With E3 just beginning to unfold, every gamer wonders what the future will bring. I would classify 2009 as a fairly slow year thus far. The three major consoles and two major handhelds are starting to age and, despite some renewed interest in PC gaming, we have yet to see a truly groundbreaking exclusive PC title. I fear that video gaming may have reached its peak popularity in the past couple of years.
The two major gaming stories in 2009 have been the industry’s resilience in a bad economy, and iPhone’s growth in the gaming sector. These are nice stories, but with the exception of the iPhone, all major gaming platforms seem to have reached their peak, and are starting to head slowly downhill. I think this trend all started with a disappointing E3 2008. We saw some interesting titles, but it was not exactly a year that gamers will look back on with wild fondness.
E3 past, present and future
Wii Sports Resort motion plus looked fun, but it’s still unavailable and only refines an existing idea. Adding Netflix to the Xbox 360 UI was nice for making the 360 a better convergence device, but does it do anything to forward the hobby? Sony had Little Big Planet, and God of War III. Both are nice titles, but did they help the PS3 to truly live up to its potential?
Will the ensuing days of E3 2009 have the answer to continued growth and prosperity for gaming, or will it come and go without generating any real buzz except for the hardest of hardcore? So far, the rumor mill has been less than stellar. This means the industry has finally been able to keep a tight lid on its secrets, or it has no secrets to share. Let’s hope it’s the former.
Right now, the most exciting rumors generated for all the major players look fairly humdrum.
- Sony is expected to have a PS3 redesign of some kind, shrinking the footprint, but not adding any functionality.
- Microsoft is expected to show a Metal Gear Solid 4 port for the 360. (Ed note: At press time, Microsoft has revealed an entirely new title in the MGS franchise).
- Nintendo is expected to show off what the Zelda team has been up to since 2006. Do token gestures to the Nintendo faithful do anything for the platform?
Where did the PC go?
Conspicuously absent has been Microsoft’s Games for Windows initiative that continues to show little life. But this lull is prime time for developers to make their case and strike gold with truly innovative and popular title. In this downturn, developers have a chance to further unify gamers like Valve has done with Steam. And boy is it needed.
Valve dropped their bombshell with a surprise Left 4 Dead 2 announcement, but I wonder if they have anything else up their sleeve? So far this is the only major PC announcement to break on the first and most ceremonious day. How does the PC gaming nation gain share using this momentum? Are we doomed to suffer a continued flood of formulaic titles?
Smartphone gaming
Last but not least, one place that has seen growth in 2009 is smartphone gaming on the iPhone. Rumors of a more refined BlackBerry or Android-based gaming platform have run rampant, but even if they do come into fruition, will they offer anything groundbreaking or innovative to grow the hobby?
Where have all the titles gone?
So what are we missing here? Where is the next big thing? If you’re in the game industry, the time is now. Wii and DS sales are finally starting to level off, Microsoft’s platform is starting to show its age, and the slow bleed of exclusive titles to the 360 all but indicts Sony’s current business plan. As if that weren’t depressing, the PC gaming industry is in truly dire straights. While a new DirectX API and newer hardware are on the way, there seems to be a dearth of games to harness the new goods.
Are these weak rumors the best we’ll see out of E3 2009? Is PC gaming largely doomed? Do you think console companies can breathe life into their aging systems? What do you think about the titles that have already been announced? Sound off!
Articles RSS