E3 2005 - A Look Back 63
Last week was so interesting I caught the plague and died for two days. Now that I've gotten a rez and E3 has wrapped up, a look back is in order. Ferrago takes a look at E3 no-shows, like STALKER, while GamesIndustry.biz has a look at statistics. The big three PR conferences were some of the highlights of the Expo, and Gamespot tells us who 'won'. The best way to get a feel for what happened last week, though, is to get it firsthand. The Casual Gamer Experiment is over, with his impressions now available. Personal accounts are available at Press the Buttons, GamersInfo.net, CliffyB.com, Grimwell.com, John Davison's Blog, and Jeremy Parish's Blog. Was there any firsthand E3 coverage that you particularly liked this year? What did you think of G4's live broadcasting, if you caught it? Update: 05/23 18:56 GMT by Z : Obligitory PA link. From the post: "I don't believe there is any such thing as a 'Playstation 3' yet, and I don't believe in the Killzone video. What I do believe is that Sony harnessed the media and then rode it from place to place, one hand on the bridle while the other waved madly in the air."
Rez? (Score:1)
Now you got my hope up for nothing, I thought that somehow I had missed out on the revelation of a new Rez game.
Next generation consoles. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it was most disappointing that Nintendo couldn't elaborate on the capabilities of their latest console or give us an insight into what they truly believe will compete with the PSP -- after all, rumors suggest that the DS is merely a 'third pillar'. It was also pretty dreadful that Sony chose to show concept videos and pre-rendered trailers instead of actual game footage rendered in real time, as Microsoft did -- even if it was on Alpha hardware (read: PowerMac G5s).
It definitely showed for one thing, that gaming is taking a nice twist down the High Definition path -- and that online services and expectations are much, much higher than four years ago. The only thing I fear, is that the price will be much higher too...
Re:Next generation consoles. (Score:2)
Even after all the eye-candy and hype explosion, I'm still excited to see what the Re
Re:Next generation consoles. (Score:2)
I agree, but you know we'll have nothing reliable until...well, until the PS3 actually launches, honestly.
Re:Next generation consoles. (Score:2)
Re:Next generation consoles. (Score:1, Interesting)
For gamecube games you'll likely have to buy the disk rather than download - they're pretty big to get over a typical broadb
Re:Next generation consoles. (Score:1)
Re:Next generation consoles. (Score:2)
Re:Next generation consoles. (Score:1)
G4 stuff (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:G4 stuff (Score:2)
I want to see game/hardware reviews and news as reported by real gamers, not models picked to host a TV show. Another good idea would be interviews with industry leaders and not celebrities, atheletes, and booth babes.
Re:G4 stuff (Score:2, Funny)
Never thought I'd get in so easily!
Re:G4 stuff (Score:1)
Re:G4 stuff (Score:3, Interesting)
The interviews they got with some people were nice, but still not as good as I would hope.
Oh well, at least we have pl
Sony's Presentation (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sony's Presentation (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sony's Presentation (Score:1)
But Sony's presentation was all about numbers, the new cell technology, and tech demos actually SHOWING what their new tech can do.
Re:Sony's Presentation (Score:2, Troll)
I don't know if I'm just misreading you or what, but I think you've got it backwards....
It's fairly impressive that the 360 stuff we've seen is running on alpha hardware that's got 2/3s the processing power and probably less than half the GPU in realtime compared to pre-re
Re:Sony's Presentation (Score:3, Interesting)
Check out the Nintendo press conference. At the beginning, when Reggie comes out, he talks about numbers a little, yes. But at the same time, he makes fun of the other number-heavy presentations a little, when they put up a huge slide that just has a big "2" on it. I think their presentations show where they want to go with their ideas, and that's more meaningful
Re:Sony's Presentation (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree that numbers aren't the important thing here; it's the games. I agree that Nintendo has more heart than Sony. I'm just saying that it gets me excited when I see a demo of tens of thousands of rendered leaves in a huge vortex. It also gets me excited when the man running the demo tells me that there is enough processing power to give each leaf it's own
Re:Sony's Presentation (Score:1)
Microsoft play the we're better hardware game when they lost to Sony's PS2. XBox did not die, managed to more or less squeeze GB out though.
Now, Sony's playing the we're better hardware game. Result unknown.
I suspect the winner will need to have:
1. More choice of games/developer support
2. Early to market
3. Other gimmicks, pricing.
Also, with the new performance power of the next generation machines - games that w
"Winning" E3 (Score:5, Insightful)
It ain't a competition, people! If it was, Sega'd still be making consoles and Microsoft would be out of the business (after their initial E3 in 2000, which was a disaster).
The competition comes later in the marketplace. And as has been proven time and time again, the public knows or cares not a whit what happens at E3. E3 is interesting to follow for those of us who do follow it, but it means absolutely nothing to the fortunes of anybody concerned.
Articles like the one at GameSpot serve no purpose, and the analyst they quote is a moron. Things may or may not shake out the way he predicts, but it won't be because of E3. It has happened time and time again that the "winner" of any individual E3 goes on to lose badly in marketplace in the following years, and vice versa. I'd even go so far as to say "winning" E3, especially when new consoles are introduced, is almost a jinx.
Re:"Winning" E3 (Score:1)
Drumroll Please_______O
Gamers, GameStores, BlockBuster, Gamefly.
I think the announcement of Backwards Compatability by the big three is the best news since 2 btn controllers. Nintendo's back catalog is unbeatable. Hmm.. What about SEGA? They get to make their old-school retro ports for all three consoles. Not a bad deal.
The Real "Winner" of E3 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Real "Winner" of E3 (Score:1)
Re:The Real "Winner" of E3 (Score:2)
STALKER (Score:1)
Well said GamersInfo.net! (Score:2, Interesting)
I believe I will be leaving the industry soon as a wage slave and starting my own budget company with a few friends cuz I'm just tired of all the "South Hall Mafia" crap.
Re:Well said GamersInfo.net! (Score:1)
What exactly DOES MEO sound like? I couldn't tell with the heavy metal music from DDO blasting behind me. And that was in a private booth in the West Hall.
Stargate looked interesting...did it HAVE sound?
The glare on PSP games was so bad at times I gave up even trying to demo them...
And yet I should review it??
Re:Well said GamersInfo.net! (Score:2, Insightful)
The state of the industry right now not just E3 is promoting all these cookie cutter games, but to some extent the players are demanding these games while the CEO may not have a good grasp always of what players what but to some extent the players are responsible if we didn't buy the cookie cutter games then the CEO wouldn't make money off them and they wouldn't make them.
While I would love to say all the fault lies with the Game Makers and the Media, we as the C
G4 (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft failed ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sony released their specs and showed pre-rendered game footage. The overall consensus I felt about the the PS3 was a desire to see what it can really do in actual gameplay, since it is supposed to be so much more powerful than anything else.
Nintendo was a real tease and it drives me nuts. The idea behind the Revolution seems solid but there is absolutely no way to tell how well it has been executed. I am not worried about their specs , I think the Revolution will be comparable to Xbox 360 at least. My main problem with the Revolution was, where are the games? I would have liked to have seen at least something like Sony's pre-rendered stuff for Revolution games. Nintendo is playing this so close to the vest that they may end up putting people off.
Right now, I get the feeling people are taking a wait and see attitude. If Sony and/or Nintendo deliver on the hope people have for their consoles then 360 could be in trouble. However, if Sony and Nintendo under-deliver or even wait too long to give more details then the Xbox 360 will probably have a huge holiday season.
Re:Microsoft failed ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Best RPG Coverage... (Score:2, Informative)
Xbox 360 on G5s (Score:4, Interesting)
I was fascinated to learn that Microsoft used actual Apple G5s [anandtech.com] to represent what the Xbox 360 will be capable of when it's actually working. It's one thing to ship G5s to your developers for use as compile targets for your Xbox IDE; I think it's another to use the box as the working machine for a demo presentation at E3, of all places. For G5s to be used in that venue, they have to be both fast and stable platforms for your code.
In short, that makes it I think more likely that we'll get Xbox games on the G5 if Microsoft has any desire to ship that. Still an admittedly slim chance, but it's warming to know that these actually run game code full speed.
Re:Xbox 360 on G5s (Score:1)
it's warming to know that these actually run game code full speed
Full speed? I was under the impression (as are most media [msn.co.uk] outlets [ign.com]) that the G5 'alpha kits' seen at the show are nowhere near able to run Xbox 360 game code at full speed.
Re:Xbox 360 on G5s (Score:2, Funny)
Mac roolz, you drool!
Re:Xbox 360 on G5s (Score:2)
Using a similar hardware platform as a development environment is a standard practice and in NO way means that the games will see the light of day on the dev platform (in this case the Mac).
What the hell does it matter if the games are developed on a Mac if they are released for Xbox 360? And this isn't a case of PORTING either. Development does not equal porting. The Mac makes sense as a PowerPC development platform for Po
GamersInfo.net @ E3 2005 (Score:1)
Especially the Game reviews.
They can be found at http://www.gamersinfo.net/e3/ [gamersinfo.net]
I think Tycho said it better. (Score:4, Informative)
G4 coverage would have been great... if it wasnt such a huge infomercial for sony.
First sony tried to convince the audience you were seing a realtime demo in "killzone 2" after that they tried to convince everyone they were showing "real gameplay" sorry sony rep but how can you exactly control a character if the camera is jumping all over the place? also where the heck is the hud? But more important if Killzone 2 is so goddamn impressive then why the heck did they even bothered to show the u3 realtime demo?
Also why the u3 engine team even bothered to expend 5 years creating the engine for PC if it took 2 months with the SDK for the Killzone team (the fucking killzone team no less) 2 months with the ps3 sdk, to create a demo that goes beyond any other game ever created in terms of realism and complexity?
Sony has been awarded with the Now Thats Bull! award by IGN, Penny-Arcade and even Gamespot.
Re:I think Tycho said it better. (Score:1, Troll)
I played Killzone in the playstation store at the Metreon. Basically, you have a lane like a trench or a path that you're forced to go down, while enemies parade in front of you or come at you and you shoot them down. It's like one of those arcade shooters with the lightgun
Re:I think Tycho said it better. (Score:3, Insightful)
OK on one hand you have two companies generating hype on unfinished products, most of which will never come true or be restricted in some way and on the other we have the honest approach where things are still being worked on and final numbers and gameplay is not available. So at the end of the da
IGN's coverage of E3 (Score:2)
Re:IGN's coverage of E3 (Score:2)
Best, Worst, Etc. (Score:1, Interesting)
Funniest E3 Coverage... (Score:1)