E3 Impressions

Best moment of E3 – Watching 100 babes march down the Nokia Theatre aisles with the 3DS and lining up to see it right after the conference ended. The 3D effect is simply stunning – deeper and sharper than anything you can get with glasses (no blurriness, no reduced brightness). Plus, with the way video game worlds are rendered, the 3D is analog in depth (fully rendered depth!) rather than just appearing as a fixed number of flat layers. This thing is going to not only destroy Sony’s PSP and 3D PS3 initiative, but the TV industry’s whole 3DTV push in general. I assume they’ll be smart enough to pair it with a Wii-like put-it-in-people’s-hands marketing scheme because you really need to see the 3D, but they won’t even need house parties to have a strong word of mouth since a portable system can be carried around and shown off anywhere.

The rest of the press conference was also great (especially DKC4) but I still find it hard to get excited about the Wii after having been disappointed by Nintendo mostly failing to live up to the original promise of 2006 with it (maybe the next Zelda will help with that aspect, at least).

2nd best moment of E3 – Going to the Sony conference *immediately* after seeing the 3DS for the first time, getting handed 3D glasses on the way in, and starting off watching comparatively lame 3D highlighted by Sony as if it were something special. Nintendo could not have had better timing there. Ruthless, indeed. That and the paid actor who would probably make a better VP than the real ones were the only highlights though, as I found myself dozing off for the second half.

Microsoft really, truly, isn’t even worth talking about. Well, one thing that I haven’t seen mentioned a lot – they’re releasing a Slim model, but keeping all the cost savings for themselves, and actually raising the price of entry from the $199 Arcade to the new $299 “Slim”. That seems like a bizarre move and they won’t get nearly the temporary sales boost that Sony has received from its Slim + price cut combo last year. Plus they’ll probably have a new SKU in just a few months bundling in Kinect at an even more expensive price!

On a somewhat related note, I think the game industry is collectively stupid because there are far, far too many “enthusiasts” (people who want to do it) than there are people who are actually good at it. That would apply more to many of the studios and media rather than Microsoft and Sony though, who just don’t get it because they’re not actually video game companies at all.

I bolded the above. I have to wonder why anyone would want to go to E3. Last year, N’gai Croal was in a post E3 interview (it was so bad they sounded like Transformers) but one guy who didn’t go said something like, “I have to wonder, who the hell cares about any of this stuff?” I’m more interested in the business of it, but the idea of ‘this is important event’ is ridiculous. It is just a trade show.

What is interesting about Reggie’s ‘babe trick’, which is far more memorable than Microsoft’s circus and Kinect showings, is that the ‘babe trick’ didn’t cost Nintendo extra. They always pay for their Nintenbabes to show off the hardware. Only thing different was they made them walk out on the stage together.

If I was where you were at, and if I had one single question to ask Reggie Fils-Aime (and Satoru Iwata), I would ask:

“Can you tell me the reasons why 3DS is not overshooting the handheld audience? How is stereoscopic 3d performing a job the handheld market wants done?”

OK, that is two questions, but either would be good to ask. Naturally, if I was there asking questions to the Nintendo execs, it would be a nightmare to them. Those two questions above would be examples that would give them great trouble in answering.