The E3 is underway, and with OSAlert having a renewed casual interest in gaming, I figured I’d summarise the news around the big three console players, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. Microsoft probably had the most interesting news to give us, Nintendo suffers from a severe case of milking the cow (and who would blame them), and Sony repackaged the PSP, announced a few games, and gave the promise it would come with motion sensing technology at some point in the future too.
Microsoft
The biggest news from Microsoft is the company’s move towards a Wii-like controller system, Natal. However, while obviously inspired by Nintendo’s insanely successful console, it does take the whole motion sensing thing a few steps further. As said, it’s called Natal and it’s a camera for your XBox 360 that keeps tracks of the movement of your body – your entire body. It does away with the controller altogether, as your only input method is your body, which is a few steps beyond the Wii. Natal allows for some very cool stuff in games, and the Dashboard itself will gain Minority Report-style controls: use your hands to flip between dashboard items, and move stuff around. It also comes with voice recognition to really free you from your controller, and facial recognition so the XBox 360 will know who’s playing [insert creepy Microsoft backdoor conspiracy theory here]. The following video will give you a good idea of what Natal is capable of.
This wasn’t the only announcement coming out of Microsoft. Microsoft is clearly trying to put the XBox into the centre of your home, and will add support for Last.FM, Twitter, and Facebook to the 360. In addition, a full HD (1080p) video download/streaming service will also come to the device. Lastly, Microsoft will also introduce a game download service – not just for small games or old XBox games, but for full 360 games as well.
So, what about the stuff that really matters? You know, games? Well, Microsoft had some pretty serious surprises up its sleeves, the biggest of which is most certainly the announcement that the follow-up to the massively successful PC/XBox 360 exclusive Left 4 Dead, imaginatively called Left 4 Dead 2, will arrive November 17 for the PC and XBox 360. The game will feature new survivors, a new setting (looks like New Orleans to me), and new special infected. There’s a gameplay video, and an official trailer. Yesterday, while I was paying Left 4 Dead online over XBox Live, every player was abuzz about L4D2.
Microsoft had more to offer, though. The weirdly successful Crackdown, one of the earliest XBox 360 games, will finally get a sequel in Crackdown 2. Dead Rising will also see a sequel, and The Beatles: Rock Band will be an XBox 360 exclusive, leaving Playstation 3 owners out in the cold. Then again, I never understood the appeal of smashing on plastic instruments while pretending to actually be able to make music, so I guess I’m not the right person to gauge the significance. Another intriguing exclusive is Alan Wake, slated for release early 2010.
Nintendo
Nintendo seems to be content with further milking the various golden cash cows it has with the Wii and the DS, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing: the company sells bazillions of machines this way, and it’s the only company actually making a profit out of their hardware (as opposed to Sony and Microsoft losing money with every console sold).
The MotionPlus controller, which should finally make the Wii-mote controllers much more precise, was shown off a couple of times in conjunction with Wii Sports Resort and an archery game. Nintendo also unveiled Wii Fit Plus, the sequel to what is probably the best selling game in the world right now; Plus will come with six new strength and yoga activities.
All fun and well, but what about real games? Nintendo had a bunch of those lined up as well, and apart from the usual Mario regurgitation, there were some interesting items in there, such as the open-world Final Fantasy: The Crystal Bearers and Red Steel 2. The DS also gets some interesting titles, such as Kingdom Hearts, C.O.P. The Recruit, and Golden Sun DS. Still, the biggest news, game-wise, is probably that Nintendo has teamed up with Team Ninja for a new Metroid game, The Other M. Metroid is by definition cool, but I must say that the trailer looked surprisingly un-Metroid to me. Let’s hope Team Ninja doesn’t mess it up.
Sony
Sony had a bit of a problem with this year’s E3, as the company’s biggest announcement had already been widely leaked across the internet. Sony introduced the PSP Go, a smaller variant of the PSP (it does away with the UMD drive, for instance) which will sell alongside the current model. The PSP Go will feature downloadable games – as in, all titles going forward will be available both in retail and via download. It also comes with the obligatory video service, which can be used to directly load video from the device, instead of having to use an intermediary. It will sell for USD 250 in the US – which isn’t cheap. Will Sony ever learn?
Sony also showed off motion sensing technology (like the Wii, not like Natal), but the company doesn’t yet know when it will arrive; somewhere 2010, it believes. Where Microsoft seems to have at least tried to come up with something beyond the Wii, Sony’s seems a lot more “me too!” than an actual attempt at innovation.
Game-wise, there was a bit more to talk about, such as Agent, a PS3 exclusive game by Rockstar, which takes the player back to the ’70s to play a spy during the Cold War. Final Fantasy XIII was also shown, and its follow up, Final Fantasy XIV (that’s 14, people, not counting the various off-shoots) will be coming in 2010. And here you were, thinking Nintendo was the Dead Horse King, while in fact, Square Enix takes that crown easily.
The PS3 exclusive The Last Guardian really blew my socks off, and I must say that I’m quite intrigued by this game, which comes from the same hands that built the impressive Shadow of the Collosus. God of War 3 was also shown off, as well as Gran Turismo for the PSP.
Misc
There was also lots of news unrelated to either of the three big console companies, like the announcement from Ubisoft that Assassin’s Creed 2 will arrive on November 17, which is sooner than expected. A new CGI trailer was shown as well, but no gameplay footage is available as of yet and there is gameplay footage as well on the PS3. A new Castlevania game is also in development for the PS3 and XBox 360, and Monkey Island will return. Oh, and to top it all off: a gameplay trailer of Mass Effect 2, BioWare’s newest.
Overall though, some pretty interesting and impressive games are on their way. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m enjoying a few days off, so I’m back into the world of Ancaria with my Seraphim in Sacred 2 for the XBox 360. Only 93.7% of the map left to explore after 24 hours of playtime!
The real info is the release of Starcraft 2 at the end of the year :p
Agreed that it’s big news, but I couldn’t cover everything. I tried to focus on Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo to keep things organised.
But yeah, that’s pretty big. Koreans rejoice!
There is an error in the article. Ingame footage for Assassin’s Creed 2 was presented yesterday during Sony’s E3 event.
Ah, I see, thanks. Updated the article.
Rock Band Beatles isn’t exclusive to the Xbox 360. It’s also coming for PS3 and Wii.
You also forgot to mention a lot of the games shown for Sony’s consoles like the MGS, SOCOM and Resident Evil for the PSP and MAG, Uncharted 2 and that ridiculous racing game cross between Mario Kart and LittleBigPlanet for the PS3.
Edited 2009-06-03 10:29 UTC
Another mistake here:
“Sony also showed off motion sensing technology (like the Wii, not like Natal), but the company doesn’t yet know when it will arrive; somewhere 2010, it believes.”
Jack Tretton was pretty clear when he said they’re launching the motion controller Spring 2010. It was Microsoft who didn’t say a peep about a release window.
I’ve seen all three press conferences/presentations/ whatever.
MS Project Natal impressed me! But I’ll judge it when i test it, not grabbing something kind of annoys me – it’s like that stupid sensation of not having a real keyboard on my iPhone. It may be me, but it annoys me.
Speaking of motion controls, I like what I saw from Sony. It works, it’s not PR stuff and a well made video. It actually works, and you’re grabbing something…
I’ll get to test both ways, since luckily I own both systems.
Let’s see what the software part brings us.
yeah, microsoft natal looks cool but doing everything without a controller isn’t that great, I can see it well for casual games but not for hardcore, on the other hand sony mixed the good of the two worlds, having both a camera and a controller you can do almost everything, the archer and sword demo was really impressive and accurate
Same thoughts here. It’d be funny to watch someone play a good FPS this way for 3 hours. Just what I felt in regard to Wii controls, it just limits the kinds of games one can create for it. It would be great as an additional control mechanism, just don’t make it exclusive.
BTW, they just invented “air driving”, you can add that to the list just below air guitar. I won’t add further comments on that
Do remember that Natal can actually do everything the Sony demo can; they could easily write up a demo that registered different objects in your hands (like the Sony glowing wands).
It’s quite possible that future controllers (with buttons!) will be able to work *with* Natal to create some awesome games.
That’s not actually true unless Microsoft released a “wand” controller with buttons, which is kind of the opposite of what they’re promising with Natal.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but from the project natal demos, the one that impressed me most wasn’t the control-with-your-movement ones, but the Milo demo… thats when we really start to interact with games.
I wonder what a Fable/FallOut game using this technology would be… or even MMO games streaming your expressions through your character.
Really impressive stuff that opens a lot of precedents.
Not sure if the Microsoft’s team is aware of this, but Natal is the Portuguese word for Christmas!
Edited 2009-06-03 10:34 UTC
…not only that, but the city named “Natal”… the city actually is the reason of the codename. It’s the homeland of the guy ahead of “project natal”.
I’ve watched the trailer for Last Guardian and I must say it looks promising (never got into the SoC though, the low framerate was too annoying). Apart from that, I actualy laughed out loud after reading about the GT for PSP… they haven’t quite let that one go yet, did they. How many years of empty promises, DNF, anyone?
They should get their damned rear ends in gear and finish GT5 already instead of wasting time on little silly side projects like that.
Gran Turismo PSP was playable on the show floor, comes out October 1st.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q5vg6xEjYo
Did Microsoft offer floor demonstrations of Natal? If not I call B.S.
I am very skeptical that this technology is good enough for general usage yet. I’m sure they can do quite a bit, but the computation needed to recognize multiple faces and bodies (and voices!) and track all their movements regardless of what they are wearing, etc…?
Well, call me in 10 years when they release the XBox 1080 then I might believe it.
Live
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWm_PygFotI
and pre-recorded on-stage demos were given:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9gxyk_e32009-project-natal-demo-m…
I believe the press also got private demos, but I don’t think there was an open floor demo available.
Development kits are currently available acording to this article:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/e3-natal-not-derived-from-3dv
Heh. To paraphrase the words a wise man:
“XBox 1080? How in the world did I miss XBoxes 361 through 1079?!?”