N-Philes

Press Conference Afterthoughts

Posted June 3rd 2009 by Jacob Barnes.

Let me start by saying that no company "won" E3.  It is difficult to judge them, for me at least, because I haven't gotten much sleep lately and I've been more wowed by the initial atmosphere itself rather than watching the live streams on a computer.  I'll probably put together some video of my perspective of the conferences and other events later.  I think all of the n-philes staff (at the hotel at least) went to Microsoft, Ubisoft and Nintendo's conference.  And technically we didn't get invited to Sony's, but a few of us decided to sneak into the conference uninvited, which was pretty easy.  I think just about anyone can get into one of these conferences, besides Nintendo, if they blend in with the crowd and walk into the theatre.  So I guess I'll give you all a rundown of the big four, excluding EA because nobody cares about them.

Microsoft

Microsoft was pretty similar to Sony.  I really wasn't expecting to see Yoko Ono and other celebrities at the beginning.  But it was all pretty commercialized since they only came out for like a minute, told a joke or something, and then left.  The amazing sound system and blinding lights in the Galen Center also got everyone pretty hyped.  In terms of games, there wasn't too much out of the ordinary.  Nothing was too out of the ordinary, besides that Natal thing.  The best part of the conference for me, and perhaps my favorite moment since coming to LA, was the part where that dude-in-the-orange-shirt's avatar starting glitching like it was having a seizure when he demonstrated Natal's technology.  All of the interconnectivity between social networks and the Xbox 360 was kind of good for most audiences and tried to bridge gaps between different gamers, which seems to be the trend this year.

Ubisoft

I think Ubisoft tied Microsoft with celebrity presence.  Joel McHale was great and improved some jokes and seemed pretty loose with the whole conference.  But I did hate how he made it tried to sound like he was pesonally connected with Ubisoft at the beginning, when he probably knew very little about the company before getting asked to do this.  Then there was James Cameron.  I know Jordan was asleep for most of his 30 or so minute long presentation where Mr. Cameron basically summarized the entire Avatar series with unnecessary information.  I guess Ubisoft's had an amazing press conference in terms of how hilariously weird it was.  When the president of Ubisoft announced the Imagine series as the best selling NDS series, there was an eerie calmness that could be felt when maybe one person clapped afterward.  The Los Angeles theatre was pretty cool though and I give them credit for giving some of the larger companies at least some competition.

Nintendo

Nintendo gets a Z- for presentation in my book.  Why would they hold the conference in a small room and trick us when we think there are live people on a stage?  It was probably best for people like Cammie Dunaway to be protected from the angry "hardcore" gamers after hearing however many casual spinoffs were announced during the first half of the conference.  The weirdest new idea definitely goes to the Vitality Sensor.  I don't even know what that is.  It sounds like one of those love test machines I used to waste money on at movie theatres when I was a kid, or some astrology bullshit that doesn't even work.  Regardless of bad presentation, Reggie did address the hardcore crowd with a new Metroid and Mario Galaxy 2 which is something to look forward to, even if it won't be released for a while.

Sony

Sony had some great game announcements with pretty decent presentation throughout the show, even if they didn't have the celebrity apeal like Microsoft or Ubisoft.  They definitely had the most cheers, and it wasn't just forced claps like during parts of the other conferences.  The presenters knew how to demo the games and everyone cheered during most big moments in Assassin's Creed 2 or God of War III.  And most everyone loved their knew motion controller prototype.  It's definitely smoother than Wii Motion Plus with the most accurate 1 to 1 movements shown yet.

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