E3: Nintendo focused on smiles as Sony fails to impress

by Stevie Smith - Jul 16 2008, 13:21

Evidently, the heavyweight impact of this year’s E3 Media & Business Summit in L.A. peaked with Monday’s energetic presentation by Microsoft, which saw the software titan delivering masses of exclusive game trailers, developer walkthroughs, a revamped user interface, and the shock announcement that previous PlayStation 3 exclusive Final Fantasy XIII is coming to the Xbox 360.

By comparison, yesterday’s eagerly anticipated offerings by industry rivals Nintendo and Sony were largely uninspiring by-the-numbers non-events that failed to coax much more than polite, if not disappointed, applause from the gathered media crowds that came with a distinct Convention Center reverb of “was that it?”

From Nintendo’s standpoint, the legendary gaming pioneer chose to use its address to focus on the continued momentum increase attributed to its Wii and DS platforms rather than blast attendees back into their seats with an onslaught of eye candy.

With an ongoing market ethos built around the concept of making consumers smile, Nintendo spoke only briefly about a smattering of new titles across its best-selling DS platform, including Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, Guitar Hero On Tour: Decades, Pokemon Rangers: Shadows of Almin and Spore: Creatures.

And hardcore Nintendo fans were left disappointed by the lack of a major gaming franchise announcement for the Wii (which was expected by many), with Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime only granting cross demographic stage time to Animal Crossing: City Folk, Call of Duty: World at War, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party and Shaun White Snowboarding, which will work in conjunction with the Wii Fit balance board.

Shifting quickly away from what some would call ‘more conventional’ gaming, Nintendo instead introduced its MotionPlus Wii Remote attachment, which will create enhanced movement sensitivity for Wii games and will be bundled along with the upcoming Wii Sports Resort.

Providing a rather physically awkward but technically convincing corporate demonstration of the MotionPlus via a selection of Wii Sports Resort activities (sword fighting, jet skiing, and Frisbee throwing), Nintendo then brought out legendary game creator Shigeru Miyamoto.

While the expectant crowd might have been hoping for the unveiling of a new Zelda or Mario title -- or even a new IP -- at this juncture, Miyamoto instead revealed Wii Music, a Mii-based objective-free experience that allows Wii owners to jam collectively across a selection of 50 instruments applied by a combination of the Wii Remote, Nunchuk and the Wii Balance Board.

Almost guaranteed to attract massive attention through its easily-accessible freestyle element, Wii Music should serve to compound the surging popularity of the Wii and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Wii Sports Resort in strengthening Nintendo’s market grip.

All in all, Nintendo delivered a safe presentation crammed with plenty of smiles but tarnished by a shortfall of genuine fanfare.

“I’m a little disappointed that Nintendo didn’t make good on their promises of earlier this year that they would have a big new title for hardcore gamers,” commented Brian Crecente editor of gaming blog Kotaku. “People were expecting a big new Nintendo Wii game, like another Mario game or Zelda, or a big new intellectual property for core gamers. And what they got was more casual games, and not a lot of them.”

According to Crecente, while Nintendo didn’t necessarily have to show a lot to maintain momentum and consumer spread, Sony did not come to E3 with that particular market cushion. “As for Sony, they did have to show a lot,” he outlined regarding the press address. “They met the minimal expectations but they didn’t blow it out of the water.”

Sony, while kicking off its presentation with an intense gameplay demonstration from upcoming FPS epic Resistance 2, quickly fell flat in terms of games impact -- despite the best efforts of Jack Tretton (President and CEO of SCEA) who, somewhat ironically, boasted that 2008 will be the PlayStation 3’s year when it comes to software.

While providing quick glimpses at upcoming superhero multiplayer title DC Universe Online, confirmation of God of War III, and passing mentions for The Agency and Infamous on the PlayStation 3, Tretton generally lapsed into tripping and stumbling his way through Sony’s self-affirming script, which centred on top-tier titles it has lauded at several such industry events but are still not at retail.

Specifically, Tretton utilised a cute demo from LittleBigPlanet to keep the crowd appeased during his ‘look how well Sony is doing’ business speech, while he also promised expectations would be met for Home -- although the offered content peek at Sony’s virtual user world was far from convincing.

Sony continued to hold off on announcing new PS3 titles or industry surprises by instead revealing it will launch a selection of value-priced Greatest Hits games for its flagship platform, including Resistance: Fall of Man, Motorstorm, WarHawk and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. The first and third-party games will sell for $29.99 USD.

Impressively persistent in its lack of PlayStation 3 oomph, Sony then placed the spotlight on its PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable platforms, announcing that 130 titles will appear on the former during 2008, while the latter will receive exclusive handheld title Resistance Retribution along with the likes of LocoRoco 2, Patapon 2 and Super Stardust Portable.

Perhaps the highlight of Sony’s E3 ambition lay with Zipper Interactive’s intriguing MAG (Massive Action Game), which is a huge online battle title that will apparently play host to 256 players split into 8-player squads where leaders are established through prior performance, and ongoing experience delivers personal character growth across sprawling faction campaigns. Most of today’s console-based online games offer a player ceiling of around 40 to 60 participants.

Beyond gaming, Sony attempted to thrust the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 3 forward as a heavyweight multimedia device combo by announcing a new PlayStation Network movie download service that will also enable users to transfer their movie content for portable playback on the PSP.

Sony's burgeoning service remains dwarfed by Microsoft's Xbox Live and Video Marketplace, which, Microsoft revealed on Monday, is expanding to include some 10,000 movie titles via a streaming deal with Netflix.

Ultimately, with only Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots sitting proud as a convincing software reason for prospective consumers to invest in the industry’s most expensive home console, Sony far from impressed at this year’s E3. Fans can only hope that it pulls something special out of the expectation bag at the upcoming GCDC in Leipzig and/or the E for All show later in the year.

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