Oh, boy. You'd think from reading the press that Nintendo declared its own death sentence yesterday. "The games are pretty boring," they say. "The company was blown out of the water by its next gen rivals," they say. Sony and Microsoft are synonymous with roof-raising blockbusters while Nintendo is left whimpering in a corner.
But of course, as usual, the gaming press is simply out for blood. For whatever reason, they'll never forgive Nintendo for endorsing a game that might be enjoyed by a 9-year-old girl.
It doesn't matter that the third party support is finally bringing its game face (Silent Hill, Dead Space, Cursed Mountain, Red Steel 2).
It doesn't matter that the DS remains the out-and-out king of RPGs (Golden Sun, Kingdom Hearts, Bowser's Inside Story).
It doesn't matter that Mario's treating us to a sequel to what's widely considered the "game of the generation," and to yet another experience that's completely unprecedented in the Mario universe.
It doesn't even matter that Metroid is making a shocking, triumphant comeback under the Team Ninja banner.
Nintendo has ruined gaming.
The impressions from the E3 floor are overwhelmingly positive, but of course what does it matter that the games are fun, if Microsoft Natal will only come along to destroy the Wii a year from now? Who cares that the games are fun if Nintendo doesn't have access to Sony's great exclusives like Uncharted 2 or (scoff) Mod Nation Racers?
How many times does Nintendo have to shrug off the supposed threat of their competitors before everyone finally wakes up and realizes that the game has changed? That the "hardcore" gaming market is unsustainable? That bringing new gamers into the fold is the only way to keep gaming alive?
The only thing that matters is this:
Yes, a handful of "casual" games plus a giant load of core games equals a big lose for the Big N.
And what do you call Sony's laughable, half-hearted attempt at widening its appeal with a token Hannah Montana pack-in on the PSP? Hmm, haven't really seen that one brought up by anyone who's anyone.
Anyway, that's enough ranting.
The reality is that Nintendo gave more than generous attention to its core gaming population. As a daily user of Wii Fit, I'm incredibly excited for the Plus expansion. At the same time, Professor Layton 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Metroid: Other M interest me just as much. All in all, I saw a good dozen Wii and DS games that I'd love to get my hands on ASAP.
Let's not begrudge the scant moments that Cammie Dunaway spent on some Women's Mystery game or a fashion show simulator. Those were tiny snippets of an overall conference which began and ended with the kind of power that only Nintendo brings to the table.
As the owner of a site called Nintendo Fanboy, it's not terribly surprising that I'm flagging Nintendo as the clear winner in E3 2009. But let's face it - no matter who you think "won" the conference (whatever that means), the abysmal treatment of Nintendo's 90 minutes of fame is nothing short of ridiculous.
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I have to admit, Sony had quite a show yesterday. It wasn't the games that impressed me (we knew about pretty much all of them anyway). It is pretty funny that both Microsoft and Sony have a Mario Kart clone in the works, though.
No, the interesting part of this conference was the motion control demonstration using a combination of the EyeToy and a... glorified flashlight.
Sony's new controller kicks Microsoft Natal all over town for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that it looks a lot further along and more in line with what we can expect of modern console technology. (As I alluded to yesterday, Natal is too far-reaching to make good on many of its promises.) But despite what I consider to be a Sony win, there are still a couple of very important problems to overcome.
Perhaps the biggest question is, where were the games? We saw a terrific tech demo, but heard nothing about what kind of software support might be on its way for the hardware - either first-party, or more importantly, third-party. Sure, it looks cool and all, but how can you say this controller comes out next year without making a tangible, good-faith effort to tell us what you're going to do to make it profitable?
Where Microsoft afflicted itself with this same problem at the beginning of the week, remember that Nintendo had multiple games prepared for the debut of the Wii Remote mere years ago. The technology isn't going to sell on its own: you need something fun to go with it.
The second issue, which might not be so important if we weren't talking about a company that's hemorrhaging money out of every orifice, is the question of how this product is going to be packaged and marketed. Sony's motion solution offers no significant advantages over the Wii Motion Plus, yet it's arguably more complicated and possibly more expensive to produce. (This depends on whether Sony ends up using the $30 EyeToy, or whether they need a more sophisticated camera to get the results they want. The "wand" controllers could cost even less than the Wii Remote if they don't include any more technology than was demonstrated yesterday.)
In addition, the Wii Motion Plus comes out next month, and this Camera Wand combination is supposedly at least 9 months away. (My guess is that it will be delayed.) It's clear that neither Sony nor Microsoft will be capturing any of the Wii's casual audience no matter what - it's far too late in this generation's life cycle for that, and the Wii's new attachment is getting a huge head start anyway.
Ultimately, therefore, the success of Sony's new peripheral leans heavily on its hardcore adoption. The potential is there, but it could go either way; On the one hand, the "hardcore" have traditionally raised their noses at any hint of motion control. On the other hand, already we are seeing arguments from both Microsoft and Sony fanboys about which company has the better motion control solution. This means that their disdain might have been simple hypocrisy all this time - not an objection to motion control at all, but rather a jealousy of Nintendo's incredible success with the concept.
We will see in time.
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If High Voltage is trying too hard, Microsoft is trying even harder. After seeing the far-reaching plans on display during yesterday's presentation, it's become clear to me that Nintendo will go another year without competition from the Xbox 360. (Sony will continue to be irrelevant to Nintendo no matter what happens at their conference.)
The Mario Kart clone looked like a desperate attempt to reach out to the casual market, and of course it must be free to have any hope of catching on. This ploy has been in Microsoft's playbook for a long time, perhaps the most famous example being Internet Explorer in Netscape's heyday.
But things turned downright ridiculous when Project Natal was trotted out in front of an incredulous audience. The technology's obviously early, but that doesn't excuse the ambitious video mockups we saw. Here's a recap in case you missed it:
This trailer was fully intended to wow the press and get the critical buzz going (PC World certainly took the bait), but the fine print says it all: "Product vision: actual features and functionality may vary." In other words, we saw nothing more than smoke and mirrors; a number of the features "shown" are likely not even in development at all.
Stephen Totilo at Kotaku gave us another demonstration of how Natal has generated unrealistic expectations. Totilo's describes his experience with Peter Molyneux's "Milo" in a positive light, but two statements simply can't escape unnoticed:
[Molyneux] repeatedly cautioned that some of what I would experience with the game were "tricks."
The Milo demo was partially being manipulated by a developer who was sitting nearby, and I couldn't tell if he was merely calibrating the game or how much he was pulling its strings.
All in all, Microsoft certainly managed to put on a show. But I'll be surprised if Natal sees the light of day even a year from now. Even if it does, it will end up going the way of Sony's EyeToy: big on the promises, underwhelming on the delivery.
Nintendo's conference starts in less than an hour!
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In one of the most desperate spin jobs ever perpetrated upon the gaming public, Sony has released a chart intended to explain the PS3's value to an audience who is obviously too stupid to realize that Nintendo and Microsoft have pulled the wool over their eyes. As established in its latest press release, the Playstation 3 is a full gaming experience right out of box, while the two other competing consoles must "peddle add-ons" in order to "keep up."
Where does the PS3's value come from? It's gaming library, right? After all, we are talking about a gaming machine here - content is king. But no, Sony conveniently ignores the opportunity for pointing out some of the cool content available on its console, instead opting to compare technologies that no one cares about instead.
I'll leave the Xbox comparisons for more Microsoft-oriented writers, but it's worth pointing out some of the "features" that the Wii supposedly lacks. Let's look at them right down the line:
- Hard Drive
- Online Gaming Service
- Blu-ray gaming/movies
- HDMI output
Now, the hard drive is a valid point, but only for Nintendo's most core audience. The majority of Wii owners will probably never even need the "storage solution" that Nintendo plans to release this year - the 512MB of built-in storage is enough to keep game saves for most peoples' disc-based game library. (It's not enough for me, but I'm one of the most core.)
As for online gaming, Sony characterizes the Wii's as "limited." Once again, true for the core gamers, but the Wii has always been geared toward multiplayer in the living room, not across the wire. And Nintendo has what's arguably the best local multiplayer experience between the consoles of this generation. Judging by the insane sales of Wii Play, consumers tend to agree that online play is less important than local.
The Blu-ray and HDMI items are basically a wash, tossed in there for no other reason than to have more than the measly three comparison points that they were able to come up with that sort of mattered. The simple fact is, these two points are meaningful only to a very small fraction of the gaming demographic. The difference on an HDTV between RCA/composite cables and HDMI is huge to that fraction. Others might see a difference, but it's not going to be the deciding factor between a $400 console and a $250 one.
Now, Sony does have a very nice console on their hands. It's technologically more advanced than its competitors, it's far more stable and reliable than its closest relation (Xbox 360), and it even has some great exclusives. But taking shots like this press release does, it's obvious that Sony doesn't understand the gaming market as much as they think they do.
The gaming library is the most important aspect of any console. There are a lot of other selling points you can use as supplements, but if you don't have great content, your product is dead. Sony has great content, but somewhere early in the PS3's development, they decided technology was more important. So they bet the farm on it and put their most focused efforts into technology.
What Sony needs to do is change its focus. It's unlikely they'll be able to turn things around this generation, but the Playstation 4 had better show that its creator has learned its lesson. Its most recent PR spin doesn't look promising.
Via Edge Online
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Sean Malstrom is a gentleman and a scholar. In his latest opinion piece, he makes the assertion that, contrary to popular thought, it's not the Wii that's gone casual - it's the Xbox and Playstation crowd.
Malstrom states that today's HD consoles give off the dumbed-down PC vibe in both their hardware and firmware aspects. In addition, "The games feel and look like PC games," he writes. "This doesn’t mean they are bad games, many are very good, but they do not feel like CONSOLE games."
You can read the entire entry for yourself, but in this case I think Malstrom is off base in his conclusion, even though his premises might be correct.
It's true that the Xbox and Playstation brands are primary targets for traditionally PC-based games, and that fact really shows through when you're struggling with unwieldy dual analog controls on a console FPS. However, I'm not sure why these games must be considered "PC games" rather than simply multiplatform games which use whatever control scheme is available on their target console(s). Certainly, the control scheme is generally better on the PC, but to use that reasoning would be like calling Okami a Wii game even though it appeared on the PS2 far in advance of its Nintendo debut. The controls are better on the Wii, after all.
Neither the Xbox 360, nor the Playstation 3, nor the Wii can really be pinned down as "casual" consoles. Each of the big three have hardcore and casual aspects to them. What are these aspects? I've been giving that a lot of thought over the recent weeks, so I will soon be posting a series of articles about what makes a gamer "casual" or "hardcore." Hint: the general consensus that's currently out there is wrong.
Look for the introductory entry soonish.
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While taking a cheap jab at Microsoft by asserting that "you don't grow the market by putting out shoddy machines," David Reeves, SCE Europe's president, had nothing but praise for Nintendo. Not only that, but unlike certain other representatives from a major console maker, this one readily calls the Big N "competition."
"They have expanded geographically and dramatically extended demographically," Reeves says. "They have never been afraid to try new products, be that hardware, or software or peripherals."
It's this kind of attitude that Sony executives need to have when it comes to competing in the marketplace. Judging by the current generation of gaming consoles, Sony could take a lesson or two from Nintendo in how to approach expanding its audience back to PS2 levels of popularity.
Via CVG
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Sean Malstrom is a gentleman and a scholar. In his latest blog entry, posted today, he predicts that the expanded market, not the core market, will be the one to flourish during these times of economic difficulty.
This is in direct contrast to an analysis from Piers Harding-Roll, which professes to believe that expanded marketgoers don't have the dedication (nor the economic resources) to continue purchasing video games.
Malstrom believes that customers in the expanded market will continue to consume electronic entertainment because it's an inexpensive hobby. The audience known traditionally as the "hardcore" will find it more difficult to continue their gaming habits since their consoles (the Xbox 360 and the PS3) demand higher monetary investment.
These opinions mirror my thinking exactly, but read the entire article at the link below and decide for yourself.
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With the NPD results in, the news for Sony is about as bad as Nintendo's news is good. With only 378,000 units sold, the PS3 yielded a year-over-year decline for the month of November - of about 90,000 units. That's chump change to Microsoft and Nintendo, but when you're pushing as few consoles as Sony, it's a pretty significant chunk out of your quarterly revenue.
This is a tough blow for the PS3, but of course Sony's bed was made the moment Kaz Hirai stood up in front of the world and announced their five hundred and ninety-nine US dollar console.
The people have spoken, and the simple fact is that most gamers aren't going to pay the (now) $399 entry fee for a console that plays almost exclusively testosterone games. The most powerful graphical experience is just not as valuable to your typical gamer as the wider variety of games and content available on the Xbox 360 or the Wii.
Sony fully expected LittleBigPlanet to be a system seller this holiday season. That much is obvious because they bundled the PS3 with it in Europe. Instead, this game (of amazing technical achievement, to be sure) sold a disappointing 141,000 units, not even breaking the top 20. Those numbers would be fine for any given low-budget third-party game, but they're abysmal for what was hailed by many PS3 owners as a new flagship IP that would carry its home console into new territory and demographic spread.
What was wrong with LittleBigPlanet?
Sony spared no expense in its advertising budget. But the game has no identity. Who is the audience for this title? Do you know whether this game is for you by watching this commercial? Of course not. All you hear are a bunch of rambling thoughts on some undefined sense of "fun." What is the game about? Sony isn't going to tell you.
It's also exclusive to the PS3, which is not a mass market console. Again, we have a system that's built its reputation on testosterone gaming. Some of these gamers tried to get their casual friends to play LittleBigPlanet, only for them to decide it was fun to build a Sackboy but they're not interested in creating their own levels (which is a lot of work), nor do they want to poke through countless user-created levels online to find something to play.
In addition, it turns out the game lacks appeal to many testosterone gamers as well. It has weird "floaty" physics, and as a platformer, just feels "off" to people who are accustomed to decades of Mario, Mega Man, or Castlevania style controls. (There's a reason those games are successful - it's because the platforming is fun, not because they got there first.) This leaves most of the appeal to people who like creating levels. Personally, I love games with level-creation modes, but let's face it - these people are in the minority.
Sony's not going to admit defeat, but it will be interesting to see how the next console generation starts out, if only to observe what they've learned from their massive missteps with the Playstation 3. In the meantime, it looks like they will continue to hemorrhage money while trying to find the identity that they're looking for in terms of their gaming audience.
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Upsetting most analyst predictions and shattering the innards of money-crunchers everywhere, the NPD results are in - and the numbers are huge. Let's not beat around the bush here - just check out the list below.
Wii: 2,040,000 units
DS: 1,570,000 units
Xbox 360: 836,000 units
PSP: 421,000 units
Playstation 3: 378,000 units
Playstation 2: 206,000 units
All told, Nintendo's hardware sold almost twice the amount of its competitors' combined. The smell of victory - of the green-colored variety - is surely permeating the offices of Nintendo of America as we write this.
Via NeoGAF
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Sean Malstrom is a gentleman and a scholar. Today, he's posted a few musings on the Wii's recent 800K week, the likelihood of near-future hardware enhancements to the Wii, and what he's come to label as the testosterone market.
According to Malstrom, the testosterone market is a specific group, primarily males, who prefer to play realistic racing games, first person shooters, or anything with a lot of violence and gore. He claims that the demands of "hardcore" gamers for good third-party content on the Wii is a demand for these types of testosterone games. Right now, the Xbox 360 is the place to be for that content.
Reading the postings on Internet communities such as NeoGAF, I'd be inclined to say that Sean Malstrom is right. There are some truly shining examples of third-party development on the Wii at this point, both on physical media and on WiiWare. Most of the whining I observe now is based on the lack of violent and/or non-kid-safe games.
Personally, I've always preferred the type of platforming and adventure games that have been on Nintendo's consoles since the 1980s. I don't really see the lack of Wii-based content the way some hardcore gamers do, because although I see the value in a good FPS, that genre isn't really on my radar.
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While browsing GoNintendo this morning, I ran across an opinion piece entitled, “Sony And MS Can Ignore Nintendo.” Upon reading it, it was easy to come to the conclusion that Ben Dutka (the author) is objectively wrong in most of his opinions. However, he’s right about one thing: Nintendo’s Wii is not (yet) a direct competitor to the PS3 or the Xbox 360. The gaming industry has expanded in a way that hasn’t happened since the original NES, and while Nintendo is pursuing that new, blue ocean market, Sony and Microsoft are chilling comfortably in their niche, mostly ignoring the gaming revolution that has taken place under their noses.
Or are they?
While we can’t really tell what Sony and Microsoft are planning, we can tell that after nearly two years of apathy, they are finally sitting up and paying attention to the Wii’s success. Not only that, but they’re also dipping their toes in to get a feel for the water. They want to tap into the Wii’s new market – and who wouldn’t? The money is too good to pass up; it’s just sensible business.
So we now have, on Microsoft’s side, NXE and its Mii-toos, a handful of creepy attempts at attracting more casual/social audiences, and a few lackluster casual games. Sony’s going in much the same direction, but taking it a step further by hedging its bets with a new patent for a motion controller. The champions of hardcore gamers everywhere can ignore Nintendo. So why aren’t they?
Perhaps they suspect that Nintendo isn’t going to stay in its blue ocean sandbox forever. Truth is, they’d probably be right to think so. The NES disrupted the gaming industry in the 80s and, for all intents and purposes, primed the industry that now keeps the PS3 and Xbox 360 in business. For a long time, “playing Nintendo” was synonymous with playing video games in the public mind. Now, playing Wii is building up the same sort of association. In the same way that Internet news is slowly but surely killing print news media, the gaming industry is in the process of massive change. It happened before, and it’s happening again. A product can only undergo so many maintenance cycles before something completely new and different takes its place.
Dutka ignores these recent moves by Sony and Microsoft, even though it’s handwriting on the wall. He points to hardcore titles such as Gears of War 2, Fallout 3, Dead Space, and LittleBigPlanet as if they’re the only examples of true gamerhood worth mentioning. In reality, he has a very narrow focus as to what constitutes a “game.” He illustrates this focus by making an odd (and inaccurate) statement: “The titles that push the envelope and make this generation what it is aren't possible on the Wii.”
So, what exactly does it take to define “this generation” of games? Apparently, Dutka believes it’s nothing more than the addition of polygons and some higher-resolution textures, packaged with games designed for the same old audience. Motion, pointing, and balance-based controls are just a gimmick, and gimmicks don’t push any envelopes. Of course, it would be foolish to say that Fallout 3 and the other aforementioned titles aren’t amazing accomplishments. Do they push the envelope? From a graphical perspective, certainly. In terms of gameplay mechanics or drawing new people into the gaming fold, however, they don’t break a whole lot of new ground. They’re improvements to a structure that has been in place for many years.
Video games are no longer the realm of an elite few, and it tends to burn up many self-proclaimed hardcore gamers. Not content to simply play the games they enjoy, they must also jab periodic, mocking barbs in the direction of these new gamers. A number of game developers, as well as Sony and Microsoft executives, did the same thing for a while. Their tune is rapidly changing.
Sony and Microsoft are beginning to realize that the latest and greatest graphics aren’t the only things that constitute quality (especially when quality is defined by the consumer, not by the gaming industry). They are also learning that more people will become gamers if you build games outside the traditional niche. These revelations are resulting in a strategic shift, away from a strategic astigmatism, for this generation’s second- and third-place consoles – a shift of which we’re only seeing the beginning.
Is the Wii a direct competitor to the PS3 and Xbox 360? It didn’t start out that way – and even now, it would be laughable to say the Wii has any true competitors. But Nintendo has awakened two sleeping giants, and now, all three console makers want to make room for everyone on their consoles. That is the simple truth, and those who today persist in their strategic astigmatism will ultimately have it forcibly extricated for them.
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EyeToy developer Sandy Spangler sat down with GamesIndustry.biz to talk about the camera tech that Microsoft is using for their Xbox 360 platform. (Spoiler: he believes Sony's solution is better.) During the discussion, Spangler also had some words for Nintendo's acclaimed Wii Remote.
Regarding the EyeToy peripheral, Spangler says, "It's more intuitive, it's very clear, as opposed to trying to figure out how to ... use the Wii remote in ways that maybe naturally don't make sense - you wave it a lot to do activities where you wouldn't be waving in real life."
Having seen the EyeToy in action, I'm not sure how much "more intuitive" I'd consider it, but if it ever brings Sony the same success that the Wii Remote brings... more power to them.
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In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Rare studio manager Mark Betteridge had a bit to say about non-gamers, their role in growing the games industry, and Nintendo's success in the blue ocean market. In response to GI's question about what would need to change in order to move video games out of a niche market, Betteridge said:
"I think the industry is sometimes too insular in thinking that people want the best graphics, they want this, they want that. Whereas something like Wii has shown that it's not just graphics that new players want - more casual players are perfectly happy with what a lot of industry players wouldn't even call last generation, never mind current generation."
Betteridge goes on to say that the future of the gaming business is about adopting new customers that haven't been gamers in the past. It's exciting to see that serious developers are finally catching onto the movement. There's enough room in this market for all types of customers!
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As Microsoft and Sony gear up for their foray into more social endeavors, some might wonder why Nintendo hasn't gone to any great effort to make inroads toward the online scene. Well, that ever-shrewd businessman, Reggie Fils-Aime, has the answer to that question.
"Nintendo has always had a vision on community - The issue is that we define community differently than our competitors," Fils-Aime says.
To anyone who's been paying attention to Wii-related marketing campaigns over the console's life cycle, this comes as no surprise. To Nintendo, social gaming happens between friends in the living room. Even the online-focused Wii Speak Channel, recently released alongside Animal Crossing: City Folk, is designed for multiple people in a physical room together.
"Our consumers do want a sense of community, and we're going to deliver that - but in a way that is unique to Nintendo," Reggie asserts. The company will no doubt continue to increase Wii users' online exposure, but it will do so gradually and deliberately. Nintendo doesn't want to be marked as just another online service. Whatever they produce will be different from Microsoft's or Sony's solutions.
Via Forbes
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