I just got around to watching the full presentations by the big three console makers a couple of days ago (bandwidth caps suck). So I thought I would rank them and share my thoughts on them. These are going to be no doubt controversial but here we go (as seen by my gamer side and not my drool-at-the-technology side):
1) Nintendo: Best presentation of all. These guys look like they are gamers and really care about games. It sounds like they want to make great games because they are going to be playing them and they are going to make the hardware to suit that need. My biggest gripe was the long reciting of numbers to prove that they are still relevant, it all sounded a bit like "Look we are here too and we aren't going to fold to giants Sony and MS", other than that it was outstanding.
2) Microsoft: Trying a little too hard to appear cool, probably trying to get away from their image of a boring OS and Office software company. I didn't mind it too much but it felt a little forced at times. Overall it looked like they did their homework and really tried to make a great console for the gamer with XB360. They had a good showing of games and overall I got the feeling they are trying really hard to compete in the game console space.
3) Sony: Tech demos, CGI and plenty of talk about technology and cinematic graphics. You would think they were talking at a Hollywood VFX convention or something. Sure the stuff was impressive but they showed very little in the way of games and hardly talked about games at all. I don't want to play interactive movies thank-you-very-much. I want a console to give me great games. Movies and games are really different media and I don't want my games to play like movies just as little as I want my movies to be like games. The only trailer showing a game that I would actually want to play was the Heavenly Sword one, that looked fun even if it did at parts try to be a little too cinematic. Everything else either looked too much like a movie or was just another FPS. Overall I liked the presentation for its great show of technology and yummy CGI but for a company with such a succesful history in the game console space it didn't look like they had much of a clue who their customers (gamers) are. Of course they will do well with the PS3 regardless since the majority of people are easily mesmerized by "the purty grafix".
Disclaimer: I recently downloaded a bunch of SNES and N64 roms that I've been playing (I've never owned a console in my life, I'll probably overcompensate this next round by buying all 3) so I might be under the influence of Nintendo games (mmm magic mushrooms) while writing this
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1) Nintendo: Best presentation of all. These guys look like they are gamers and really care about games. It sounds like they want to make great games because they are going to be playing them and they are going to make the hardware to suit that need. My biggest gripe was the long reciting of numbers to prove that they are still relevant, it all sounded a bit like "Look we are here too and we aren't going to fold to giants Sony and MS", other than that it was outstanding.
2) Microsoft: Trying a little too hard to appear cool, probably trying to get away from their image of a boring OS and Office software company. I didn't mind it too much but it felt a little forced at times. Overall it looked like they did their homework and really tried to make a great console for the gamer with XB360. They had a good showing of games and overall I got the feeling they are trying really hard to compete in the game console space.
3) Sony: Tech demos, CGI and plenty of talk about technology and cinematic graphics. You would think they were talking at a Hollywood VFX convention or something. Sure the stuff was impressive but they showed very little in the way of games and hardly talked about games at all. I don't want to play interactive movies thank-you-very-much. I want a console to give me great games. Movies and games are really different media and I don't want my games to play like movies just as little as I want my movies to be like games. The only trailer showing a game that I would actually want to play was the Heavenly Sword one, that looked fun even if it did at parts try to be a little too cinematic. Everything else either looked too much like a movie or was just another FPS. Overall I liked the presentation for its great show of technology and yummy CGI but for a company with such a succesful history in the game console space it didn't look like they had much of a clue who their customers (gamers) are. Of course they will do well with the PS3 regardless since the majority of people are easily mesmerized by "the purty grafix".
Disclaimer: I recently downloaded a bunch of SNES and N64 roms that I've been playing (I've never owned a console in my life, I'll probably overcompensate this next round by buying all 3) so I might be under the influence of Nintendo games (mmm magic mushrooms) while writing this
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