14 DAY TRIAL // It's customary for videogame industry watchers to spend the days after the E3 trade show every year and argue about what hardware maker and what publisher “won” the event. It's hard to define what winning actually means but it's more linked to how the crowd reacted to the various surprises showed off by Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Activision, Electronic Arts, Konami, Ubisoft and other put out. It's a very subjective exercise, which can be thoroughly discredited further down the line when technologies that looked great in a controlled environment flop and when games fail to make launch dates.
This year's E3 was dominated by motion tracking and by three-dimensional gaming. Microsoft focused on Kinect, the peripheral previously known as Project Natal, set to be launched in November with a line up of family-friendly titles like Kinectimals. The company is trying to extend its appeal to more casual gamers, as it has been doing for the least year or so, betting that Kinect, which does not require a handheld controller, will be more interesting than the now old Nintendo Wii. Microsoft is not talking about 3D yet and the presence of core audience titles like Gears of War 3 and Halo: Reach was pretty muted.
Meanwhile, Sony seems to be moving more towards the hardcore audience. It has its own motion tracking system, called PlayStation Move, but is also pushing hard on the three-dimension front, making the PS3 the first home console to fully support it. SOCOM 4 is set to support Move, while Killzone 3 will be three-dimension enabled, meaning that Sony could capture those gamers who are not satisfied with the more casual focus of other companies.
Nintendo is pushing hard to keep the Wii attractive by outing titles featuring Zelda, Shamus and Mario, its big characters, but it seems the focus is on the handheld market, where the first looks at the Nintendo 3DS revealed a device that manages to deliver on the promise of glasses-free 3D.
There's no clear winner for E3, although Nintendo succeeded in building the most hype for its new handheld. The true winners are gamers who will soon have more options than ever to get that ever elusive “fun” element out of videogames.