Reflecting on the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), the videogame industry's largest trade show as it wrapped up last Friday in Los Angeles, just about everything that was expected was delivered. Plus, there were a few key surprises to make it all worthwhile for even the jaded; the forthcoming holiday shopping season, something to look forward to.




The consensus is that Nintendo stole the show, a bit of a surprise considering the "Wii," the company's next generation console formerly known as "Revolution," is technically the least powerful of the new-generation systems. It does not support high definition graphics or movie playback. Nor does it hold a candle to the processing power of Microsoft and Sony offerings.

Technologically, however, the Wii is clearly the most innovative game system to come down the pike since, well, videogames.

Though gimmicky at first blush, the Wii's unconventional controller, a motion sensitive, depth-perceiving, white-washed candy-bar device more reminiscent of a TV remote control than a gamepad, ended up proving itself a highly intuitive, massively accessible interface opening up all sorts of new gameplay potential. Launching with the "killer app" of game franchises, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, a demonstration revealed that using a bow and arrow as the game's main character, Link, for example, has the player physically pointing the remote at a designated target with Link mimicking the action on screen; let fly and an audible "thwip" emanates from the remote with the "thunk" of impact perceptible from the TV audio side of things. Characters are made to walk (among other things) using a tethered thumbstick (otherwise removable if the game doesn't require it) in the other hand.

The controller innovation extends to innovative play of Nintendo's new "Wii Sports" line that includes mimicked golf strokes, swings of a baseball bat or tennis racket, even the throw of a ball.

Wii does conventional games, too, each boasting an obvious leap in graphics technology though still in lowly, standard definition. Defiantly homely, by some accounts, but befitting the conventional cathode ray tube TV sets still commonly found in, oh, a billion households.

What's more, Wii will be an always on, always connected device (dubbed WiiConnect24) of freakishly-low wattage consumption, allowing for persistent-world gaming that you never have to (virtually) leave even though you're at school or work or whatever.

Too, Wii will have an extensive library of old school games available for online purchase and download, including just about every game Nintendo every made for the NES, the SNES, the N64 (plus GameCube games on disc) while new best buddies Sega and Hudson will offer up a glut of classics too--think Genesis-era Sonic and TurboGrafx-era Bonk games (there will be a conventional gamepad available--albeit newly white-washed--to play those).

Smart move, too, seeing as kids who grew up on Nintendo games are likely to now have kids of their own, Nintendads and Pac-Moms, parent gamers of gamer kids, two generations with one thing in common: Wii. It's a remarkable understatement, often overlooked, lost in the hype and hoopla of teraflop processors, huge definition blue lasers, architectural cells and floating point processors at the speed of plasma. Huh? Wha? Can't I just play some games? Yes. Will they be fun? Oh, hell yes. Sorry, heck yes.

Wii is expected to launch before the holiday shopping frenzy and though no price was officially announced, knowing speculation suggests it'll cost between $200 and $250 USD or $220 and $280 CDN.

On the opposite end of the next-gen spectrum, Sony officially/physically unveiled the PlayStation 3, the leading-edge specifications of which were already known to be definitively supreme.

So Kaz Hirai, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America, came out and, in his second-best Emperor's-New-Clothes impersonation, declared "the next generation doesn't start until we say it does." A typically bold claim that surely impressed everyone in the audience except those who knew better. His very-best assertive fit of denial, by the way, came back in 2002, when Sony faced off with Microsoft's new Xbox and Hirai waxed dismissive by stating "the console wars are over!" Fortunately, the three-strike rule doesn't apply to marketing...

At any rate, defiant spin and truly impressive tech specs aside, Sony had little left with which to rock the show. They managed quite nicely, however, by announcing the sticker price of the PS3, coming available on November 17. Two sticker prices, actually, as there will be two PS3 models, much akin to Microsoft's Xbox 360 current double-option of a bare bones "core" system or full featured box o' buffness at $300 USD / $400 CDN and $400 USD / $500 CDN respectively. The base model PS3 will cost a startling $500 USD / $550 CDN, lacks the otherwise-touted inbuilt wi-fi, smart card reader and high def output of HDMI (negating Sony's 1080p bragging rights), includes a modest 20GB hard drive and a much anticipated Blu-ray drive for games and high definition movies. Importantly, and unlike X360 Core system, the entry-level PS3 will not be upgradeable to the premium PS3, which will cost an unprecedented $600 USD / $660 CDN and include the full suite of multimedia enablers plus a bigger, 60GB hard drive.

Meanwhile, the PS3 controller, while looking like the previous system's controller, the Dual Shock, itself much lauded as the prevailing gamepad standard, will no longer have the force-feedback or "double rumble" feature by which it got its name. Instead, it will sport 3-dimensional motion sensitivities, a feature that simply smacks of last minute Nintendo copycatting. Sony maintains that force feedback was removed because it interferes with motion tracking, though the omission is more likely due to the fact the Immersion Corporation holds patents on the "haptic feedback" technology involved and has successfully stopped Sony from using it without permission (or royalties fees).

Further, during Sony's press conference demonstration of the forthcoming Warhawk aerial combat game--a knock-out, to be sure--, the twist and gyrate controller interface looked tetchy at best, more like carpal tunnel physiotherapy than gaming.

Nevertheless, several PlayStation 3 game demos and trailers on the show floor did stand out as categorically mind-blowing; Final Fantasy XIII looks to launch a hundred thousand PS3s all by itself, Heavenly Sword is pure killer-sexy, and a trailer of Konami's forthcoming Metal Gear Solid 4 stole the show as the most demonstrative of next-generation game intensity with high drama (albeit a wee cheesy), nitro-injected action and unmatched artistic flair.

Still, to achieve such fantastic-ness, to truly harness PS3's unquestionable horsepower leadership, developers need to put in a lot of work, and many game designers are already openly lamenting the cruel learning curve. The designer's designer, the legendary John Carmack (Quake, Doom) in a G4TV interview, went so far as to say, "I do think Sony made a less optimal decision than Microsoft from the perspective of game developers."

Corroboratively, perhaps, of the partially finished PlayStation 3 games on the show floor that bothered to state development progress, not one showed as more than 50 percent complete. With only six months left until the PS3 launches, the developers of those games may need to either pull out all stops or cut the corners off the bleeding-edge if they hope to make it in time for the holiday shopping frenzy... or not.

So it follows that Microsoft had little to do at the show aside from show up, watch Sony drop the ball and admire Nintendo for innovating in an arena no one else was planning on entering.

It helped that the 6 month old Xbox 360 was there to remind the masses that next-level gameplay, seamless online integration and ease of development were already at hand at a formerly high, now comparatively-reasonable price.

Then, bringing Bill Gates out for his first-ever E3 appearance pretty much trumped everyone with a) the sheer novelty of seeing the world's richest man in person and b) implying that the world's richest man in person gave the same weight of import to Xbox 360 as he did to his other pet projects, like that world-standard operating system and other globally dominating software that made him the world's richest man.

Cool too, Gates didn't just show up, he spoke. And he spoke large. Xbox Live for Windows, Windows Vista/X360 cross-compatible games, DirectX 10 multiplatform (including mobile) graphics standards with six times the performance of DirectX 9, affordable HDTV ...Oh, and a few wee little bombs called Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto 4, and the almighty Cliffy B's Gears of War, all coming to Xbox 360 real soon like.

MS Fireworks speaking for themselves, basically.

But while Sony did appear to drop the ball in a rather large way by the majority of E3 accounts (the price backlash alone is huge, if you care to Google it), the electronics giant does have a rather large buffer zone when it comes to consumer support. With roughly two-thirds the current console market share (the handheld game market is dominated by Nintendo), plus the support of several major movie studios banking on PS3 and Blu-ray to become the next DVD movie standard (not the least of which is mega-media conglomerate Sony Pictures, obviously), Sony may have hit a snag, but one from which to tear free easily by sheer momentum alone.

Carmack also asserted that Sony's leading market position cannot be ignored, that "developers are essentially forced to sweat blood to go ahead and take advantage of the dominant platform."

Still, Peter Moore, Corporate Vice President, Interactive Entertainment Business Entertainment and Devices Division Microsoft Corp. and Holder of the World's Longest Job Title, pretty much summed up the next-generation console wars as the E3 showfloor told it, stating on record that consumers could--and most likely would--buy two new generation game systems: The Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, because both combined cost the same as a single PS3.

Indeed.



Also See:

• Inside E3 2006: Sony Spills PS3 Beans at Pre-E3 Show


• Inside E3 2006: Nintendo runs risk, gladly, impressively


• Inside E3 2006: Gates' Orwellian vision convincing, enticing