Last night’s Activision press event/pop concert was the cap on a crappy evening for E3-going Twitterites. However, where the feeling from E3’s Twitter users yesterday was one of relative disappointment, today’s was a triumphant return to the real reason we’re all doing this: Games are supposed to be fun. They’re games. We play, write about, critique, design, and sell games for a living. Where is that?
Nintendo knows. They haven’t forgotten. They were the unequivocal ‘winners’ of the unofficial press conference contest, and they knocked one announcement after the next out of the park. Each time a new speaker took the stage, each time a new game video began, each time the chords of a new song started up, the crowd was on their feet and the Twitterverse lit up with LOTS OF CAPS and !!! exclamation points. A triumphant return to many of their nostalgic game franchises would have been enough to steal the show, but they did one better by once again setting the stage for a true revolution in gaming by introducing the Nintendo 3DS handheld. Before Twitter, something that has to be seen to be believed would have created a minor buzz, but now that we can get real-time updates from people on the showfloor, we can feel their excitement and wonderment at the technology in their hands. We get their raw, immediate impressions—the visceral amazement that is sometimes lost when you have to go back to an office, sit down, and try to write about what you remembered from earlier in the day.
The Nintendo 3DS made a huge splash on Twitter. My E3 streams were on fire with the excitement.
Then poor Sony had to try to one-up that kind of reaction.
Sony’s press conference started off pretty slow. More sequels, more musclegun games, more explosions. When they started talking 3D, what were groans and moans turned into a bit of vitriol and even anger by some Twitterers. “What happens if we don’t want 3D?” asked one Twitter user. This sentiment was echoed rapidly and many times over the next few minutes. It feels like Sony is betting the farm on 3D—understandable since Sony controls a lot of the 3D tech from end-to-end with Blu-ray and 3D televisions. Of course it makes sense that they’re hoping to drive 3D tech sales with video games—after all, it costs a lot less to make a hot 3D video game than it does to make a movie like Avatar.
After watching Nintendo America President Reggie Fils-Amis rip into 3D glasses in his introduction to the 3DS, and hearing the crowd (and Twitterverse) cheer the sentiment, poor Jack Tretton had to get up there and follow that up by touting the awesomeness of … wearing 3D glasses. Many conference attendees were snickering about the glasses that were handed out to everyone.
The 3D stuff was followed up by PlayStation Move, which got mixed reactions on Twitter. Some people thought it looked cool, and some felt it was too little too late, a ripoff of Nintendo’s Wii Remote, or just plain dumb.
Luckily for Sony, things got rapidly better when a surprise guest took the stage. Valve’s Gabe Newell plodded on to the stage and gave a quick, uncomfortable, and seemingly forced introduction to Portal 2 and Steamworks for PlayStation 3. It was very short, very awkward, and very well received. Twitter lit up at the shocking news that the man who loved to hate PlayStation (Newell has been very outspoken about how terrible the platform was to develop for) was right there on center stage basically apologizing and talking the platform up. “We’re confident that the best console version of Portal 2 will be on PlayStation.”
Yeah, that one caused a stir.
The rest of Sony’s conference was more “meh” except for the new Twisted Metal announcement. That got some fan reaction, and many people seem genuinely excited about it.
The rest of the day was general excitement about finally being on the showfloor. On day 1 of the biggest video game event of the year, people are getting settled in and finding their bearings. The buzz and hum went down a few notches in lieu of any other groundbreaking announcements. We’ll see if tomorrow changes any.
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