One Week Later: An E3 2011 Retrospect

This time last week, Sony was wrapping up their press conference after Microsoft’s earlier showing and the internet buzzed over the rumor’s surrounding Nintendo’s newest console. Now that the dust has settled, and the hype machines have whined down, this is the time when I like to give my opinion of the show as a whole.

Sony:

As a whole, Sony’s press conference was a smart one. Starting off addressing the big pink elephant in the room by means of public apology was the only fair way to start their conference. It was a nice way to show that they understood just how badly they messed up and wanted to move towards the future, and it looks bright.

My personal favorite being Uncharted 3, which looks and plays better than I could have imagined. After revisiting the second game last week, I was in complete bewilderment as I watched the quality of those cut scenes and in game footage.

I already have a BETA Code from Infamous 2 just waiting to be used, so I’m very excited to jump into that!

Not to mention the Vita, which looks pretty sleek and while the $299 AT&T service version is a bit of an eye-roll, a $250 price point for the Wifi version totally hits that sweet spot price point. It seems Sony learned a hard lesson about out-pricing themselves, but it’s nice to see that they’re listening.

Microsoft:

I almost felt sorry for Microsoft who (whether it be an act of stupidity or publicity) leaked their major press conference announcements on their website hours before. And really, none of the headlines made me excited, except for possibility Halo 4 (which I hope is only a working title).

I don’t know what is it about Microsoft’s last few press conferences that are so “meh” inducing. It could be the fact that I couldn’t care less about Kinect, or the fact that War games are as overdone as Cat Memes on Tumblr. It seems they’re still trying to sell the hardcore on the Kinect, but really voice recognition in Mass Effect isn’t doing it for me. It’s cool on a show-floor, but I still like my controllers.

Nintendo:

The newest titles for Nintendo’s 3DS were a solid opening for the conference. The announcement of Luigi’s Mansion 2 could be the game that makes me go out and actually buy the system instead of borrowing the office’s system whenever needed. Not to mention Super Mario 3DS seems promising.

Again, Nintendo runs into the issue of porting old franchises such as Mario Kart and Smash Bros. to the system, but at this point players are so desperate for anything on the system, they’ll take what they can get.

Not let’s get to the Wii U – or is it WiiU? Regardless of its goofy, extensional crisis inducing name, it seems that the system was released before it was ready.

Recently, Nintendo stock has fallen to the lowest point in 5 years after the Wii U reveal and the launch of the new system left everyone scratching their heads. The masses were not entirely sure if the Wii U was a new console, or just a controller. Forcing Nintendo to publicly explain that the Wii U is indeed an entire console…awkward.

The game lineup revealed was mostly ports of games that will appear on PS3 and 360 and worst, Satoru Iwata stated in an interview with the London Evening Standard that the new console “is not going to be cheap.” Which was a great selling point to the original Wii, the inexpensive point of entry.

While the controller appears gimmicky, and the technology of transferring my game from my TV to a handheld seems interesting, I’m not a gamer who’s bought by shiny things. I need games, which I wasn’t impressed by.

Also, with reports coming in that Wii U’s controller can only be used within a certain distance of the console, it makes me wonder where I would even use this tech. If I wanted to play a game on the go, it’s when I would be going somewhere not sitting in the same room.

Most families have more than one TV and the days of having to stop playing games to watch TV are numbered. Especially now that many people watch shows on their computer via services such as Hulu or even Netflix.

Like most early announcements, gamers are going to have to be on standby with a “Wait and see” mentality, but I can’t help but be a little worried about Nintendo’s future. Could it be that they’ve lost their Midas Touch?