E3 roundup/anticipation post

I'm about ready for another Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six game.

 

Vegas 2 was last year, wasn't it? Maybe we're due for GRAW3.

 

OXCGN

 

I'm 99.999999% sure they'll announce a new Forza, considering the semi-announcement in Brazil and coy remarks by turn10 employees on GAF.

 

I'd like to see new gameplay videos of MAG and Uncharted. God of War 3 would be nice as well.
Not really sure if they are going to reveal more things about GT5 or not. Cinematic trailer of the so called Trico would make my day, though.
I also expect from Sony to reveal a new version of PSP.

MS is probably going to show of new Forza and i think they are going to use some of the time to talk about upcoming Splinter Cell, RARE's new game/games, Halo: ODST and new episodes of GTA DLC.

No idea what's Nintendo going to do though.

Regarding the multiplatform games, i only care, to a certain extent, about CoD6 and i fully expect from IW to show a trailer with at least a limited peak at gameplay and new features in multiplayer.

 

I don't think anybody here mention about Cliffy B new IP. I think he will make an announcement at MS Press Conference. He appeared on stage the last two years, so I would expect him there.

 

im interested in halo ODST, just to see if theyve dropped the previous games lighting method, I used to think ~10% chance, but now im thinking 50%.
Ill laugh if they do

also alan wake will be nice to see

 

I don´t have any exciting expectations for the upcoming E3.

There are rumours about motion control equipments for the 360 and the PS3. Not really revolutionary regardless if they include controllers or not, it will just be a me-to feature to level the playing field with the Wii which I already have been expecting for some time.

There are rumours about a diskless PSP, not that exciting, it´s a good thing if it will bring down the price of the PSP, but I have my doubts.

The non-fat PS3 seems like a real thing but it will probably be announced closer to its introduction which is likely in the fall.

I don´t expect any games that will really get me excited. GT5 is the one I care most about, but I don´t really expect anything revolutionary from it.

What would really catch my attention would be if Sony announced that PS2 software BC would be introduced for all PS3s in the next firmware update. But my expectations are really low in that regard even though I think Sony is working on it.

 

I'm the opposite ... I'm just really excited to hear what the players will bring to the table. Especially the platform conferences are always interesting to me, and these days with console platforms becoming service providers more than ever, there's so much room for improvement that directly affects my user experience. And I expect quite a lot of info too, at least from Microsoft and Sony. (I don't really care much for Nintendo personally, although I always keep track of what's happening regardless, to be able to inform others and to make sure that my disinterest is justified )

I expect quite a lot of news for PSP, although some of it may just be confirmation. But for instance seeing what MM has in store for LBP (I don't expect the full game on PSP, but whatever we get I'm sure it will be interesting), and what kind of service improvements and online games we can expect. PSN just launched on PSP and I expect that we'll see a lot of changes for PSN - Sony changed the system to an open standard for a reason, I'm sure! (There's a chance that some of the stuff will be U.S. only of course and that Sony keeps the Europe stuff for Leipzig)

Of course I'm also interested in seeing if they've got some additional stuff on Home, which is starting to take off, and also if they make Home an actual part of the presentation in the sense that you can watch the presentation or some of the booths or whatever in Home, like they did for a small bit for TGS last time.

And of course I'm interested in seeing the exclusives for the PS3 unfold further, or hear about any new developments regarding motion controllers. I love motion control personally, but dislike the Wii too much to get one. I'd much rather get a controller for my PS3 or 360 that has similar (or better) capabilities, and if they've got something in the pipeline, I'm definitely very interested. Similar excitement for more PS Eye support stuff (how's Pet coming along? Will devs get the head-tracking library included in the SDK soon? - I thought that Killzone's loading screens seemed made to use that feature ).

Even just seeing whether or not Sony and Microsoft's presentation skills have improved over last-year is interesting.

 

OK, I´ll add Eye Pet to my list of games I care about. I have recently bought Eye of Judgment and its a pretty ground-breaking game. Eye-pet may also be ground-breaking. I remember the demo where the player draws a car on a paper and the game transforms it into a 3d-car that could be controlled by the player and used to hunt the Eye-pet creature. If they actually pulls that off in the real game it would actually catch my attention.

 

Dylan Jobe on twitter:

"Headed to work - milestone build due to SONY on Friday."


So Starhawk at E3?.

Be interesting how Sony's conference goes because they've already had a big blowout with there Gamers day a few weeks ago. So they'l need a few more announcements to turn heads.

MAG
Uncharted 2
Ratchet
Heavy Rain
White Knight Chronicles
God of War 3
Gran Turismo 5
Starhawk
Trico
Eyepet


With Microsoft it was fairly obvious after Sony revealed eyepet and were again putting resources into eyetoy that a camera etc would be forthcoming. Microsoft always seem to be cloning other peoples ideas. Outside bet is some kind of Home clone? there's been rumours.

Mass Effect 2
Forza 3
Halo ODST
Alan Wake
Splinter Cell
Rare games

And of course after the big but overblown news about FFXIII going multi-plat outside Japan I thinks it's a gimme that Microsoft will have gone all out to get MGS 5, FFversus to repeat last E3's impact. I get a feeling Sony made an exception and went out of their 1st party and bought a 3rd party exclusive to spite MS's plans. We'l see...

 

Disclaimer: I do not think that MGS5 will be exclusive in any way to the 360.

.

Did Konami even release anything worth mentioning on the 360 last year? IF MGS4 is as good of a game that some people here claim, then it would easily sell the same amount on the X360. (Althought i dont think so, people who like MGS games are a special niche segment, im unsure if this niche exists in significant numers amongst the x360 owners).

Incorrect. Money is a big incentive if given enough of it.

Cash is king. Why did Rock Star provide exclusive DLC for X360 for GTA4? Prior to GTA4, GTA had sold 30 million copies on the PS2 platform and 1-2 million or so on the Xbox.

Ms can easily write a big enough check, but i wouldn't be so sure if they would consider it worth the money.

 

Aside from the fact that your statment could easily be interpreted as trolling, why on earth would MS possibly want to create some kind of Home clone?

Home is one big sticking failure at this point, unless they upgrade it substantially it allways will be. Creating a home clone would not be of any interest to MS.

What could be of interest is creating a similar MMO type UI like home has that actually have substantial features that normal people would enjoy and use. You know, people that dont find it amuzing to be able to pay $5 for a new virtual t-shirt...

 

Sure, money is important, I just don't think, given the near 5 million existing MGS customers on the PS3, that the potential money pile in front of the 360 is bigger than the pile in front of the PS3. GTA4 is not comparable at all. The DLC deal was made before any version of GTA4 had been released. Had it already come out on the PS3 and sold 5 million units with performance on the 360 being a complete unknown Take 2 would be crazy to make such a deal, no matter how big the exclusive payout. And when I talk about the checks MS can write, I don't mean in the theoretical, they can write 5 billion dollar checks and they'll clear no problem way, I mean in the sense of an amount that won't result in a severe negative reaction from shareholders.

 

It doesn't have to "bigger"; it just needs to be "big enough to be worth doing."

Huh? So if MS offer TakeTwo more money than they could make selling the content on PS3, TT would be daft to take the offer?

"How much can we make on DLC on PS3?"
"5 million copies at ten quid, 50 million knicker."
"How much are MS offering?"
"250 million notes."
"Hmmm, not worth doing then..."

There are amounts of money that make it worthwhile! When you factort in the financial stability of money up front instead of hoped-for returns, going exclusive with DLC has definite merits.

Of course in the case of MGS5 going XB360 exclusive, no, the payout would have to be well beyond what the game would be worth for the XB360 platform in terms of exposure, new buyers, gross takings etc. There's no financial reason for MGS5 to go XB360 exclusive because there's no financial reason for MS to secure it.

 

OT
Do we know how much MS payed for GTA4 DLC exlusivity?
/OT

 

It's not that simple if you are cutting yourself off from another source of revenue. An exclusivity deal is also going to have all sorts of strings attached which may be riskier than freely selling to existing customers.

Well, I think people have an exaggerated sense of what MS actually offers for exclusivity. The deal with Take 2 for GTA4 DLC, for example, was actually just a loan, not free money. MS has to sweeten the pot with promotional promises, etc. They aren't really writing exorbitant checks they'll never really see a return for. Their cash reserves aren't a superpower they can use to spite competitors. And publishers and developers may turn down lucrative deals if they think it will diminish the brand. I don't care how big the check is, I can't imagine Konami and Kojima crapping all over their millions of avid fans, many of whom specifically spent hundreds of dollars on a PS3 just for MGS, for a short term cash grab.

 

Doesn't have to be "bigger" than the pile in frontof the PS3. Exclusive DLC just has to pay enough to be worth doing.

You have some very wierd business sense there.

Take 2 would be crazy NOT to make such a deal, if the payout is big enough. Simply economics. How much can you potentially gain by selling this DLC to the PS3 crowd? (Discounted by risk ofcourse). How much is Ms willing to pay? As long as MS offer is as large (or larger than) as the discounted potential gain, you have to be a retard in order to not accept such an offer.

The reason for why take 2 would be retards in this scenario is because unless they take up the offer, they willingly loose money.

So are we. Such a deal would not require any obscene amounts of money, and shareholders reaction will be positive as long as they feel the gains outweight the cost of the capital. And obviously, acting rational, MS will only offer amounts where the net result (doesn't have to be in direct monetary sense) is positive.

Thing is, the amount of money such DLC bring in, are not all that big. If these DLCs also would substantially increase software sales on a platform if made exclusive, DLCs made exclusive can bring in a lot of money for the console manufaturer. After all they get a licence fee for software sales. 5-10$ per sold game, any increases in software sales instantly adds to their pocket.

Again, wierd economic business sense going around. The deal for DLC was indeed a loan of $50 million.

The loan was agreed to be payed back from potential profits (meaning that this is free money, because you take no investment risk). No profits, no repayment of loan. If there where no profits, then Ms would not get any money back.

Such a deal is worth much more money than you think. Aspecially if Take 2 had liquidity problems.

If we could estimate the risk of this project, i could easily present you with an exact monetary value of such a loan deal.

In your earlier post, you mentioned that MS shareholders would get upset if MS spend to much money. I think your next post is somewhat amusing because of this:

Konami is a public company. Konami management is just as much subject to pleasing their shareholders as Microsoft is. If Konami shareholders think the deal is a good one, Konomi management will comply, or start looking for new jobs.

Shareholders dont care about fanbase for some game, they care about making money. If the deals presented would make them more money than other potential projects, (ofcourse this includes any losses from diminishing your brand\whatever), deal will be accepted. While the developer may care about his fans, the publisher cares first and foremost about making money, and since they hold the money bag, its ultimately their decision.

 

I think MS gave Rockstar $50 million, and then each sale of the DLC goes to MS until (if ever) that $50 million is paid back. Any sales beyond that figure are for Rockstar. It was important to Rockstar partly because MS gave them the money way up-front, and Rockstar needed the cash back then. At least that's what I remember - maybe someone knows this more precisely.

 

Not only is it important because MS gave them money up front, the project becomes risk free for Rockstar. This has tremendous value