As per usual, I missed most of the Nintendo briefing due to the day job. The little I saw, though, didn’t interest me all that much – which shouldn’t come as a surprise, as I am not, nor have I ever been, a Nintendo fanboy. I suppose I was hoping to see some new, exciting stuff for the 3DS, but from my vantage point Nintendo isn’t all that worried about the 3DS – it’s the WiiU that needs all the TLC it can get, and that’s what was mostly talked about this morning. But, again, since I don’t particularly care about first-party Nintendo titles, and since I can realistically only afford one of the new consoles, I would’ve needed something tremendous and undeniably exciting in order to turn my head away from Sony.
Speaking of which.
The question for every E3, for the last however many years, has always ultimately boiled down to this: “Who won?” And for the most part, every console’s fans could make reasonable sounding arguments that their console won that particular year, and flame wars and impolite discourse would ensue, as per usual. So it strikes me as highly unusual to see a clear, unambiguous, unanimously decided winner crowned even before E3 officially starts.
What Sony managed to pull off last night was unprecedented. They fired their shots with grace, tact and humility – and they did not miss. And as much as I get confused by cheering audiences during what are supposed to be press-only events, the excitement in the room seemed genuine and sincere. It’s not just that Sony delivered good news; it’s that they delivered the right news, at the right time, and completely owned the moment. Twitter was exploding once those announcements started rolling out. We all gasped as the former champion-turned-underdog delivered one knock-out punch after another. And then, when they announced the $399 price, pretty much everybody wrote “Game Over” in their notebooks.
I did, in fact, go to sleep last night without pre-ordering a PS4, though I must admit I was dangerously close to doing so. (I even got as far as putting it in my Amazon cart and trying to figure out where I wanted it shipped.) There’s still a lot (well, all) of E3 left, and I’d like to think there are some surprises left as far as console-exclusives are concerned. So even if Sony has “won”, I’ve still not seen any games that I need to put on my must-play list.
And, again – even if Sony has won, I still can’t see myself committing to a purchase until I see how the multi-console development shakes out for third-party developers. The biggest reason why Microsoft won this last generation, in my opinion, is because, by and large, 360 versions of multi-platform games looked and played better than their PS3 counterparts. This is why Sony’s announcement of their new partnership with Bethesda took me utterly by surprise – PS3 owners got shafted with a piss-poor port of Skyrim, and I seem to recall Fallout 3 being somewhat inferior as well, and wasn’t there a lengthy delay between the 360 version of Oblivion and the PS3? I probably spent over 250 hours in those 3 games alone on the 360. So for the PS4 to be getting a console version of the Elder Scrolls MMO – as well as a console exclusive beta – well, that’s huge. That’s Sony saying to Bethesda that they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that PS4 owners get the experience they’re pay for and expect to receive.
Now, on the other hand, it will be very interesting indeed to see how Microsoft answers, if at all. Their messaging ever since the console reveal has been inconsistent, wishy-washy, and wildly tone-deaf to the consumer; the only thing that has been clear is that they are aiming to please publishers. Nobody wants Kinect; even people who have Kinect (like me) don’t want it or use it. The Xbox One will continue to be the primary home for multiplayer FPS games, and, so, good for those people. They are a large audience, they will eat that shit up. But there’s so much more that games are capable of, and Sony seemed hell-bent on letting us know that they are intent on courting developers of all sizes in an effort to make their library as diverse as possible.
Very much looking forward to the rest of the show – my RSS feed is exploding and I must get caught up!
Shouts From The Couch 