Topic: E3 Press Conference Reviews (for all Press Conference)

[Spak-Spang]

After watching the Microsoft Press conference I immediately wanted to know what everyone here thought.  So I jumped on and didn't see a thread specifically for reviewing and analyzing the press conferences.

This is a thread to talk about all the Press conferences, what you thought they did well, what was lacking, and I guess who won once we see all three.

[Ceric]

Spak could you link a video of it?

[Mashiro]

As you could tell from my "I watched G4 E3 Live" thread, I wasn't impressed.

With that said here's what I think about the MS press conference:

The Good: Short trailer of Resident Evil 5.

The Bad: Everything else. Man talk about BORING. It was also sad that the vast majority of the time the person on the stage was applauding what was going on. The audience really wasn't engaged at all and there were plenty of moments where you could tell MS was looking for applause. Such as, Halo 3 trailer and the Halo 3 Xbox 360 special edition console.

It just seemed like no one cared. I don't care cause well I'm not an Xbox fan, but when the audience doesn't care it just doesn't bode well for the company. I understand the reformatted E3 is smaller but still MS spent most of the time floundering on stage. When Peter Moore said "How ya guys likin' that!" when the Halo 3 trailer is playing it just looked really bad for them.

You don't see Nintendo go "YEAH WHATCHA GUYS THINK ABOUT ZELDA WOO!" when a new trailer for a new Zelda plays.

It's not that the game looks bad or for that matter any of the games looked bad it just lacked any real talk factor. Just a long extended conference of stuff we pretty much already knew with the unveiling of a really ugly Xbox 360.

The Ugly: Absolutely no real surprise announcements. None. Nada. Sure the games look beautiful but we already knew they did and with nothing new shown it doesn't give Xbox fans much to look forward to after 2007.

Just my 2 cents.

Edit: forgot to give it a rating.

I give this press conference a 4/10.

[Spak-Spang]

I watched the Press Conference on G4.  First, it was horrible.  G4 really should have went to the individual companies and asked for them to contribute to make it commerical free.  But without it being commercial free they should have done what sports games do and film the entire conference and let us see everything instead of whatever crappy thing they did with the conference and commercials.

Moving on to Microsoft, what they did well was present several games to the audience and actually showed those games playable.  They hit a homerun with the emphasis on all these games will be available this year.  

What they did average.  Microsoft was playing the statistics game too hard and you could obviously see holes in their logics, and exclusions (like Japan's 360 numbers) show they are not presenting the whole picture.  (Which is understandable...but isn't going to fool any of the media.)

What Microsoft did poorly.  Where were the surprises or really exciting games.  There was nothing really new shown that we didn't already know about.  I wanted to see some surprise game trailers.  I wanted some sort of huge announcement that really rocked my world.  Instead, I get a silly Sceneit game that won't sell units, and HD movies that I could care less about.

Finally the Ugly.  Microsoft spent alot of time highlighting exclusives, but several of the games they highlighted are multiply platform games.  In fact, two of their "perfect storm" games are...and Microsoft Madden and Grand Theft Autos numbers were so high in sales because they are multi-platform.  You are not getting all those sales yourself.  Your arrogance astounds me.  Then Virtual Fighter 5, Resident Evil 5, Call of Duty, ect...almost every game in that highlight real will also be available for the PS3 and sometimes even the Wii.  So as I watched I was actually trying to count the true exclusives and the games I can wait to play on another system.  That is not the reaction you want from the audience Microsoft.

So, this press conference did some things really well...but overall it was average.  I would give it a 6 out of 10.

[Spak-Spang]

I am still trying to digest the Nintendo Press Conference.  I missed the first 30 minutes of it, so I know I missed the core gamer elements...but I was able to see all the surprises and see Nintendo's focus on new gamers getting sharper and more defined.

I believe this Press Conference is going to be a love/hate opinion.  Several traditional gamers are going to see Nintendo as truly abandoning them.  While new gamers and traditional gamers looking for a new experience will see Nintendo as a true breath of fresh air.  But a review of a Press Conference isn't about your personal opinion it is about how Nintendo presented its message.

From what I saw Nintendo truly presented its vision to the world with amazing finesse and production.  Interviews with families playing new games coming, video clips of the cultural craze that the Wii has become.  
But, most importantly new products that continue to appeal to this new market and will continue to expand it.

Nintendo also took time to address the questions gamers have for Nintendo.  Where are the online games?  Original content for Virtual Console.  And although the answers were not perfect.  They were good.  And Super Mario Kart is also a crowd pleaser.

Surprises:  Wow were their surprises.  New design for the Wii Zapper, Super Mario Kart, Wii Fitness, New controller for the Wii.

Disappointments:  Not many new games announced.  Or really new games shown at the Press conference...lets hope everything talked about and more is on the show room floor.  And why didn't they show Brawl...I am hoping for a third day surprise with a new Brawl trailer like last year.


Overall this is more what we were expecting in Press Conferences, big visionary speeches, Surprises, game announcements.  But still not everything was there.   8 out of 10

[that Baby guy]

As a retail trade show, sure, it was nice and all.  Both Microsoft and Nintendo hit up on relevant titles, sales data, and things like that.

As a consumer, both shows almost seemed entirely old news before they started.

[Kairon]

As a hardcore gamer you mean.

But thatguy, are you seriously telling me that Nintendo release dates, Mario Kart online, the Wii wheel and zapper, and Wii Fit weren't all surprising brand-new announcements? I can't think of any particular surprises that MS pulled out aside from "sign up for the beta!"

[Flames_of_chaos]

So far my tally is:
Microsoft: 4/10
Nintendo: 8.5/10

[BigJim]

Microsoft's Conference was a little dull, and very light on surprises. Moore should never try to sing in public. You could hear a needle drop when he showed off that hideous special edition green Halo Xbox. I'm also not a fan of MS (or other companies) turning out celebrities to pitch their wares.

But they made a good case for 360 as the platform of choice for gamers. They proved they have variety and volume. COD4 looked great but they just didn't show it off very well. They should have opted for a more intense moment rather than a "stealth" portion.

MS --  7/10

The Nintendo Conference had better energy. It too was light on surprises and they predictably spent a good chunk of time patting themselves on the back. Overall they made the case they sought -- market expansion. Wii Fit is an interesting title for that market.

They didn't make their case about being "serious" about online. Reggie beginning with "maybe you just didn't notice" was a bad setup followed by weak supporting evidence.  The VC, Mario Kart DS, Mario Kart Wii (yum!), FIFA, Madden, Pokemon, and Wii News only scratches the surface of what "serious" means.  Microsoft has raised the bar so high here that this felt a bit weak.

The little we saw of Galaxy, Smash Bros, Mario Kart, Metroid, and Zelda DS were pretty nice. I'm really looking forward to Kart and online play. The steering wheel is gimmicky. The zapper is a LITTLE more interesting. The first thing I thought of when they showed the zapper was "paintball gun". I wouldn't mind a seeing a casual-gamer or hardcore style game of Paintball. That'd be kind of fun. Maybe next E3.

Nothing amazing but solid on the energy. Galaxy, Smash, Kart, and Zelda rock, of course. And they know how to put on a presentation, as usual.

Nintendo -- 8/10

Sony NEEDS to knock it out of the park. They're the trailing entity this time. Amazing what can happen in just a year, huh? I'll review them after I watch.

[KDR_11k]

Nintendo was mostly reiterating stories I read elsewhere already, little in the way of surprises and when Iwata started talking I was bored out of my mind. Mario Kart with more karts and OMG ONLINE LIEK THE DS NEVAR EXISTED! Some first party arcade shooter. Wii Fit. That's it. Dunno if any of those release dates were new, I ignored them because the European release won't be anywhere close to them anyway.

My mother is thinking about Wii Fit but I'd be damned if I had to cart my Wii down into the living room every time she wanted to play.

[Kairon]

KDR, your Wii should be in the living room ALREADY, It was designed for it.

[that Baby guy]

To be honest, Kairon, the steering wheel is the exact same thing as the steering wheel I already had for the Wii, only it's white.

The Zapper is just a Wii-Remote/Nunchuk combo, but instead of being separate, it snaps them into a linear format, and keeps me from being able to hit all the buttons as easily.

We already knew Mario Kart was going to be announced, and I hope most of us predicted it would be online.

We already knew WiiFit existed, and the new peripheral is great.  That was my favorite part of their conference, but I was underwhelmed as far as being a consumer goes, because I knew the game was coming a long time ago.

There was no Disaster: Day of Crisis.  Nothing about Project Hammer.  Nothing about new franchises.  Nothing about new IPs.  Miyamoto's big hit was WiiFit, something we already knew about.

It was a sleeper to me.  If I owned a game store, I'd see that Nintendo is continuing what has made them what they are now, which is great, but as a consumer, the conference did nothing for me.

Microsoft's conference was similar, except they showed some boring gameplay twice, and then talked more about games everyone already knew all about.

Like I said, I'm not dissappointed.  Let's face it:  This is the new E3.  It's not for us, and it shows.  This one is for the retailers.

Also, NWR should have been used on the stage, IMO.  Totally not fair.

[Kairon]

Quote
Originally posted by: thatguy
To be honest, Kairon, the steering wheel is the exact same thing as the steering wheel I already had for the Wii, only it's white.

The Zapper is just a Wii-Remote/Nunchuk combo, but instead of being separate, it snaps them into a linear format, and keeps me from being able to hit all the buttons as easily.

We already knew Mario Kart was going to be announced, and I hope most of us predicted it would be online.

We already knew WiiFit existed, and the new peripheral is great.  That was my favorite part of their conference, but I was underwhelmed as far as being a consumer goes, because I knew the game was coming a long time ago.

There was no Disaster: Day of Crisis.  Nothing about Project Hammer.  Nothing about new franchises.  Nothing about new IPs.  Miyamoto's big hit was WiiFit, something we already knew about.

It was a sleeper to me.  If I owned a game store, I'd see that Nintendo is continuing what has made them what they are now, which is great, but as a consumer, the conference did nothing for me.

Microsoft's conference was similar, except they showed some boring gameplay twice, and then talked more about games everyone already knew all about.

Like I said, I'm not dissappointed.  Let's face it:  This is the new E3.  It's not for us, and it shows.  This one is for the retailers.

Also, NWR should have been used on the stage, IMO.  Totally not fair.

Thatguy, think about what you're saying. We KNEW that MK would be announced? We KNEW that WiiFit existed? ...You're looking at the conference as some sort of hyper-accelerated internet junkie who as soon as a rumor comes out about something, considers it old news. Because that's all we had before about MK and Wii Fitness. Rumors.

On a purely objective level, Nintendo had a slew of surprises and "newness," especially the mindblowing Wii Balance board peripheral. I can't get the image of doing pushups with that things out of my head.

[that Baby guy]

It's totally blowing the Sony conference out of the water, so far.

I did love the board part Kairon, but the rest of the info about WiiFitness and MK was reported by tons of sources beforehand.

[Kairon]

I disagree. All we had on MK was rumors of its existence, and all we had on Wii Fitness were some real all-over-place rumors.

Anyways, Ubisoft's Haze trailer was a big disappointment, and should've focused more on the interesting lore and back story of that game, imo, though the playing dead was cool. Oh, and poor Jack Tretton, he seems nervous out there, and his scriptwriters have sorta failed him too.

[Mashiro]

Nintendo Press Conference Review:

So I gave a 4/10 to MS, so how did Nintendo do in my eyes?

The Good: 3 new peripheral devices. The Wii Gun peripheral looks cool, the Mario Kart steering wheel is a nice touch for those new to the series and of course the new Wii Fit gamepad.

The Mario Kart announcement was welcome though I wish we would have learned a bit more. Knowing it comes out Q1 2008 is probably the most important thing and it shows Nintendo has a VERY strong 1st party line up from August to 2008.

Metroid Prime 3 demo was good too. Rich beautiful graphics and awesome gameplay make me really excited for the games August release. The new Z targeting upgrade seems interesting and will likely make the game flow extremely well.

Super Mario Galaxy release date and Super Smash Bros. Brawl release date were welcome announcements. Seeing Mario in a Bee suit was also quite hilarious.

The very good is that when I explained to my Mom and my sister how Wii Fit worked, they were immediately interested in such a 'game', so it definitely will continue to make non gamers interested in the system.

The Bad: No confirmed SSBB online and no new Super Smash Bros. characters revealed.

The Ugly: Nothing ugly really. It wasn't the most exciting conference and there were lots....and lots of charts but nothing really super bad.

I give Nintendos press conference an 8/10

---------------------------------------------------------

Sony Press Conference Review:

The Good: MGS4, Kill Zone 2, Big Little PLanet and other PS3 games all look fantastic. Lots of games listed in their line up which is something PS3 needs.

New PSP model is lighter and has longer battery life as well as the ability to output to a bigger screen.

Echochrome was a definite nod to Nintendo and looked unique.

Nice long list of games for both PSP and PS3 of what is to come which is what Sony really needed to show and they did.

The Bad: PSP doesn't feature a real redesign on the exterior and remains similar to the first model.

Several games shown (RE5 and Assassins Creed for example) were already shown at the Xbox conference and didn't seem all that different (See: the same) on PS3.

Home. It looks terribly generic in terms of its design. When compared to the creativeness and beautiful animation shown in LittleBigPlanet it just doesn't hold up in my eyes and seems very bland.

The Ugly: Shadows rendered on the PS3. What do I mean? Call me a nit picker but close up shadows in the KillZone 2 screenshot elsewhere on the forums are the same as the ones in MGS4, horribly pixelated. I mean MSG 4 looks amazing visually and so does KillZone 2 but man those shadows stick out.

Presenter for Sony. Saying multiple times how nervous he was and that he was actually shaking a bit at one point. Get a grip man.

Overall Sony did a good job and it had Chewbacca...lol so I give Sony an 8/10 as well. They are down but certainly not out.  

[BigJim]

I'm not sure how much I missed because the feed took forever to load, but when I joined, they were talking about new PSP models. (Meh.) Kaz is usually the one guilty of the most boasting, but since I missed the opening XX minutes, I don't know how he came off, with PS3 being in last place.

But from what I did see, it seemed like Sony took a slice of the humble pie. They did a good job showing a good selection of content, but again there weren't any big surprises.

The Killzone 2 real-time demo looked very cool though.

I still think Home is interesting.

The first unique game was Echochrome, which is actually kind of weird. At first glance it looks like a different spin on the physics game Portal, but it actually defies physics. Different, but I wouldn't pick it up.

Kojima seems self-centered. "Hello, I arrived safely at E3. I've been working on MGS for 20 years. Did I mention that this is the last MGS game I am making? By the way, check me out next week in Tokyo as I show you a demo." WTF.

Still think BigLittlePlanet is great.

Good content overall, KillZone was a great closer, but I did rest my head once or twice during the length of the conference.

Sony -- 8/10

One thing I realized is how much the Sony and MS conferences sound like cold, live-action press releases. Nintendo is a bit more believable and organic in their presentations. Reggie is a very good speaker.    

[Rhoq]

All of the press conferences were pretty much uneventful.

I watched G4's coverage of Microsoft's conference last night. Rock Band looks cool. RE5 is shaping up nicely. Interesting note regarding all of the released screens and videos of GTA4 being from the 360 build of the game. Other than that though, nothing really else noteworthy. Mass Effect looks great, PGR4 looks like it needs alot of work. During the live demo it looked like there were a lot of frame rate issues resulting in stutter.

IMHO though, Nintendo had the best showing. They dated their most highly anticipated titles. Mario kart is no longer a rumor and it's coming sooner than expected. The Wii Zapper was unveiled in it's final form, etc.

After reading through the notes of Sony's conference - it sounds like they had the 2nd best showing right behind Nintendo.

[Bill Aurion]

Microsoft
Pros:
~ Assassin's Creed looks good, albeit still really buggy
~ Halo 3 had a nice trailer, and I love the forest area
Cons:
~ Peter Moore is the worse speaker on this planet
~ Viva Pinata Party...Come on...
~ All the other games like Mass Effect that are just piles of generic garbage
~ NO BANJO-THREEIE!?

Sony
Pros:
~ Little Big Planet still doesn't suck
Cons:
~ Scratch what I said about Peter Moore, he's the second worst speaker...Kaz is the worst...
~ Making out a sequel to a crappy game a saving grace (Killzone)

Nintendo
Pros:
~ Mario Kart has ONLINE BATTLE MODE!
~ Mario Galaxy somehow got prettier
~ Smash Brothers trailer showed Donkey Kong!
~ WiiFit looks amazing, much better than I thought it would
~ Reggie and Iwata are some of the most enigmatic speakers ever, and Miyamoto is Miyamoto
Cons:
~ No Disaster footage
~ No really major DS games revealed (outside Advance Wars 2)
~ No Golden Sun


But, of course, there are still a few days for Ninty to reveal stuff...Just like last year... =)

[Mashiro]

Quote
Originally posted by: Bill Aurion
Microsoft

~ NO BANJO-THREEIE!?

You know rare. It takes them 8 years to release a mediocre game. I'm glad they are off the Nintendo system.

[Ceric]

I still think most of this is a result of E3 being set to late.

[Requiem]

Quote
Originally posted by: Mashiro

Quote
Originally posted by: Bill Aurion
Microsoft

~ NO BANJO-THREEIE!?

You know rare. It takes them 8 years to release a mediocre game. I'm glad they are off the Nintendo system.

Not I.

If they were still on this system they probably wouldn't have broken up into Rare and the group that makes TimeSplitters, and they'd probably make some compelling software to go along side Nintendo and Retro's efforts.

[Pale]

Didn't free radical leave before the sale to Microsoft?

[Mashiro]

You're indeed correct Pale:

Quote
While at Rare, the future FRD team (which consisted of team leader David Doak, Steve Ellis, Karl Hilton, Graeme Norgate and Lee Ray) worked on the Nintendo 64 titles GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark. In late 1998 and early 1999 this team left Rare to form their own company. Free Radical Design was up and running by April 1999 with their first release being TimeSplitters for the PlayStation 2 in 2000.

[Requiem]

Ya, but that's a moot point.

They knew they were being sold (companies always do) way before any press release/official jargon was given to the public, and thus split off before having to sign any contracts that Microsoft would have gave them.