The Gamers’ Temple Oracle

About the only thing noticeably different about the E3 press conferences for the three console manuafactures this year was that the audiences were about a third of the size as those of prior years. Otherwise it would be pretty hard to differentiate them from conferences past…
Off-site locations? Check.
Charts and graphs demonstrating market leadership? Check.
Loud music? Check.
Giant video screens? Check.
Seizure-inducing game footage video montages? Check.
Welcome to the new E3, same as the old E3.

Microsoft:
Microsoft’s conference focused almost exclusively on upcoming game titles. Of course the 800 pound gorilla in the Xbox 360’s upcoming game lineup is Halo 3, but surprisingly Microsoft didn’t provide much of a look at its gameplay. The company also announced a new gameshow buzzer controller consisting of a paddle with a giant button on one end and a row of smaller buttons along the handle. The first game to make use of the controller will be Scene-It which is based on the DVD party game series of the same name. Microsoft also unveiled a new Halo edition Xbox 360 with comes in a military-inspired olive drab color with a matching controller. This announcement is sure to cause some dismay to gamers who recently purchased an Xbox 360 Elite. Lastly, Microsoft announced a deal with Disney to bring their catalog of movie titles to the 360 in the form of HD movie downloads from Xbox Live.

Nintendo:
Nintendo’s conference was once again part press conference, part pep rally. The company seemed to feel the need to emphasize once again that it is targeting non-traditional gamers with the Wii and DS . After showing a number of videos demonstrating how much casual and first-time gamers love the Wii, Nintendo announced a new controller designed for the first-person shooter crowd. The Wii Blaster is more of a controller holder than a new controller, and it uses the Wii remote as the gun barrel and the nunchuck as the gun’s stock. The Blaster will help you feel like you’re holding an actual gun while playing first-person shooters and light gun games on the Wii rather than killing people with a remote control. Nintendo also introduced a new weight and balance sensitive controller for the Wii that looks like a bathroom scale. The controller is designed to be used with a fitness program that will help people get into shape by performing a variety of exercises mixed in with a few mini games. The controller has some obvious potential for use in skateboard and snowboard games in the future.

Sony:
By the time their conference began the news of the PS3 price cut and the new 80GB model was already a couple of days old, but Sony had a few more announcements in store for the press at their conference. Sony announced a new PSP model for the fall which will slim down the portable, improve battery life and load times, and come with a video-out jack so that you can use it to play UMD movies on a TV. The new model will also come in a new silver color in addition to the traditional black, and there will be a special Star Wars edition that comes in white with Darth Vader on the back. The rest of Sony’s conference focused on the new games in the pipeline that will be available for sale by the end of this year. Sony also demonstrated some of the capabilites of Home, including the ability to launch multiplayer games directly from within Home and the ability to import pictures taken with a cell phone into your personal space on the service.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 13th, 2007 at 9:29 am and is filed under E3 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.