E3 Power Rankings, Probably Moving Next Year

The Escapist takes a crack at ascribing 'power rankings' to this year's E3 players. Microsoft, EA, and Irrational are in the top three spots, with Bethesda and the newly-employed Peter Moore rounding out the top five. From the site's commentary on Microsoft: "Despite the lawsuits, the man with the biggest pockets earns the top slot by a fair margin. Microsoft has cleaned up on big-name exclusives and is slowly but surely building up Games For Windows as a brand. However, what really does it for Microsoft is Fallout 3, Halo 3, Mass Effect and BioShock. If one of those doesn't sell you a buggy, overheating, now-under-warranty Xbox 360, nothing will. Their upcoming billion-dollar 360 repair costs might dethrone them sooner than later, though." Meanwhile, the rumour is going around that LA won't be the site of the event next year.

E3 Moving

[Anonymous Coward]

For some reason I couldn't access the GameSpot blog. In any case, Google Cache has it [64.233.169.104], and it's one of those blogs linking to another source.

In any case, the original source was this MCV article [mcvuk.com]. The GameSpot article basically confirms the story but points out that it isn't a done deal yet - they're just considering new locations.

They seem to be suggesting that E3 will be moving to Las Vegas, although it's not final yet. (The article also seems to suggest that New York was suggested and then decided against, which makes sense, since the Big Three game companies in the US (Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sory) are all on the west coast.)

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[Kopiok]

It seems all of the C-network (besides Cnet.com itself) are down.

Is This A Joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think even the foaming at the mouth Xbox fanboys over at teamxbox.com would roll their eyes at whatever the fuck that link is trying to say.

For other uses, see Horse (disambiguation)

[Anonymous Coward]

Another boring E3 article?
I love these because they attract no interest ...1st Pr0st?

360's problem

[vitaflo]

"However, what really does it for Microsoft is Fallout 3, Halo 3, Mass Effect and BioShock. If one of those doesn't sell you a buggy, overheating, now-under-warranty Xbox 360, nothing will."

This is really MS's problem right here. I'm sure those games will be great and sell well, but they certain cater to a specific taste. The 360 really needs to branch out in it's library to be more diverse if it's going to sell beyond just the normal hardcore gamer. Right now it has the same stigma as the Xbox 1 did. I don't think that's going to help them down the road.

Re:360's problem, or a narrow FPS market

[WillAffleckUW]

I agree that MSFT's problem is that they have to narrow a gaming reach.

Lots of FPS and combat games won't alter the perception that you care nothing for casual gamers and the other 90 percent of the market.

No matter how much you stress Viva Pinata! in your PR spin.

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[Aladrin]

"you care nothing for casual gamers"

Yeah, because XBox Live Arcade is for hardcore gamers. -roll eyes-

I just looked through the games list on EBGames.com to see how things stack up for boxed games. The 360 has a ton of shooters and action games, and so-so amount of other games. So then I looked at the PS3 and PS2. Surprise, surprise... The same thing. Maybe not -quite- as thick on shooters, but the actions games are there in full force. I'm including both of those because GTA/etc are considered Actio

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[drewmca]

I agree with this. Everyone is criticizing Microsoft and Sony for failing to capture the casual gamer. At the same time, they're lauding the Wii for succeeding. But they fail to realize that one of the main reasons the Wii is doing so well is because the casual gamer doesn't want to spend a lot of money on something that they treat, well, casually. The price point is the big thing with the Wii, once you get past the novelty hook that puts it on so many news shows.

But does the casual gamer want to spend $50

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[fistfullast33l]

Bomberman, Uno, Zuma, Catan, Poker

How many card games do you need? Sony has High Stakes Poker coming, as well as short action games like Calling all Cars. But it also has weird radical games like Echochrome and Flow, and don't discount the pull that LittleBigPlanet will have on casual gaming. If content for that game is as easy to produce as a movie for YouTube, then LBP will definitely be a huge casual gaming pull.

Add in BluRay for HiDef support and it's multimedia support that blunts the 360's abilitie

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[AmbientSidewalk]

How many card games do you need? Two apparently. Bomberman, Zuma, and Catan are not card games.

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[KDR_11k]

Unless we're talking about the Catan card game, of course.

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[ElleyKitten]

Even once the price lowers, who wants to pay $200 or so to be able to download $5 games they could find for free on the internet? For that matter, how are casual gamers going to even know about all the casual games available, since they're not in stores and casual gamers don't make a habit of going to gaming websites?

XBox Live Arcade is meant for the casual gamer who lives with a hardcore gamer who bought the system. The Wii, on the other hand, is attractive enough for casual gamers to actually buy the

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[Doctor_Jest]

Microsoft is heavy into action games and FPSes... their two "big" titles coming this fall are Halo 3 and Bioshock... both FPSes.

I think Sony's got a bit more than they usually get... but their RPG stable is not bare... just a little late in coming. ;)

(which is why I bought a PS3...) Though, I'm going to thoroughly enjoy Lair and Heavenly Sword :D

at the end of the generation, you're probably going to see more FPses on 360 than the PS3... just my guess. :)

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[steveo777]

True they do have something out there for the more casual gamers. The problem is that the casual gamer isn't shown this material. I am a pretty avid gamer. I might see 2 hours of TV a week, save for the occasional baseball game. But online I am able to keep up with most of everything that happens in the gaming world.

The only way that I've heard about any XBLA games is by word of mouth. I haven't seen anything in a periodical showing off new XBLA games. Though there is great potential there, I don't th

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[Aladrin]

Gaming news sites like Joystiq, Kotaku and QJ cover the new games for each system, including boxed games, VC, XBLA, and PSN. I watch the feeds for those and morn and often have to read the same announcement about the XBLA games several times.

I agree that they are not properly marketing to casual gamers, but that's different from having nothing offered.

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[Prien715]

Don't forget the new Beautiful Katamari Damacy which is a 360 exclusive right now.

I think that'll be the game that does me in....

Rats, misinterpretation...

[r_jensen11]

And here I was thinking they were going to rank things based on the amount of power they consumed.... Stupid me....

Fallout 3

[Enderandrew]

Should Fallout 3 count towards the 360 when it is launching on the PS3, PC and 360 on the same day?

Dare I point out...

[Talgrath]

"However, what really does it for Microsoft is Fallout 3, Halo 3, Mass Effect and BioShock. If one of those doesn't sell you a buggy, overheating, now-under-warranty Xbox 360, nothing will." Dare I point out that Bioshock is coming the PC as is Fallout 3 (so who cares about the console versions). What's more, considering both Halo and Halo 2 have both come to PC, my bet is that Halo 3 eventually will too. Finally, my bet is that Mass Effect will hit the PC at some point too, as all of Bioware's RPGs have at one point or another. So...reason to buy a 360 again when everything they have that's worth playing is for sure or almost certainly will hit the PC in the near future (or another console)? Oh yeah...none. I'll stick with my PC, PS3, and Wii; thanks a bunch, come again.

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[DrXym]

Quite. If you have a PC capable of gaming, you may as well pick up the PC version of these games since they're likely to be better and probably cheaper too.

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[TheThiefMaster]

Indeed. Here in the UK, PC games are frequently £25-£30 and xbox 360 games are £40-£45.

Even if it's the same game with a simultaneous release date. Even if they used a cross-platform game engine and the PC version has an explicit option for using the xbox 360 controller.

Microsoft must be taking quite a cut of the money for that kind of difference.

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[realthing02]

I don't think the Xbox market is going after PC gamers. No offense, but why do you think they release these games on PC? The publisher's know it's a different demographic. And your point about halo is correct, but you forgot to mention the fact that it could be anywhere between one and 2 years before halo 3 comes to the PC. I'm not saying that it cheapens the value of the game any, just it's a game 1-2 years old. Imagine being a die hard Final Fantasy fan and having to wait 2 years after everyone else playe

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[brkello]

If you have 3 of 4 systems...yeah, I'd be trying hard not to spend my money on a 4th as well. Just because some day some game may come to the PC doesn't mean the 360 owners can't be excited. Probably all the games will end up in Gametap some day. Why bother buying consoles at all? (sarcasm)

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[Chosen Reject]

doesn't mean the 360 owners can't be excited

If I was an 360 owner, then I would certainly be excited (I'm not, I'm a PC gamer). However, in the context of this article, Most of these games probably won't win over a lot of people to become new 360 owners. For example, if I wanted BioShock I would get it for the PC, if I wanted Fallout I would get it for the PC. Now that's because I'm already a PC gamer with a decent PC to play those games with. Someone who doesn't have a PC or 360 to play those games b

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[Talgrath]

Exclusive games: MGS 4, Heavenly Sword, Lair and more are PS3 exclusives; granted, MGS 4 may come out for other consoles too, but that isn't a sure thing yet and aside from MGS 4 tehre's no indication that these other games are heading to other consoles or the PC. As for network support, I don't know of any games out for both the 360 and the PS3 that don't both have network support. As far as framerate, I haven't had a single problem with the framerate on my PS3 games...so again, I don't know where you're

The Wii Fit parody

[Dwedit]

The video linked from the article [youtube.com] which parodied the Wii Fit was drop dead hilarious. Kudos to sarcasticgamer.com.