A conversion from a cynic

I'll put my hands up humbly here and say that I never really used to pay all that much attention to E3 in the past. I've only seen three shows, including this year's. It seemed to me as lifeless, un-educating and really a one horse race in terms of the producers. Sony this and Sony that...

This year though, the drama was left, right and centre. My eyes have been opened. I never used to be able to see past all the sleaze and the rich grease that oozed from the company executives as they regurgitated the same answers they had been giving for months beforehand.

But this year, as I was sitting here at my laptop, watching the live feeds with alcoholic drink in hand, the RPGSite Chatroom up and a keen eye hoping to dear god that something exciting would happen...I'm happy to say that I was definitely not disappointed. So many revelations about all three next-gen consoles have come to light which will certainly be influencing me when the cash comes out.

Let's start with Nintendo. I used to think of this company the same way I'd think about a lame horse. Feel sorry for it, buy something out of sympathy for it and secretly ridicule it, yet I watched their conference anyway.

It opened in quite an odd style: typical of Nintendo -- with a nice orchestral piece opening the curtain--"wait a sec? Where's the Orchestra itself?"

The curtains have just opened and already we had seen a way in which the new Wii remote can be used. "Impressive. Ok. You've shown me this now. Let's get onto the real deal. "

And that's exactly what happened. Aside from the long-winded speeches which are necessity with PR events such as this, we who watched the conference were graced by the Wii remote in its many different forms -- from the basic nunchucka controller, to many others in practical demonstrations such as on upcoming Wii title: "Zelda: Twilight Princess."

Ah yes, the line-up of games was something which also impressed, with "Mario: Galaxy," a new Rayman title (much to my delight), a new Starfox title, "Super Smash Bros: Brawl" and a new and potentially groundbreaking game from Ubisoft: "Red Steel." See unlike Sony and Microsoft -- which appear to ride on a few, select major titles (in my eyes) -- Nintendo seem have many "big" titles, like the Zelda series, like the Mario series, like Donkey Kong, Wario, Super Smash Bros...etc.

Throughout this conference, the little part of my mind which thought that Nintendo was dead in the water was slowly being eaten away and replaced with a sudden love of the determination and innovation of the company.

A week or so beforehand, when it was confirmed that "Wii" would indeed be the actual name for the console, I said in my journal over at Clubskill.com that "Nintendo shot themselves in the foot" and "that no clever, faux-name cover-up story is going to change this." Following that, I later made a pact with a few friends of mine that if after E3, I actually thought it was any good then I would get "I got 1-upped by Mario" tattooed on my backside.

Shep, Chris, James, Luke...You best make my appointment at the body piercing shop.

I was back-flipping in my chair -- others seemed to be following suit:

// @Pyro64 makes a mess of himself.
(Minion) Nintendo's gonna stop a hole in Sony's head.
(@AP) oh man
(@AP) own
(@AP) own
(@AP) own
(!wofl) Wii looks chuffing amazing

Nowadays, a console is all about specs, how it looks and all that material rubbish, which is why Nintendo made so much sense when they say the Wii is about "How a game looks and, more importantly: how a game actually feels." It was at that point that any traces of doubt left in my mind had disappeared completely. I had become...A Nintendo fan-girl. Something I never thought I would ever have been.

Now, let's take a look at Microsoft's little gem: the XBox360 -- who also impressed me massively. There wasn't really all that much aside from flagship title "Halo 3". Sure the information given about upcoming Windows OS "Windows Vista" and how its compatibility to XBox Live will "unite gamers the world over" was nice; XBox Live itself is in the process of expanding to 8 new countries (South Africa, Chile, India, Brazil, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia), but this was completely overshadowed by Halo 3 -- perhaps the reason why it was left until the very end of their conference. I was surfing the net at light speed looking for a source to replace the live feed that a certain site had "kindly" cut off -- I found one and began to relay information back to the rest of the fellows who happened to be in #Uff9 at the time. I remember putting the following:

(@Nikki) Gates jokes about it. "Probably something we'll recognize."
(@Nikki) A windswept plain, arches broken and tattered over the landscape. The Master Chief appears.
(@Nikki) He turns. A huge ship - a fleet really - breaks over the horizon, with a giant hole ahead of him in what looks like a ten mile wide crater. Nope, it's some sort of building, arching up. A giant white light. "This is the way the world ends."
(@Nikki) 2007
(@Nikki) THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS
// @Nikki SCREAMS WITH GLEE

Cue floods of "OH GOD YES" along with the slightly more...unorthodox reactions -- but every single person in the chat at that time was over the moon. AP at this point was probably losing his mind trying to get the trailer onto his 360 while trying to do his radio cast. The rush of excitement could be felt everywhere...it was just immense. No other way of describing it. Microsoft had also worked their way into my good books (and probably my Cheque book as well).

This was a massive contrast to how I was feeling after the Sony conference. I was with some friends at the time having some fun while listening to it. See the problem with Sony is that they were far too confident -- appearing as the arrogant, self-centered people they actually are. Nothing remotely new or exciting (in fact, most of their technology appears to have been ripped from the other two companies!) no real exciting games aside from front-runners: "Metal Gear Solid 4" and Final Fantasy XII.

But then, that final nail in the coffin: the price tag.

I was shocked. Then disgusted. Then finally absolutely enraged.

I used to be quite loyal to Sony now I think of it. Never doubted them and never had a bad word against them. Lately, however they seem to have their heads somewhere they shouldn't actually be -- blocking their vision completely. Unlike the crowds who were there at the time -- I was completely silent. We all were. We couldn't believe that Sony had the audacity to do something so...Stupid. Sure I can sort of understand where this high price tag comes from: the specs, or rather more specifically: the Blu-Ray technology -- part of the consoles specs. Remember what Nintendo said about what gaming really is..? Sony missed it completely.

I asked how the chat-roomers reacted -- they also seemed to be massively displeased:

(Minion) oh
(Minion) you werent here
(Minion) we were rioting
(Minion) it was ungodly "irritated-ness"
(Minion) except for AP
(Minion) who was off laughing *

That was just it. The PS2 is now sat in my wardrobe gathering dust. I all out refuse to play it.

Aside from this though, E3 has brought us some very interesting bits of news (the likes have which have been posted everywhere already) as well as some interesting alliances -- the most notable being Nintendo and Microsoft "teaming up" in a manner of speaking. Microsoft actually backing up the Wii -- complimenting a rival is quite a big deal in the business world, and yet -- worse still: I agree with what is being said wholeheartedly. I'll be keeping an eye on how this progresses.

Here's hoping that next year's E3 will be just as exciting.

On a final note -- this article only represents the opinions of those mentioned in the article. Mainly mine. I am by no means generalizing for the whole of the gaming population.

* this was because he knew this was going to happen and this was the release of an "I told you so" moment.