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E3 - Pre-Show Announcements Overwhelm, Entertain
Thanks to GameSpot for its massive E3 update list, GameSpy for a similar E3 index, IGN for its latest E3 news, and 1UP for its E3 dispatches, as the major gaming sites update on "hundreds of new games" revealed leading up to the E3 Expo in Los Angeles. New highlights include an "epic three-hour press conference" revealing Konami's new games, including screenshots of Metal Gear Acid for PSP, and elsewhere, screenshots and a preview of Metroid Prime Hunters for Nintendo DS, the announcement and screenshots of "unique armband"-toting EyeToy: AntiGrav for PS2, preview and screenshots of Mario 64x4 for Nintendo DS, and much, much more. What's been your favorite hardware or software revelation so far?
Although at the price that people are estimating I wonder if it would even succeed without competition. It's too similar to the Game Gear/Lynx for comfort, in terms of price and potentially poor battery life.
I agree in that storage medium was a big factor in the Playstation vs. N64 battle but in portables, this will be a little different.
In a portable, I would think that moving parts would cause serious battery drain. Cart vs. Optical, the cart is going to produce a longer battery life and will have faster access. Plus, they are much more durable than optical. Now, the optical will most likely have a much larger storage capacity. It'll be interesting to see what consumers choose in the long run.
In the end, it will still be about one thing. Games. Consumers will follow where their games lead them. And right now, it's a tough call. PSP has Metal Gear and Gran Turismo. DS has Mario and Metroid. With both having more to come. Mind the fact that the DS is supposedly backwards compatible where the PSP has no previous library.
2.5 hours of gameplay?
If that's true, Sony already lost.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
In terms of gameplay quite clearly Warioware DS. After the innovation with the original, I wasn't sure what more they could add (the GC Warioware didn't seem worth it) but the kind of stuff I'm reading about Warioware with a touch screen...yeah, that's going to be totally new gameplay.
Then again, name means little; tell me Super Mario Bros 2 is just a Super Mario Bros 1 rehash. (Given that it wasn't even a Mario game to start with, but repackaged as one...).
There's also that little fact where guess which games make headlines in the previews? The big name stuff--cheap sequels to games that turned out really popular. You have to sift through the garbage if you want to find anything. PSP games people are excited about are Metal Gear, Gran Turismo, Viewtiful Joe, and Devil May Cry. XBox games people are excited about are Halo 2, Half Life 2, and Doom 3. GC games people are excited about include various things with Zelda, Resident Evil, Metroid, and Mario in the title.
It wasn't just the storage system that helped the PS 'beat' the N64, though; Sony's marketing and the focus of its games played a large part - specifically titles like Wipeout, which roped in a huge casual market while Nintendo at launch were wowing the longtime gamers with Mario 64, but hardly attracting the man in the street. Sony continued this trend with titles like Gran Turismo, and generally created the casual gaming market.
That isn't to say Nintendo didn't produce some cracking games, but their market for them was always limited more by their image than by the choice of cartridge technology. Obviously the expense of cartridges didn't help (when Turok came out in the UK, it cost almost twice as much as a new PS game), but games like Resident Evil 2 (admittedly a late entry) showed that the cartridge could compete with the CD, and games from the outset like Mario 64 and Pilotwings proved that Nintendo could deliver the goods regardless of format.
Anyway, the handhelds? Well, being the owner of a NES and SNES, and therefore familiar with the original Mario Kart, Metroid and Mario games. the Game Boy Advance hasn't done much to wow me beyond Advance Wars and Wario Ware. I'm sure it's a fantastic system for someone who's playing Mario Kart or Super Mario World on it for the first time, but I'm clearly a jaded old fart. The link-up options and touch screen sound like they could be promising, if used well. At the same time, the inclusion of an analogue controller on the PSP is important and sadly missing from the DS - though it would probably boost the price and maybe raise the vulnerability of the unit.
The PSP software lineup also feels very familiar, of course, but there is the saving grace that many of these titles are seeing their first handheld iteration, and might gain some novelty points that way. A portable Metal Gear sounds and looks wonderful, if a little antisocial...
At the end of the day, I'll probably get 'em both just out of curiosity and hope. And I'm sure both will have a few great games and a lot of dross. So why on earth I've been wittering on like this, I've no idea. Go Nintendo! Go Sony! Give us hell!
"This certainly looks a lot fresher than the PSP offerings! "
The second touch screen, wireless connectivity, and built in microphone didn't freshen things up compared to the "almost as good as a PS2" PSP which also has familiar games?
"Derp de derp."
Oh, and please stop checking out my ass.
God Bless America. Why? Did it sneeze?
The other AC above me makes some good points.
I want to stress that portable CD players have very simple playback logic compared to the program logic in games machines, have much simpler display screens (and therefore graphics logic), have simpler interfaces, and do a lot less seeking than optical-disc-based game systems do. That's because a portable CD player is basically a drive plugged into a DAC, plugged into an amp, connected to a headphone jack. Buttons, and interface are simple and connected drictly to the drive. But in the PSP, all those extra game-, graphics-, and movie-specific chips need even more power, as does (especially) the super-pronounced color LCD that seems to be the main attraction to the thing.
Taking all those component design decisions into consideration, I'd bet that Sony is including more advanced power logic in the PSP than they do in their Discman players, but are stil hitting power limits because of the functionality they're trying to cram into the thing. Given a 2.5 Hour movie playback time, I'm guessing this is NOT the system that die-hard RPG players (for one example) are going to want. 20 hours is not going to be in the PSP's vocabulary; it's barely doable on GBA (but yes, it's doable).