You can see from my last post that I had quite a bit to say about Microsoft’s announcements at this year’s E3 convention. Well, today was Sony and Nintendo’s turn to wow the crowd, and in my opinion, they both fell short of what Microsoft managed yesterday. I do own products from all three of them (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PSP, and a Nintendo DS) so I was kind of interested in what they all had to say. I hate to say it, but I think Nintendo’s conference seemed to be a snooze, nothing of real interest to me at all. Sony made the PSP Go official, and the only other thing of note was the announcement of some great games.
Nintendo made announcements for Wii Fit Plus, Wii MotionPlus, Wii Vitality Sensor (are you kidding Nintendo? Come on!) and a couple of first and third-party titles, mostly first. The first party stuff is the same old Wii Sports this, and Wii Play that nowadays, which bores me to death, so the only announcements that I was interested in were the couple RPGs they announced, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Mario & Luigi, and Golden Sun. All said and done, I was severely let down from their display, but then again, I wasn’t expecting much.
Sony on the other hand made a couple announcements of their own. The PSP Go is official, drops on October 1st, for $249. All PSP games from now on will be released as digital downloads and as retail-ready UMD discs. They’ve added a lot of video content to the PlayStation Network which can now be downloaded straight to the PSP via Wi-Fi. Games were a big part of this presentation and rightfully so, MAG (256 player online battles), LittleBigPlanet on PSP, new Metal Gear on PSP, Final Fantasy XIV (an online exclusive to PS3), Last Guardian (Fumito Ueda’s latest opus), and God of War 3 were some of the highlights for me. Next they announced a motion control of their own. It is based on the EyeToy but you wave some magic wand around and it tracks the motion. Apparently the precision on it was great even though the demos looked a bit rudimentary. To be honest this is the farthest thing from anything I want right now. I have completely removed myself from this whole motion gaming thing, it is why I don’t have a Wii, why I won’t get Microsoft’s Project Natal and ultimately why I won’t get this new Sony thing. I just have no interest in it. But we’ll see who can pull it off best and maybe get me interested in a year or so when they’re all out on the market together. Last but not least was one of my favorite announcements of the week and is something I will definitely be looking forward too. Sony announced PodNation Racers, a new franchise that they are billing under the “Play. Create. Share” banner along with LittleBigPlanet. It is at its heart a kart racing game, but it is all about customization, customizing your character, building your own race tracks, and sharing them with the world.
Microsoft really turned the Xbox into an all-around media device, Sony looked to improve its game library for 2009 and beyond, and Nintendo showed off a couple of silly products that I’m sure will make them millions of more dollars. 2009 looks to be an interesting year for us gamers as these three titans continue their competition with one another. I for one am excited.