E3 2010 and my broken promises

Hello world, I'm here to officially announce that I am to worst time manager on the planet. Please forgive me for not completing my video on time. I will create my E3 video this Thursday, and put off "the big project" to next week.

In other news, Nintendo destroyed E3 this year. Due to time constraints, I haven't watched the Microsoft and Sony conference yet, but I saw Nintendo, and my jaw literally dropped. I taped it (VHS for the win, whoo...) while I was at work, and noticed that when Nintendo was revealing new third-party games for the Nintendo 3DS, there were so many that G4 Tech TV couldn't even keep up with the official "this game has been announced". Everyone was stunned!

Apparently a friend of mine told me that Microsoft's conference was embarrassing and "facepalm worthy" to the degree of Sony's conference in 2006 and Nintendo's conference in 2008.

I checked out what happened at Sony's conference here and there on the internet, but nothing seemed to interest me other than the revival of Twisted Metal.

All Sony and Microsoft are doing is playing catch up with Nintendo. Meanwhile Nintendo is already gearing to the future with it's 3DS and its immense third party support. It's no wonder why Mr. Iwata (CEO of Nintendo) told his subordinates to "consider the fight against Sony and Microsoft as a battle already won, and consider Apple as the enemy of the future". I don't know the where exact source of this quote is, nor how creditable the source is, but it sounds very logical and true. But don't get me wrong, I'm not beating down on Sony and Microsoft.

Although Microsoft's Kinect (Formally Project Natal) is a wonderful piece of technology (Your body as a controller is enough of a technological feat), and is different than the Wii Remote, I guarantee that it will fail on the market. Nintendo created their new audience, and I highly doubt that audience would spend more money on a similar product, especially in today's economic climate. Additionally, Microsoft does not convince me that Kinect is an original piece of technology. It's like a high school student plagiarizing work for an assignment, and then changing a few words here and there. No matter how much they alter it, it's still motion controls.

Then there's Sony's Move. Copying the Wii Remote 99% except with a finer motion controls. I have a hunch that it'll outdo Kinect on the market, but its success will be no where enough to catch up to Nintendo.

Nintendo also copies ideas from its competition; they copied the slide analog for the Nintendo 3DS from Sony's PSP. But why am I not disappointed with Nintendo in that regard? It's because they created something in addition to that control stick; 3D visuals without glasses, and taking pictures in 3D. In other words, it is okay for a company to copy ideas from the competition, including the scenario where Microsoft and Sony copied Nintendo's motion controls. The only problem is that they did not do something original and innovative on top of that.

Regardless, the Electronic Software Association picked the worst time to commence E3. It's the FIFA World Cup! Do you honestly think that people would leave the Italy vs. Paragray game, or the Brazil vs. North Korea game to watch E3? I highly highly doubt that. On top of that, do you honestly think that the news would even think about posting E3 content as news? They're totally focused on the World Cup and the Toronto G8/G20 summit.

I remember last year all that the news reported on for E3 2009 was Kinect (Known as Project Natal back then) and The Beatles Rock Band for about 20 seconds. This year, I see in the "text headlines" of my local news network that "Michael Jackson dance game coming to Xbox 360, PS3 this Holiday". You may think "great, the news did cover a bit of E3 2010 after all!" I say no they didn't. I bet they posted that not for E3's sake, but for Michael Jackson's sake! A one year old news story of the death of a celebrity is still more newsworthy than a barrage of reveals of the latest in interactive technology. Take note of this, people. Although Nintendo is the clear victor of E3 2010, the game industry in its entirety has a long, long way to go before it is viewed as a significant industry by the general public.