apart from the moments cringe-worthyness) is that most of their 'new' products are imitations of other stuff. Whilst nothing is ever truly new in this industry, it demonstrated that Microsoft dont have a vision of their own. Their vision is get the hardcore, get the casual gamer, and do it by following the example of others but by outspending. Although the 1 vs 100 quiz is the only exception. People at home joining in with a quiz on the TV may be the future....
Sony's delay in launching in-game XMB & Trophies meant the hardcore migrated to the 360. Sony need to give their programming team a kick up the arse because multi-console owners are choosing 360 version of multi-platform games, and they seem stuck like a rabbit looking in headlights.
While Sony had the most polished presentation (the LBP stats portion was a great idea), I give MS the top spot based on actual content and announcements. Sony relied far too heavily on CG trailers (didn't they learn from the Killzone fiasco a few years ago) and titles that aren't releasing until 2009. This only exacerbates the impression that PS3 owners (like myself) remain in a perpetual state of having to continue waiting for the good stuff. The focus on PS2 was just bizare and I found the segment where they strong armed third party devs into saying nice things about developing on the system pathetic and a tacit acknowledgement that there are problems with the SDK's/Architecture/Tech support.
Nintendo's presentation was the worst I have ever seen. Their biggest announcement was another piece of white plastic bundled with minigames that fixes the problems with the original piece of white plastic bundled with minigames. Of course, gaming journalists will praise this as innovation and it will sell millions.
MS came across as trying too hard to be hip, as usual, but delivered the goods with actual gameplay of coming titles coming out this year combined with the Netflix announcement (which I think will actually end up being the biggest factor the rest of this generation as it neutralizes the Blu-Ray factor), and Final Fanstasy which just continues to demonstrate in real terms how far Sony has fallen this year in market share and perception.
They focused on software this time, they showed many games and it was, all in all, a very strong press event.
Jack was a little bit more relaxed than last year, but Peter Moore, he is not. The hardware numbers are, come on now guys, really impressive, counting the PS1 and PS2 in the lineup. PS2 is still very vaiable here in Europe and it outperforms the Wii in graphics, in some cases that is.
And the PS2 will be a good seller in developing countries.
They could have announced so much more tough, like Japanese PSP games coming over seas, they have such a strong and good software lineup there, why not put in some time and effort and make these games woeldwide titles, or at least European ones ^_^
They could also have announced some PS1 games coming to the PSN, but not this time. And let me tell you guys in the US of A, you have many more games than we Europeans, we don`t get any RPG`s over here, none. I guess it has to do with licenses and such, but I would like to know more about that.
Nintendo was a bad showing, i felt let down, they own the industry and are working hard behind the scenes, they don`t rush it. We can expect inovative and new hardware to hit us in 2010 maybe, but until then Nintendo will keep rooling, nut they will lose market share, this in say 1-2 years time.
HD is the future, or it is already here, and when it goes really mainstream, Nintendo will be there as well.
That is my prediction and my impressions.
Love the new site, this will be the main site for me.
As a new Gamedeveloper student, based in Stockholm, I look forward to be a part of this community.
While anything I say on this matter is subject to scrutiny based on my wants and needs (the Resistance 2 playable demo gave me goosebumps), I was utterly bored by the Nintendo conference. There was nothing of interest, nothing to make me ever remember that this was E3. The only thing that was really awesome and worthy of past E3's was the GTA announcement, and they quickly shoved that off stage, without even a single trailer. That's huge, having GTA on the DS, but it seemed like Nintendo didn't even realize that. It's coming out in December, so I'm pretty sure the game is more than 70% done (guesstimate, of course). Why not something to tide us over with? And everything else was more of the same. Even Animal Crossing Wii looks barely different from Wild World. Personally, as a 25 year old gamer, Nintendo had not one thing that interested me, save for a briefly mentioned GTA. I used to adore Nintendo, but they've gone on the wildest tangent in the past few years, and I have consciously decided to stay away from them for the time being.
Msoft seemed to have the most enthralling reveals, like all the new Live functionality, but the biggest surprise and then biggest letdown was the FFXIII announcement. Of course, once in the Squeenix conference, we found out the 360 version won't be made until AFTER all other PS3 versions are released! Quite the anti-climactic revelation. I will have to say Msoft put on the best show of this year, only because they introduced so many things, which is what E3 is all about. I'm excited for the new Live intereface, PrimeTime, and some of the upcoming XBLA games.
Sony had some interesting announcements, mostly game-based, but nothing dropped my jaw like I expected. I can't really fault them for that (and they did introduce MAG, which looks really cool), as they have such a huge lineup of games. I would probably pump them all up, just like Sony did. And I loved how they used LittleBigPlanet for the marketing charts. That was sheer genius, as it kept me entertained while listening to bullshit number bloating. And I really like the whole movie download service they have planned. That's just a great decision, especially the on-the-go PSP connectivity. Just a great feature to have this generation.
All-in-all, I felt this E3 was a little lacking as a game consumer. The biggest announcement I saw was the GTA DS one, and that was barely announced. Again, unbelievable Nintendo. GTA is gold, mine the shit out of it.