E3 2009: Microsoft’s Conference (and Nintendo’s innovations)
I just finished watching the Microsoft press conference for E3 2009 and I have to say that I’m pretty pleased with their offering. They had some really solid looking games coming soon. Social networking ties. Video upgrades. A whole new way to interact with your Xbox360. I’m happy Microsoft is bringing all this to my Xbox 360, but what I thought after I was all done is about how much I respect and will ALWAYS own a Nintendo console. Let me explain real quick..
I can quote the famous South Park episode in which everything ever done is responded to with a simple “Simpsons Did It!”. It just amazes me that every large innovation in video gaming was initiated by Nintendo. I think about the first gamepad most of us played with with the NES and think about where Sega went with it shortly after wards. They made it a little curvier and added an extra button. The basic idea was the same just slightly modified. Then came the N64 which brought a multitude of new innovations to gaming that were soon adopted. That analog stick you see on every major console in production since the N64. Then there was the Rumble Pack that was released for the N64. How many of us gamers have a hard time playing a game without that feedback that was introduced into every console as a standard feature after that? 3D games were also a very big step forward coming into the N64 and now you’ll be hard pressed to find games that aren’t. Now, this is a lot of Nintendo love for 1 paragraph. I’ll admit that I can’t think of much in the world of innovation when it comes to the GameCube, but I also can’t think of anything done by Microsoft or Sony that pretty pushed the envelope either. The latest innovation is getting us lazy gamers up off the couch to actually move around a little bit while we play games. Sony soon tried to follow suit with a really awful implementation in the SixAxis controller and now Microsoft is following suit by offering their own ‘get up off the couch’ solution. One that I’m certain they would not be showing off right now if the Wii wasn’t doing as well as it is. I’m not hating on anyone here. It’s the nature of the beast. You invent something amazing that everyone wants and you’ll find all your competitors trying to one up you. The main point I’m trying to make, is that Nintendo always seems to be ahead of the curve on a very consistent basis. For this reason, I don’t care what their next console is, I will own one. Back to Microsoft..
Sorry about that. Microsoft’s game lineup looks really good! Left 4 Dead 2. The Beatles: Rock Band. Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach. Forza 3. Alan Wake. Modern Warfare 2. They got game. That’s all the press conference said to me. And this was all the first party partner stuff. That doesn’t include the great games I saw coming from EA and UbiSoft. I’m a huge Halo 3 fan so those games coming from Bungie are quite exciting for me. I’ll be picking up ODST as soon as it ‘drops’ and am even more pleased that I’ll be able to participate in the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta when that gets released in 2010. Most of the games mentioned looked like just ‘better’ versions of that type of game. Alan Wake was my biggest surprise. I can’t say I ever heard of this game before but wow did it look fantastic. Besides the game looking gorgeous, the story and immersion of the game looked like the best parts. I can see myself getting quite lost in it and really can’t wait for it to hit the store shelves now.
The non-game stuff was pretty simple but still very welcome. Microsoft is relaunching their video service as ‘Zune Video’. I guess they want to push the brand name of their struggling media player as much as they can. I’m almost turned off to the whole service because of the Zune in it’s name, but I’ll over look it, I’m sure. All HD videos are getting upgraded to 1080p with 5.1 surround sound. They’re updating the Netflix application to let you find things you want to watch and add them to your queue or play them directly from your Xbox without needing a computer. Last.fm is going to be providing online music streaming. Not sure if they’re going to incorporate Xbox 360’s music player as well and let users scrobble what they play on their Xbox to Last.fm. Facebook and Twitter close out this round. Both being completely designed for the TV and both looking pretty damned cool. I’m, again, not sure about the level of interaction OUT of the Xbox these services will have. I’d rather just have the ability to let my Xbox tweet or send a message to my Facebook stream every time I get a new achievement or maybe every time I start up a game. These things weren’t mentioned by the somewhat nervous Felicia Day.
The big news that took up the largest chunk of time was, obviously, the Project Natal news. Soft A’s. Not Nay-Tal. This is the feature that sparked my rant about Nintendo always being the innovator and everyone else taking it for their systems. To be honest, the system Microsoft showed off looks REALLY cool. If they can nail down the ‘full body motion capture’ thing, they’ve got something great. The original view the avatar looked a little glitchy when he was moving his legs and arms but the other demos looked pretty great. This feature will all depend on what kind of great software comes out of it and I’m pretty eager to see. The jab at Nintendo was laughable. “You’re not just sitting on the couch waving your arms in some predetermined motions”. That’s a paraphrase because I don’t have the exact quote on me but I know the quote was pretty close to that. I chuckled because I still believe that Microsoft wouldn’t be releasing Project Natal without the success of the Nintendo Wii. That said, I can see Project Natal being a game changer if they can distribute it well and get the right developers on board. Good luck, Microsoft!
