Nintendo / Sony Press Conference Thoughts

Nintendo and Sony had their annual E3 Press Conferences yesterday. Nintendo seemed to really lean towards the casual market and Sony's conference has a "Three Pillar" theme to it. Both companies strut their stuff onstage trying to capture the wallets of their consumers, with that said, both where quiet underwhelming.

Nintendo is all about the casual market. The only hint they gave of a new hardcore game was that the guys and gals who made Super Mario Galaxy and Twilight Princess are hard at work on something, Gee thanks. Instead the conference was centered around family friendly games and so much forced laughter that I cringed a few times during the show. Aside from the dry corporate Exec humor, the most interesting things at the show was the new Animal Crossing and the Wii-Mote add-on. The new Animal Crossing allows you to go to other peoples towns and chat with them using this group speak microphone bundled with the game. It's not a headset, it sits on top of your sensor bar and pics up whoever is speaking in the room. They better make that mic work the way it should or get ready to hear a lot of noisy florescent lights as well as washer and dryers. The Wii-Mote add-on allows for more precise movements with your wrist and comes bundled with another mini-game compilation that supports it. Sounds like something that should have come out day one for the console, better late than never. The add-ons and plastic peripherals are getting to be a bit much though, Nintendo, just don't get carried away with your add-ons - the 32x is still haunting us all.

The Sony press conference was wall to wall screens and "sizzle" trailers for PS3, PSN, PSP, and even PS2. The main theme of the event was the long life cycles that these platforms have. Drawing comparisons from software sales of the PSOne and PStwo compared to the PS3. Sony of course had charts and graphs showing their dominance in the market place with their own spin tied to it. The presentation of which was done using Little Big Planets level creator which shows just how flexible that game is. Home was talked about as well as movies on the PS3 which shows that Sony is really trying to match Xbox Live feature for feature. The big game of the show where God of War III and MAG from Zipper Interactive. God of War III was just a CG trailer with Kratos standing atop a rubbled building in a storm spewing mythic lore and it has me so pumped! The creative minds that brought us hits like SOCOM I and SOCOM II now have MAG: Massive Action Game. 256 players in massive online battles that look like their along the line of the Battlefield series style of play with Resistance 2's Squad system to keep things organized. All they showed was a CG trailer of an ongoing battle, it looks great but I'd love to see this game in actual motion.

So there you have it, Nintendo and Sony round out the end of the two day press conference extravaganza. More casual games for Wii and more of everything for Sony. No one really stepped up and surprised us like Microsoft did but a good showing of what to expect from these giants in the coming year.