Another E3 is in the bag and it’s time to judge how the “big three” did at this year’s show. Usually I just rate the companies’ respective press conferences immediately after the last one, but since I was working for the excellent people at Shacknews, I didn’t get a chance to. Using the pressers and what was shown on the show floor, I’m going assign letter grades to Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. I’d love for you to do the same thing in the comments section!
Microsoft: Kicking off the major pressers was Microsoft. The format was very strange. It kicked things off with a third-party game and close the show with a hardware refresh. Sure, it’s a pretty big deal that the Xbox 360 will have first dibs for all Call of Duty map packs and add-ons, but I was surprised that Halo and Gears didn’t get the money spots — they certainly looked fantastic and deserved the rub. Closing out the show with a new product is fine, but updated hardware doesn’t quite fit the bill. It’s cool that Microsoft went all Oprah and gave everyone free consoles, but I thought the company would have been better off plugging a first-party game in that slot. (On a side note, I found it hilarious that Epic’s Mark “Chocolate” Rein was standing up and clapping when he found out about his free console. The dude loses more money having a brain fart than I make in a year. Ha!)
On the non-gaming front, the ESPN announcement is potentially huge. Unfortunately, it’s not for everyone. Your ISP has to be on the ESPN 3 partner list, from what I understand. In something that I’ll have file as “sucks for me!”, my ISP, Time Warner, is not on the list.
Obviously Microsoft had to talk up Kinect at its press conference. Unfortunately, it didn’t play well at the presser. The good news is that the product was much more interesting on the show floor, particular with games like Child of Eden (expectedly awesome) and Dance Central (surprisingly fun).
Grade B-: If I was just going off the presser, it would have been a C+, but Microsoft had a lot of great stuff at its booth. While most of the Kinect stuff I saw wasn’t fun, the cool gamers for Kinect were better than the cool games for Move.
Nintendo: I thought Nintendo absolutely killed it at E3 2010. It had the best games and the most interesting new hardware. I was actually scared that Nintendo’s presser would have put me to sleep with a 20-minute presentation on the Wii Heart Rate Monitor Vitality Sensor. Instead I was bombarded with classic franchise after classic franchise returning to the Wii — Zelda, Donkey Kong Country, Metroid, and Kid Icarus dazzled millions of longtime Nintendo fans.
As a show, Nintendo had the best conference. Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoru Iwata, and Reggie Fils-Aime are the best “personality” executives from any of the big three. The presser also had the best pacing and flow.
I’m not sure how it played for everyone at home, but Nintendo was the talk of the show at E3 2010. It had the tech everyone wanted to see with the 3DS (at times the line took more than two hours) and it had the journalists’ darling game in Kirby Epic Yarn. Disney’s Epic Mickey also played well — yes, a third-party game for a Nintendo system was one of E3’s highlights.
Grade A: Nintendo owned the show. I want to hear some of you that are in the “Nintendo forgot about me” camp complain about the company’s E3 2010.
Sony: Sony’s performance was mixed. In terms of content, I thought it had a better presser than Microsoft, but it was about 30 minutes too long and cut into everyone’s E3 show floor time (which nobody was happy about). Sony did get the loudest pop of any of the E3 pressers with Kevin Butler’s performance. The company also had the biggest shock with Valve’s Gabe Newell on stage hocking Portal 2 for PS3 with Steamworks.
Sony had two pieces of new tech to push — 3D gaming and PlayStation Move. 3D gaming is interesting, but it’s probably not something that will take off this generation. It’s just too expensive for most people. Killzone 3 is okay in 3D, but I thought MLB: The Show was better. As for Move, the tech is cool, but Sony is having a hard time showing that it’s more than just Wii in HD.
In terms of games, there’s a lot for PS3 and PSP owners to get excited about. The two biggest were Gran Turismo 5 and Twisted Metal. I’m not really into the former, but the latter was way fun. The third-party games like Assassin’s Creed 3 (with the beta being PS3 exclusive), Medal of Honor (also with exclusive content), Dead Space 2, The 3rd Birthday, and Kingdom Hearts looked great.
Grade B-: Sony gets points for a wide variety of great games, solid tech, and Kevin Butler. It loses points for taking way too long, keeping everyone from the show, and failing to make the tech seem like fun. Steamworks on PS3 is huge and I’m not sure why people aren’t making a bigger deal out of this.
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Now it’s your turn! Take the poll and let me know which company had the best show in your opinion.
(Nintendo DS)
