Gone are the days of E3 and it’s huge gaming booths with booth babes and games for all to play. Instead now it is an industry-closed event that gamers only get to listen to via chats, videos and live blogs.
E3 has been on the decline for the last few years with less and less actually being said during the press conferences. This year was no different and from the murmuring on the Internets I think it is safe to say that no one was impressed with what was said by the big 3, Sony, MS or Nintendo, during their press conferences.
Isn’t E3 supposed to focus on video games and what is hot and upcoming? Instead we got one liners aimed at the competition, guys doing pushups and talk of someone’s broken wrist. The focus on games was minimalistic at best. It should have been an ongoing showcase of new titles and upcoming hardware, but we failed to see that.
Sony began strong by showing Resistance 2, which isn’t anything new since anyone with a pulse knew this was coming, and then floundered for the rest of the talk. MS had some interesting news about Gears of War 2, again nothing new, and then finished off with probably the most shocking news of E3 that they would be getting Final Fantasy XIII. Nintendo announced Animal Crossing and GTA for the DS that was their earth shattering news.
The only new news of hardware we received was a quick demo of the motion plus and a mention of the WiiSpeak from Nintendo. Sony and MS had no new hardware to showcase.
No one focused on games and instead showed games in shitty montages or in passing while discussing their numbers. Since when did E3 become a platform to brag about unit sales or give a dissertation on the history of your company for the last ten years?
If you judge E3 on its content you have to admit that it failed. There was a lack of new intellectual property and a plethora of babbling and uninteresting or old news. Why would a show that focused solely on games make such a deviation?
E3 has turned many gamers away and unless they begin to change up the format they will continue to fail with their video gaming fans.
18 Comments
Write a Comment»Isn’t Microsoft’s Lips using new hardware?
So Microsoft did show off new hardware.
I don’t know how far I’d go to consider a microphone peripheral for a singing game as new hardware.
I think this E3 was one of the worst ever. Honestly, what was announced that people didn’t see coming in one way or another? FFXIII and GTA DS. Big Whoop.
I don’t know if “more hardware” is necessarily a good thing. As far as I’m concerned, when I buy a console, I like to believe that I’ve gotten everything I’ll ever need to play any game on that console.
I don’t think you’ll ever see Nintendo NOT put out new hardware. That’s where they make their money. Nintendo’s business strategy is to sell you as much crap as possible. You get the machine but before you can play most games you have to go out and buy a nunchuck. Then they put out the stupid Mario Wheel, the Zapper, don’t forget the hordes of 3rd party companies who try to sell you plastic versions of every object on earth to snap onto the remotes.
I could care less when new hardware is mentioned. I’d be happier if they just put out more games.
@ nostars - 100% agreed
@Leathersoup, correction, “I’d be happier if they just put out more GOOD games.” I fixed it for you.
I’m not sure if you’ve seen the article yet, but there was one person saying E3 is lame now because it’s so late in the year. He was saying if it was earlier (in May like it used to be), there’d be more hype, and more games that you could show. By delaying it 2 months that’s 2 more months of releases you could have hyped at E3.
Anyhow, I think E3 needs to go public again before it gets rid of the dullness. Like the OP said, a couple of great news pieces, then the rest mediocre. There’s no incentive to do any better since it’s only press and each company will have their own events anyhow. Maybe if E3 had like 2 days private than another 2 open to the public there’d be a lot more incentive to deliver a conference comprised of solely earth shattering info.
E3 needs less M Night Shyamalan
and they’d make money off of tickets they sold to get into E3..
E3 2008 a Total Failure????
Loot-Ninja=Sony fanboy
Face it. E3 has changed. It’s no longer going to be a giant fan service event. Now it’s about the press. We’ll just have to rely on other events or single announcements for groundbreaking game news.
@Matt Banks:
And WiiSpeak and Motion Plus aren’t just additional peripherals? The Lips Mic falls into the same category as the Wii Hardware items.
@dropkick ninja - I never said they were hardware either. Those are peripherals, which is something totally different in my eyes
@joex - Sony fanboys? How does saying Sony sucked and Microsoft was good at E3 give any indication of being Sony fanboys? I can tell you certainly that no one at Loot Ninja is a fanboy of anything.
Honestly, whenever people bring up that fanboy argument like you did, it’s usually because they are fanboys of whatever was disagreed with.
@joex - what does calling E3 a failure have to do with being a fanboy? I just dont see the logic here.
I am not a fnaboy of any particular system as i currently own them all. When I was younger I was a hardcore NES fan with the original NES and SNES and I will be the first one to blast the Wii.
@joex Sony’s showing at E3 was as craptacular as Microsoft’s, and Nintendo was basically a trainwreck.
@joex
Read before you type…its completely the opposite…LN has been commenting how Sony sucked…where have you been boy?
Nintendo isn’t at the train-wreck stage yet but they have been de-railed and need some improvment to their train before the wreck does happen which will be at the end of the Wii’s life-cycle. Right now the games are mostly to ‘please Junior’
Mario Kart WII isn’t a kart at all so that name should be changed to……MarioCycle WII then it may not have gotten as bad of criticism.
Zelda TP isn’t an original game for the WII. It was designed on the gamecube an ported over with almost everything back-wards so you can’t count that as the big Zelda.
To make a long story short it’s OOT 2.0.
Can’t say for the rest though but it sounds like a disaster from the non biased people.