Prognosticating E3

With E306 getting underway, basically tomorrow, Game|Life has some predictions of what we'll see from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. From the Nintendo piece: "Remember the amazing surprise when Twilight Princess was shown off at E3 2004? Nintendo's press conference on Tuesday will be something on the order of two dozen of those 'holy shit!' moments, all strung together. Fanboy tears will flow. Nintendo will make some surprising announcements about online for both DS and Wii. The 'nunchuck' attachment for the Wii will also have an accelerometer inside it -- it won't be able to detect the position of the controller relative to the screen, but it will be able to detect tilt."

Comments

Tilt, huh?

[Dr. Eggman]

Sounds like a great pinball machine simulator! Great for Monkeyball, or Starfox perhaps.

My Predictions

[miyako]

The article's predictions seemed reasonable, though really there is no way of telling how accurate they may be. Keeping in line with the E3 fervor, I'll post some of my own predictions of what I think (or perhaps hope) will happen at E3.
Nintendo

• Nintendo will announce a general release date for the Wii. It will be sooner than expected.
• Nintendo will announce some accessory for the DS that will add motion-sensitivty to it, for use with the Wii.
• Twilight Princess will be delayed.
• Nintendo will show off a slew of sports games for Wii, including Tennis, Golf, and Fishing.
• We may see the next "Halo" on the Wii. At the very least, the next Duck Hunt.
• Wii launch titles will include a Mario game and a Wario game.
• We will probably learn more about the Virtual Console.

Sony

• We will see a re-designed controller for the PS3. It will still look like a boomerang, but will look slightly more like the PS2 controller.
• Sony will announce that the PS3 will launch in Q1 2007.
• We'll see the same MGS and RE demos.
• Sony will show new trailers that are "approximations" of what the system might be capable of.
• The PS3 will not be playable.

I don't really follow Microsoft much, nor care much about the 360, so I will not make predictions regarding it.

Re:My Predictions

[Anonymous Coward]

We may see the next "Halo" on the Wii. At the very least, the next Duck Hunt.

I wouldn't say the next Halo but then again I would say that (except for easily set-up 16 player lan games) Halo was an over-rated game that was outshined in practically every way by PC first person shooters when it was released.

I do think that Red Steel is going to be the console First Person Shooter to watch for this year. The reason I believe this is that Nintendo is working very closely with Ubisoft to produce the highest quality of game, and I imagine that Red Steel is (one of) Nintendo's Prototype Games for the Wii's controller. What I mean by Prototype Game is that Nintendo has a habit of developing games (when they produce new features in a console) where they attempt to take as much advantage of the unique features of their system; Nintendogs uses both screens, the touch screen, and voice commands very effectively; Mario 64 took advantage of the analog stick, and the camera buttons; and Super Mario World used the shoulder buttons to allow Mario to fly. (On a side note I would say that the Nintendo DS has several Prototype Games because the feature set can be used in many different ways; Nintendogs, Electroplanktin, Animal Crossing, Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Meteos all use various features very well). The reason why it is good for Red Steel to be a prototype game is that Nintendo puts a lot of effort behind these games, and they usually turn out well, because they are essential in demonstrating the design of the interface to the public; at the time of Mario 64 people didn't see the need for analogue input, and at the time of Super Mario World people didn't understand why shoulder buttons would be useful.

Re:My Predictions

[Spaceman Spiff II]

I see what you're saying. I also think Metroid Prime 3 could fit the bill for Nintendo's "prototype" (as you say) FPS. I'm not sure exactly why they have two FPSes, but since it's my favorite genre, I'm not complaining.

Weeding out non-industry, babes = lower attendance

[markjl]

I'm less affiliated with the industry now, but I've been to three E3s and they are great experiences. I ultimately had to say no to attending this year due to scheduling conflicts.

However, I wonder if this year two factors will reduce the E3 gross attendance of 35,000 from last year?
Consider if you will:

1. Exhibits only hall fee has more than doubled:
   • Last year: early sign up was $150, late sign up: $200 (if I remember correctly)
   • This year: early sign up was $500, late sign up: $650.
     (See Package 4 at http://www.e3expo.com/attendees/pricing.aspx)
2. Booth Babes are going to be banned and exhibitors fined.
   See http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70075-0.htm l

I have to discount the latter factor because most people don't know this will happen and probably don't care too much to complain or applaud.