I will be writing post-E3 commentaries for everything at E3 this year.
Last year, I didn’t because pretty much everyone does. E3 is where a juggernaut of news and information comes out. Doing a post E3 then felt like being like everyone else. Besides, who would want to come to this page during E3? There are so many announcements and all, everyone’s eyes would be appropriately distracted.
So I spent E3 2008 on a beach on Galveston (before it got turned upside down by the hurricane. It has, amazingly, been rebuilt since then). While there, I was carefully examining the trends in female beach fashion (*cough* *cough*). I did watch Nintendo’s Conference live, and I do admit to laughing in an uproar when it was over. Animal Crossing Wii as Reggie’s ‘hardcore’ game? Hahahaha. Wii Music? Oh man. Even my June mistress told me to stop laughing so much because I thought it was so funny. The message forums went nuts. Incredibly, so many people went to my page that parts of it went down!
I like to let other people do the commentary and all first since the only reason why I am doing this is because no one else is. I truly wish someone else would do it so I can say ‘cya’ and do something else. Matt from IGN got warm when he said, “This seems like… an aggressive move from Nintendo…” But the conventional wisdom is that Wii is just nice puppies and rainbows ‘expand the industry’ and is not ‘competing’. So Matt quickly abandoned that line of thought. But for a moment, he was there. Then he said the greatest quote (in the IGN podcast that followed) that has ever been said in the games industry: “Going to a Nintendo conference and not hearing about any core games is like going to Church and not hearing about Jesus Christ.” There were some people on the forums that recognized what Nintendo was doing especially with the giveaway of unveiling Motion Plus before the Microsoft conference. It was great fun for me to watch some ‘experts’ stammer around about what Nintendo was doing.
To me, each E3 has been fun. E3 2006 was fun because of the huge Wii line and reception. E3 2007 was fun because of hardcore meltdown on ‘the end of gaming’ that was Wii Fit. E3 2008 was fun because I thought Wii Fit was the bottom of how crazy the hardcore could get, but I was clearly wrong on that. “Nintendo is dead to me!” they said. Hahahaha. E3 2009 will hopefully be even MORE fun.
I will post stuff on this blog about E3 at least within 24 hours after the conference. Most likely, it will be very shortly after the conference especially Nintendo’s. I expect Microsoft and Sony’s to be fairly tepid as they have been in the last few years so commentary on them will follow but likely nowhere as soon as Nintendo’s (within 24 hours for all at most).
There will be no ‘second by second’ response here because I think that is a waste of time. During the E3 conference, I expect everyone to actually be watching the conference, not refreshing a page. I know there are people at work who can’t view the conference and have to rely on these second by second accounts to find out what is going on. But my focus isn’t to say WHAT happened, since you will get news about that aplenty, but you will find out WHY it happened. Why is Nintendo doing this? Why is Microsoft doing that? That sort of thing.
But let us look at the bigger pattern shaping…
E3 2006: Launch of Phase One
Nintendo applies much welcome stagecraft. Miyamoto wore a tuxedo and used the Wii-mote as a conductor’s wand to start it off. Reggie gave a good philosophy of the Wii, of the WHY. Wii Tennis on stage stunned people. Launches are very tough, so it is no wonder Nintendo pulled all the stops for this.
E3 2007: Maintaining Momentum
How to push greater momentum? Introduce another motion based controller in the game of Wii Fit. Hardcore crybabies didn’t like it, but this was a very good move. If Microsoft or Sony were even thinking of copying the Wii-Mote, Nintendo showed they can easily pull another rabbit from their hat.
E3 2008: The Pre-Emptive Attack
Since no one cares about Nintendo’s strategy because it is a separate direction from the conventional wisdom of ‘The Industry’, everyone missed that Nintendo was unleashing a pre-emptive attack on a disruptive counterattack from a competitor. Microsoft and Sony, long rumored to make a motion controller, failed to present one. So it was a pre-emptive attack on a counterattack that did not come.
E3 2008 was an extremely aggressive response from Nintendo. If you have ever wondered what a ‘console war’ would look like over the ‘expanded market’, E3 2008 is your answer. For evidence it was an aggressive move, look at how Nintendo unveiled the Motion Plus before the Microsoft Conference. On stage, Nintendo execs warned about ‘imitators’ as if someone had released another motion controller. No one saw this because no one can possibly imagine Nintendo being so hostile especially with the Wii. Wii is just about ‘growing the market’, right? Well, no.
E3 2008 was also noteworthy because it is completing Phase One. Some games, such as Wii Music, were being kicked around that Nintendo wasn’t quite sure how to proceed. Waste not, want not, is a Nintendo motto in that their game development assets need to be used somehow. So the Wii Music work that was done was somehow put together and released. Nintendo announced that the software ideas of when the Wii launched were now complete. Sports Pack ended up becoming Wii Sports. Health Pack ended up becoming Wii Fit. The Art Pack (?) ended up becoming Wii Music. In other words, Nintendo had wrapped up Phase One.
E3 2009: Launch of Phase Two
If I’m correct, Nintendo’s conference will anchor around Motion Plus. If Nintendo was counterattacked, Motion Plus would have been out by now. But since Nintendo wasn’t, they could continue along their original plans for Phase Two.
Motion Plus will be like Wii 2.0. It will be given a ‘mini-launch’ with an array of software to go with it to satisfy both the Core and Expanded markets.
Even if Microsoft and Sony launch a motion controller now, it is too late. Nintendo will launch Phase Two. And Phase Two will have decent to good software to come out with it. Microsoft and Sony, if they did come out with a motion controller of the same ability as Motion Plus, will be unable to match the software coming out. They also wouldn’t be able to match Nintendo’s software. But they would be unable to talk third party companies to develop games for their controller. Nintendo doesn’t have that problem because its first party software drives the install base of any peripheral or console of Nintendo. Third parties just jump aboard the wagon.
Some will say E3 2009 is Nintendo responding to E3 2008. This is not really true. There is a long term strategy Nintendo is following. Phase Two was always going to come out.
Will there eventually be a Phase Three? This would be around 2012 if a Phase Three comes out. Phase Three could be the Wii successor. Phase Three could be another Motion Plus device.
While Microsoft and Sony attempt to eliminate all differences between a console and PC with the exception of the keyboard and desk, Nintendo is striving to create a gulf of difference between the two of them. The Wii is splitting the console industry straight down. As motion controls get better, the games become more interesting and different than what can be experienced on the old generation machines such as Xbox 360 and PS3. The line that separates the Wii and HD Twins will turn into a gorge and then a canyon. More and more people will become used to the motion controls of the Wii and find the lack of them ‘wrong’ on the other consoles. Microsoft and Sony will be stuck in a shrinking box.
As motion controls get better and better, eventually gamers will be unable to play games that are not motion controlled. Young children, growing up on the Wii, are already doing this. The result is that the Expanded Market was the ‘soft spot’ to slam in a lever. As motion controls increase, the pressure on the lever increases. Eventually, Microsoft and Sony get toppled over… disrupted.
