Being that I was unable to attend E3 2010 in-person this year, I’ve shifted my focus onto following the excitement on Twitter instead. In some ways, this is a really good way to cover the show because I feel like I am getting the “pulse” of sentiment, emotion, and excitement from an aggregate of attendees rather than only getting hard coverage from things I am physically able to go to. While it’s important to have boots on the ground and handshakes at these types of events, viewing a megaconference from afar via real-time updates provides a totally different viewpoint.
My day started by feeling the buzz of excitement from all the people attending. While nobody is on the showfloor yet (it opens tomorrow) there was plenty going on. Microsoft’s press conference was first, and for the most part it felt underwhelming. One guy on Twitter mentioned that it feels like this is the year of rehashes. Gears of War 3, Halo Reach, Metal Gear, and so on. On the game front, Microsoft’s conference was a bit anemic. On the hardware front, of course, we got Project Natal; newly named Kinect. What they showed with Kinect was a bunch of waggle/casual games, though; I barely saw any excitement from attendees. Of course, it’s going to take time for the platform to mature, but right now it feels a bit gimmicky.
The last announcement was the re-design of the Xbox 360 core hardware; a much-needed update that brings the console into the modern age (both aesthetically and technologically). A 250gb HD, built in WiFi, and a reduced profile all serve to bring a breath of fresh air to the platform. Attendees were super excited about this—probably because they all got one for free.
Next up we had EA. There was a bit more excitement from core gamers, but I was still seeing things like “Wow, EA. That’s it?” and “More of the same. Yawn.” Surprisingly, I saw a lot of especially harsh vitriol directed at Call of Duty: Black Ops. More than one person said it “looks like shit.”
Apparently the highlight of the EA conference was a talk given by Rod Humble about Sims 3.
Later on in the day we had the Ubisoft press conference. Again, it was a bunch of “meh” followed by some “wtf” and “huh?”. A few people got excited about Ghost Recon Future Soldier but I’ll tell you—what I saw most were people asking “Why no Beyond Good and Evil 2, Ubisoft?”
A few people mentioned their feeling that Ubisoft was going off the deep end with some of the stuff they announced.
The overall feeling I’ve gotten today is that big companies are drifting away from “core gamers” and doing more and more to appeal to casual and new gamer markets. Once again, it feels like Nintendo set the trend years ago and other companies are just catching on. Motion, waggle, fitness, party, and family games are the order of the day.
As Icrontic’s Robert Hallock noted to a somewhat dejected first-day Icrontic E3 team:
“Boys, it’s time to MTFU and realize that it’s dong controllers and Farmville here on out.”
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