It’s clear now that the big three hardware vendors have reached their stride and are running full steam. For the first time in years, I feel like Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all brought their A game to their press conferences.
Microsoft
Microsoft’s highlight for me was Natal, but not for what they showed on the stage. What got me excited about this new device started after seeing Milo. I instantly started to envision, not just Milo, but an entire GTA or Fallout world with unique characters that individually have memories of your conversations and respond to you based on their own personalities and impressions of you.
Commit a crime? Have Natal take your mug shot and post wanted posters around town. Stop all contacts with your virtual friends and maybe those signs will be a Missing Persons poster. I don’t care about flailing around like a monkey, trying to kick soccer balls, but it might be a great enhancement if I could still sit on my couch with my controller. The facial recognition, voice detection, and language parsing are what excited me more than the image analyzers.
For the second year in a row (if I recall correctly) Cliff B has had issues with last year’s controller having dead batteries. They were clearly the weakest part of the Microsoft talk with microphone issues and a very buggy showing of their new side scrolling action game. So buggy in fact that they cut the demo short and darted off stage. Tough luck guys…
Nintendo
Nintendo brought it big with a new Galaxy game and a new Metroid from none other than Team Ninja. It might be interesting to see an eastern flair on the westernized Prime series. Of course they disclosed their new excuse to print money, a new Wii Fit.
The low mark in the Nintendo press conference was their constant reiteration of their design philosophies. It’s nice to hear, but I can just look at their last 2 years of press conferences to get a re-cap on their philosophies. After cutting out the fluff, the number of games shown was pretty small.
Wii Vitality just spawned a spiral of jokes in my head. I imagined a commercial for their next-gen console Wii Geriatrics. A Wii-mote with a strap long enough to keep around your neck so that you can press [A] if you fall and can’t get up. A vitality sensor to monitor your failing hear rate, and of course the Wii-wii board which doubles as a bedpan. I suppose I could see some use in the vitality sensor for a horror game or some kind of beat games that use your heart rate, but it feels pretty gimmicky.
Sony
Sony really hit hard with games like Uncharted, and a real-time demo of God of War to close out the show. I’m glad to see that they’ve nearly abandoned the pre-rendered trailers in favor of game play demonstrations. Though God of War kind of looked like more of the same, I can’t say that this is a bad thing; it’s a game that knows its place. Hopefully future levels of the game don’t get out of hand and try to throw the kitchen sink into it.
Sadly, Sony has jumped on the motion tracking bandwagon as well. They had some nice little demos, but I think I’m just burned out on motion control press releases. I sorely hope that they find a way to hide that big ugly glowing golf ball at the tip; as it looked more like a sex toy than a game controller. They did mention that it was just an engineering prototype, but we’ll see how much the final controller varies from this one.
The highlight for me was Sony’s talk about the new PSP GO. The lowered development licensing fee is a huge thing, and I’m glad to see that happen. It may entice developers to start making games that are more suitable to the portable experience. I currently am a DS owner, but this news at least has me turning my head to see what might happen with the future of PSP.
Motion Control
This was clearly the theme from all of the hardware vendors. They all had their own twist on motion controls. My biggest issue with the previous set of motion control devices, however, is the lack of precision. I haven't seen a game or demo yet that didn't break down to just "make sure you aim at this 3/4 of the screen and you'll hit something".
The jitters and inaccuracy of currently available motion trackers have made them terribly difficult to use for more serious games, but I can certainly see the draw of them being used in casual games. Each of the motion trackers we saw this year all had their strengths and weaknesses.
My only hope is that the market remains broad enough for people who don't care about this gimmick. I'd hate to be forced into playing God of War by swinging a wand around, or gunning down Elites in the next Halo using motion gesters.
I'm almost certain Microsoft will have an Avatar Rave party much like PS3 Home where people can get together and dance. It's almost too temping not to have this since they have full body IK tracking.
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