2007 E3 Summary
Days 1 & 2
This is a summary of the good/bad that I have seen so far at E3 as well as the ranks the three big companies came in. (IMO of course)
1. Sony
Slice it up, chop it, hash it any way you want, it was abundantly clear the Sony seized the entire E3 conference. Combined with a price cut announcement a day before E3 and how well blu-ray is selling with 5 free blu-rays with the purchase of any player, Sony clocks it in.
a)
Killzone 2 in game footage – looks absolutely amazing
b)
Unreal Tournament III Timed Exclusive for PS3 – since the Unreal 3 Engine is already optimized for the PS3 and a map editor that will be out months before the 360 version, this is huge news.
c)
Metal Gear Solid 4 – exclusivity confirmed by Konami, also confirmed as MGS4 being the last in the franchise
d)
New PSP Design – slimmer, greyer, more battery life
e)
PSN Home Demo with ‘Myspace-like’ game content and own webspace to store images and blogs
f)
LittleBigPlanet Demo
g)
New Ratchet and Clank videos
h)
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue – unrendered video of an amazing 1080p title
i)
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune New Videos
j) Echochrome announced PS3 exclusive
k)
Infamous announced PS3 exclusive
l)
New Heavenly Sword videos Disappointments
a) no new
Final Fantasy XIII footage – since this is the last E3 before the supposed release date in early 08, I hope they are almost finished with this title
b) no new
Lair footage - too close to release date?
1. Nintendo
One could argue that Nintendo is actually tied with Sony for big announcements and show stealing with a list of their announcements a lot of which include confirmed release dates of some of their heavy hitter games.
a)
Wii Zapper Announced
b)
Wii Fit Announced with Balance Board
c)
Super Smash Bros Brawls Video and Confirmed release date of December 3, 2007
d)
Super Mario Galaxy Video and Confirmed release date of November 12, 2007
e)
New Resident Evil: UC videos
f)
New Metroid Prime 3 trailer
g)
New Mario Kart Wii trailer
h) Lots more VC downloads coming
Disappointments
a) Nintendo is losing the hardcore audience
b) No HD version of Wii announcement (which I was predicting)
3. Microsoft
As bad as this already sounds, Microsoft ended up in last place at E3. In fact, you could argue there were upstaged by everyone. Take a look at their conference videos. No big announcements, their top 3 games were Madden, GTAIV and Halo 3, two of which are multiplatform. Here is the summary:
a)
new Halo 360 design/color
b) New trailer of Halo 3
c) New Awesome Trailer of Mass Effect
d)
First Halo Wars in game footage Disappointments
a) Nothing specular at all...
Other Fun Stuff
1.
New Resident Evil 5 trailer
2.
New Spore Trailer
3.
Silent Hill 5 announced
4.
New Turok Videos
5.
Epic’s Unreal 3 Engine – Currently licensed by 20+ developers including an MMO slated for 09
6. Gears of War – PC footage
7. Rock Band – with online play
8.
More Info on ID's new game
Other Disappointments
1.
Assassin Creed Demo was extremely buggy, they have enough time to fix all the mess ups? Watch it
.
2007 E3 Summary
Days 3
Nothing too exciting, but some additional stuff that we were hoping to see, we got.
Things like:
– nothing fantastic that we haven’t seen before
New Star Wars: Force Unleashed Video – This is going to be one of those games that is just flat out fun… introducing the most powerful Sith apprentice ever
New Fracture Info – Lucas Arts PS3/360 3rd person shooter should be fun using new “terrain deforming" engine…
New Stranglehold videos – Hard Boiled = Best Action Movie Ever and this game is going to pick off where the move left off… kicking ass that is!
New Time Crisis 4 Video - this series is great
New Need for Speed: Prostreet video – wow! They answered my preyers way back in my
Need for Speed: Most Wanted Review (the ability to destroy the cars), it kind of looks like a rip off a
Motorstorm if they slow down crash sequences like that… we’ll see
F.E.A.R. sequel info released – what a weird way to promote this game, no cameras/videos/recorders were allowed into the demo room…from what it sounds, it looks like the sequel is going to take place after the first game… so pretend
Extraction Point never happened
for PS3 and 360 – looks fun
New Devil May Cry 4 Video - Again looks fun, but we've seen a ton of these videos so far...