That the E3, the annual gamesbeurs in Los Angeles, the E3 is no more, I have often expressed in my columns, but this year is actually a year of transition. And not only because the whole design much smaller, also the message which this year was carried out, is different.
If we assume the press conferences of the big three – Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony – then it went this year more than ever about communities, avatars, video content, on demand services, online chat, karaoke, laagdrempeligheid, partygames, happy gamers and games for the whole family.
Of course, on the show floor were more than enough ‘traditional’ games to play, and there come this fall was at least thirty games that I absolutely must play. In that regard, we again beautiful time in the coming months. But the widening has occurred and more is exploited, it is a fact. Nintendo fans have the past few days massively about to complain that for them, there is no “real” game is announced in Los Angeles. Where was Kid Icarus? Why not a glimpse of a new Zelda, Pikmin, or Metroid?
Well, give Nintendo even wrong. The DS and Wii consoles are still flying out the door, and by a purchase argument to create lwa ren (of Wii Fit you will become fitter, a Brain Training word you are smarter), are also homes for the elderly, educators, and the Dragonfly-readers as a block for the Nintendo machines. Very smart of Nintendo, and all the faithful follower not very happy about Wii Music and Wii Sports Resort.
And then the pc. How is it there? Now, the pc’s have in the last few years pretty have to make room for consoles on the show floor and this year was that more the case than ever. In particular Microsoft had it hard down at their own press conference. Went to the presentation for a large part about the new interface of Xbox Live (hint of Apple?), avatars (very similar to the Mii’s of Nintendo) and partygames (hint of a Buzz). Where was Games for Windows? Where was the new strategy for Live Anywhere? Two years ago at E3 announced as the ultimate trump card by Bill Gates himself, we can now already conclude that Live Anywhere hard flopped. Xbox 360 and pc gamers against each other would be able to go gaming: and it was a brilliant concept. Shadowrun supported this feature, as well as the science fiction strategygame Universe at War. The studio’s Shadowrun made, has now closed its doors and as there are five games that Live Anywhere support-there are many.
Yet the pc as a gaming platform is certainly not dead yet. Because the harvest out of Los Angeles was richly. With Spore, Prince of Persia, Empire Total War, Space Siege, Warhammer: Online, DC World Online, Red Alert 3, Rise of the Argonauts, Wolfenstein, Call of Duty: World at War, Quantum of Solace, Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3, Dark Void, Dead Space, This is Vegas, Far Cry 2, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Borderlands, Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway, The Agency, Project Origin, Sacred 2, Mercenaries 2 and Aliens: Colonal Marines, you do as a pc gamer not to be bored the next year and a half. And then later Blizzard, which is not officially at E3 was, with Wrath of the Lich King, Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 also have huge sum of money in the bag.
However, the climate is indeed changing because almost all of the titles I mentioned above mention are multiplatform. Id Software’s John Carmack gave recently that the company no longer interesting enough to be pc only titles. The development costs have risen and piracy is bigger than ever. And so we come to Rage, the hybrid shooter-racer of Id Software in 2009 for the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 (and probably also Mac). This means that there’s still enough on pc, the platform has not only the exclusive preference of many developers.