E3 09 Conference Report Card
Posted June 5, 2009
Microsoft:
Microsoft kicked off the E3 festivities at the Galen Center in down town L.A. on the campus of USC. The line stretched around the block and the inside of the Galen Center was lit up with a barrage of swirling green lights. Multiple stages were setup and the production value was easily the highest of all the conferences.
We found Microsoft easily did the best job of speaking to their target audience and utilizing star power to promote their lineup of titles. The conference kicked off with a smattering of trailers for third party games, namely Beatles Rock Band. When Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr briefly took the stage, the crowd went nuts. While some of their dialogue was corny, genuine laughter was heard when Paul said that was excited to be turned into an android. (while pointing to the game)
Tony Hawk arrived shortly after to plug his new game with the skateboard controller, although we wondered how many people are going to crash into their TVs using it. After the new Splinter Cell trailer gave us goose bumps, Microsoft launched into exclusives like Forza 3 and Halo 3 ODST. Halo Reach was a tease, but at least we got some concrete Alan Wake footage finally. And a somewhat vague release date.
Live improvements came out next, rattled off slowly by Dan Mattrick (senior VP). 1080p instant streaming and the Last.fm partnership were exciting, but the big news was utilizing Facebook Connect to bring your Facebook friends into your Xbox Live friends list. Demoed by the very cute Felicia Day (Dr. Horrible, The Guild), she showed off how Xbox Live users will be able to access Facebook status updates and photos on their Xbox 360. Felicia also showed us the Twitter interface that’s coming before the end of the year as well. Xbox Live users will be able to connect to their Twitter friends as well.
The big Metal Gear Solid announcement came quickly and we were beginning to think that was the end of the event. Of course, the showstopper was Project Natal; a 3-D motion tracking system that utilizes facial / voice recognition to control movements on the Xbox 360. The mini-games were massively cheesy and the demo of a virtual boy named Milo was extremely creepy, but the possibilities are pretty mindboggling to grab back some of the mainstream consumers that have flocked to the Wii as of late. It also helps to have Steven Spielberg to plug the technology.
Overall, the conference was extremely entertaining and the timing of the show was pretty much perfect. They stayed away from all the boring stats and figures that typically bog down these conferences, a definite plus.
Rating: A-
Nintendo:
Nintendo’s conference was held at the Nokia Center across from the Staples Center in downtown L.A. It started a bit early for the majority of the attendees (9 a.m.), but the copious amount of caffeine in the lobby certainly helped perk us up. Cammie Dunaway rolled out with a repeat of her general lack of personality and started rattling off some games that seemed like a rehash of the previous year’s show.
Super Mario Bros was a fun announcement, especially the 4 player competitive co-op; if only the demonstration on stage didn’t put us to sleep. Wii Fit Plus was pretty much a given and Wii Sports Resort was something of a bore-fest as well. Even Reggie shooting baskets and making horrible jokes couldn’t pep up the show.
The DS announcements started promising (Golden Sun!), but Women’s Murder Club made the hardcore gamers in the crowd burst into laughter. In fact, the following tween-targeted games were hopelessly cringe worthy. Thankfully, the DS news was saved with the Facebook photo upload tool announcement. Of course, the announcement of the Wii Vitality Sensor left us scratching our heads for a solid five minutes. We heard snickers throughout the audience.
All the mocking stopped when the Super Mario Galaxy 2 trailer rolled out as well as the partnership with Team Ninja on a new Metroid title. DOA meets the world of Samus! We only wish that they had a more concrete release date.
Nintendo’s biggest problem was a general lack of enthusiasm on stage and their focus on all the folks that weren’t attending / watching their press conference. Nintendo really felt like they were phoning it in most of the morning. If they had a greater focus on their core audience and stronger speakers, the early press event would have been more successful.
Rating: C+
Sony:
Sony was more on par with the production value of Microsoft’s conference, but they did make the mistake of getting bogged down in the numbers of sales figures. It was odd that they tried to push their success on the PS2 to promote their lackluster success on the PSP and PS3. But they did that last year as well, so not much of a shocker.
The PSP Go was somewhat of a downer as well, since details already leaked several days before. You could tell that the team was pissed about the leak and the crowd was pissed about the price announcement. Sony got bogged down in the details of the software of the PSP Go as well. Odd, since that the shift in design was very impressive and could have used more explanation.
Sony killed both Microsoft and Nintendo in the games department though. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was fantastic as well as the surprise Final Fantasy 14 announcement. The Uncharted 2 demo was absolutely gorgeous and the crowd seriously responded to the quality of the video. God of War 3 was also a star at the conference. Even the Gran Turismo announcements were fairly entertaining and car games typically bore me to tears.
We found the motion controls to be a mixed bag. The demo for the motion controls seemed thrown together at the last minute rather than practiced beforehand. The tech was on the mark, but the execution was lackluster. Project Natal was more impressive, perhaps only because their presentation was pretty much flawless.
Sony did a great job of speaking to their core audience, but was hampered by the flow of the presentation and dependence on numbers / stats. The impact of the announcements were diminished by the general lack of surprises, mainly due to the information leaks about the new hardware and software. Still, the production value was impressive and the games were fantastic.
Rating: B
Honorary Mentions:
Ubisoft: You gave us the hilarious Joel McCale and a 30 minute lecture from James Cameron about the upcoming Avatar movie & game. You also put us into a sleeping coma because your presentation lasted over 2 hours.
Rating: C
Electronic Arts: You hit us with fantastic trailers and demos of Brutal Legend, The Saboteur, Mass Effect 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Unfortunately, your speakers were telepromtastic and you showed more cheesy, idiotic promo marketing videos than all the other conferences combined.
Rating: C-
Microsoft kicked off the E3 festivities at the Galen Center in down town L.A. on the campus of USC. The line stretched around the block and the inside of the Galen Center was lit up with a barrage of swirling green lights. Multiple stages were setup and the production value was easily the highest of all the conferences.
We found Microsoft easily did the best job of speaking to their target audience and utilizing star power to promote their lineup of titles. The conference kicked off with a smattering of trailers for third party games, namely Beatles Rock Band. When Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr briefly took the stage, the crowd went nuts. While some of their dialogue was corny, genuine laughter was heard when Paul said that was excited to be turned into an android. (while pointing to the game)
Tony Hawk arrived shortly after to plug his new game with the skateboard controller, although we wondered how many people are going to crash into their TVs using it. After the new Splinter Cell trailer gave us goose bumps, Microsoft launched into exclusives like Forza 3 and Halo 3 ODST. Halo Reach was a tease, but at least we got some concrete Alan Wake footage finally. And a somewhat vague release date.
Live improvements came out next, rattled off slowly by Dan Mattrick (senior VP). 1080p instant streaming and the Last.fm partnership were exciting, but the big news was utilizing Facebook Connect to bring your Facebook friends into your Xbox Live friends list. Demoed by the very cute Felicia Day (Dr. Horrible, The Guild), she showed off how Xbox Live users will be able to access Facebook status updates and photos on their Xbox 360. Felicia also showed us the Twitter interface that’s coming before the end of the year as well. Xbox Live users will be able to connect to their Twitter friends as well.
The big Metal Gear Solid announcement came quickly and we were beginning to think that was the end of the event. Of course, the showstopper was Project Natal; a 3-D motion tracking system that utilizes facial / voice recognition to control movements on the Xbox 360. The mini-games were massively cheesy and the demo of a virtual boy named Milo was extremely creepy, but the possibilities are pretty mindboggling to grab back some of the mainstream consumers that have flocked to the Wii as of late. It also helps to have Steven Spielberg to plug the technology.
Overall, the conference was extremely entertaining and the timing of the show was pretty much perfect. They stayed away from all the boring stats and figures that typically bog down these conferences, a definite plus.
Rating: A-
Nintendo:
Nintendo’s conference was held at the Nokia Center across from the Staples Center in downtown L.A. It started a bit early for the majority of the attendees (9 a.m.), but the copious amount of caffeine in the lobby certainly helped perk us up. Cammie Dunaway rolled out with a repeat of her general lack of personality and started rattling off some games that seemed like a rehash of the previous year’s show.
Super Mario Bros was a fun announcement, especially the 4 player competitive co-op; if only the demonstration on stage didn’t put us to sleep. Wii Fit Plus was pretty much a given and Wii Sports Resort was something of a bore-fest as well. Even Reggie shooting baskets and making horrible jokes couldn’t pep up the show.
The DS announcements started promising (Golden Sun!), but Women’s Murder Club made the hardcore gamers in the crowd burst into laughter. In fact, the following tween-targeted games were hopelessly cringe worthy. Thankfully, the DS news was saved with the Facebook photo upload tool announcement. Of course, the announcement of the Wii Vitality Sensor left us scratching our heads for a solid five minutes. We heard snickers throughout the audience.
All the mocking stopped when the Super Mario Galaxy 2 trailer rolled out as well as the partnership with Team Ninja on a new Metroid title. DOA meets the world of Samus! We only wish that they had a more concrete release date.
Nintendo’s biggest problem was a general lack of enthusiasm on stage and their focus on all the folks that weren’t attending / watching their press conference. Nintendo really felt like they were phoning it in most of the morning. If they had a greater focus on their core audience and stronger speakers, the early press event would have been more successful.
Rating: C+
Sony:
Sony was more on par with the production value of Microsoft’s conference, but they did make the mistake of getting bogged down in the numbers of sales figures. It was odd that they tried to push their success on the PS2 to promote their lackluster success on the PSP and PS3. But they did that last year as well, so not much of a shocker.
The PSP Go was somewhat of a downer as well, since details already leaked several days before. You could tell that the team was pissed about the leak and the crowd was pissed about the price announcement. Sony got bogged down in the details of the software of the PSP Go as well. Odd, since that the shift in design was very impressive and could have used more explanation.
Sony killed both Microsoft and Nintendo in the games department though. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was fantastic as well as the surprise Final Fantasy 14 announcement. The Uncharted 2 demo was absolutely gorgeous and the crowd seriously responded to the quality of the video. God of War 3 was also a star at the conference. Even the Gran Turismo announcements were fairly entertaining and car games typically bore me to tears.
We found the motion controls to be a mixed bag. The demo for the motion controls seemed thrown together at the last minute rather than practiced beforehand. The tech was on the mark, but the execution was lackluster. Project Natal was more impressive, perhaps only because their presentation was pretty much flawless.
Sony did a great job of speaking to their core audience, but was hampered by the flow of the presentation and dependence on numbers / stats. The impact of the announcements were diminished by the general lack of surprises, mainly due to the information leaks about the new hardware and software. Still, the production value was impressive and the games were fantastic.
Rating: B
Honorary Mentions:
Ubisoft: You gave us the hilarious Joel McCale and a 30 minute lecture from James Cameron about the upcoming Avatar movie & game. You also put us into a sleeping coma because your presentation lasted over 2 hours.
Rating: C
Electronic Arts: You hit us with fantastic trailers and demos of Brutal Legend, The Saboteur, Mass Effect 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Unfortunately, your speakers were telepromtastic and you showed more cheesy, idiotic promo marketing videos than all the other conferences combined.
Rating: C-