Sony vs Microsoft at E3
It’s E3 time and being something of a fence-sitter with consoles, it’s always an interesting time for me because I see fanboys flaming each other with huge arcs of heated, uninformed and opinionated banter supporting their own purchases. I also really enjoy the chess like strategies employed by the console giants. Although Nintendo are sitting at the kids table, plugging away and dominating the ‘fun’ market, watching the heavyweights slug it out brings out the kind of sadistic satisfaction I get from watching idiots hurt themselves.
Today it was announced that Final Fantasy XIII was not going to be a PS3 exclusive, resulting in a big cheer from Xbox fans and the sound of millions of cotton threads stretching as Sony fans tugged at their collars. Xbox360 owners can gloat that they no longer need to get a PS3, FFXIII fans can now choose the cheaper console if they want and Sony have to pull out something big in their conference to keep up. Whether the employees of Sony are soiling their collective pants, or if they are kicking back with cigars blowing misshapen rings of smug into the air because they know something we don’t, we will find out shortly.
The kajillion dollar question is: What could they do? A God of War 3 announcement would surely help, but showing footage or trailer of one of the best games in the franchise does not even get close to the level of acquiring an entire franchise. Well, when I say entire, I say most likely all the games from here on in. Having only played FFX and a few hours on the earlier games, I can’t say I’m a huge fan, but after looking at the trailer, I’m sure I will give it a run.
Note the PS3 only note at the end.
July 15th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Little Big, Wipeout HD, Killzone 2, Resistance 2, maybe some more PSN innovative titles like Flowers. And as you pointed out… GoW 3. I actually think they’ve quite a few exciting things to show MORE of. Maybe enough that I’ll consider a PS3 come Christmas, if they’re cheaper. Problem is, I doubt they’ll be breaking/announcing much NEW ground.
Since the (terrible) launch of PS3, Sony has been struggling enough just to keep up and recover from a fleet of astounding mistakes. Now they’ve managed to claw their way back… they made a lot of ground with the Bluray win and GTA4/MGS4. They’re getting closer to matching Microsoft. The problem is… matching Microsoft of TWO YEARS AGO. In the mean time Microsoft has been working on a whole heap of new ideas, which unlike Sony’s “coming soon” (e.g. Home) will probably launch before I reach old age.
However, I must admit I’m not that blown away with all the Nintendo copy-cat stuff like the new dash and avatars. Neither with all the social, casual and music games. The real-prizes “Primetime” thing sounds innovative but it’s only launching in US and Europe which is no good for us Aussies. And it all sounds a bit too Idol/Big Brother/reality crappy to me too.
I was expecting more from MS really. There’s deffo some neat games on the way… Fallout 3, RE5, Halo franchise, Ghostbusters, GoW2. But this event was no handheld-360 or XboX 720 (not that I really expected that yet).
Maybe for some the Final Fantasty announcement was massive but I’m not into that series at all. From what I understand the Japs still get it first on PS3 and the 360 has only nailed a joint release for the English-speaking launch. So while I suppose it’s a victory to get it onto the console alongside the PS3, it’s far, far from an exclusive. It’s just buying something the PS3 fanboys thought money couldn’t buy. What IS interesting about the FF news though is it’s developed first on the PS3 and then ported to the 360 afterwards. It’ll be interesting to see if the port suffers like many do vice-versa.
One last thing… I don’t think enough people are treating the iPhone as a serious gaming platform. I’ve already got one and have bought a few of the best games. One or two are already superb and as good as many DS/PSP titles. The accelerometer and multitouch offer some unique gameplay mechanics that cannot be achieved on other handhelds.
Most importantly though… the reason the iPhone could be massive (for gaming as well as other things) is the APP STORE. Today, I was telling two fellow iPhone-owning colleagues at work about a great iPhone game called Aqua Forrest. Both of them watched me play it a little and decided then and there they wanted it too. From their device, in the office, straight away they were able to one-click buy the game, have it downloaded to their phone and were up and playing it themselves in under 5 minutes. THAT is the significance of the platform. It ain’t the phone so much, it’s the service behind it. Watch out for it and the games EA are working on for it.
Ok, PHEW… I’m all E3-ed out for tonight
July 17th, 2008 at 3:52 am
Hehe, actually I was thinking about when Microsoft are going to go handheld. As for the iPhone, its that easy to get games on regular mobile phones. Looking at a bit of news around a lot of big names are signing on and we can watch out for games like Need for Speed getting on soon. Not that I know how they will implement it, but interesting times ahead.
July 17th, 2008 at 5:22 am
iPhone … serious gaming, yet no Flash (still). What a laff
July 17th, 2008 at 6:38 am
@Ben… I’d put money on an iPhone Flash runtime in the somewhat near future. The App Store and the SDK are still in their early stages. Give it some time.
Apparently, Adobe already have Flash running on it… they just need to negotiate a deployment stratedgy with Apple. Then the flood gates of Flash apps on the iPhone will open.