written on Tuesday, June 2, 2009
I heard in the PA chat that the Nintendo press conference was a horrible failure. But they announced New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2, and a 2D / 3D Metroid sequel from Team Ninja (formerly the Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden developers). Sure, only the first one will actually be out this year... :P
Sony's press conference was also called a horrible failure, but I'm not so sure. They announced that Final Fantasy 14 (13 isn't even out yet) will be an MMO exclusive to the PS3. Also Rockstar North will be developing some game called Agent exclusively for the PS3. Plus there's the Team Ico game, God of War 3, and Uncharted 2. Only Uncharted 2 will be out this year, but it seems like Sony finally realized that exclusive games matter. I wonder how much they spent.
Everyone has motion controls / upgrades now. Nintendo has Motion Plus coming out this summer. Microsoft and Sony have both announced their competing solutions. Microsoft has stereo cameras with voice recognition so you don't need a controller. Sony has a prototype wand controller that's basically a Wiimote. Both look like they've got a ways to go before becoming commercial products. Plus no price cut was announced for the PS3, so even if their solution was perfect and shipped yesterday, who would care?
Moreover, I have no faith that developers will use these devices well. They've had years to develop anything interesting using the Wiimote and largely failed. I think they're too set in their ways.
That's it for the press conferences. Now it's an avalanche of individual press outlets getting their hands on every game at the show in no particular order. I'll mostly just wait for the podcasts to start listening to what people thought really stood out. By and large, I was pretty amazed at how little everyone had to show that was actually coming out this year. 2010 sounds far more interesting than 2009.
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