Communicative Clarity - Nintendo And Its E3 Fans

July 23, 2008

This morning my brother suggested that I head over to the MTV Multiplayer blog and check out an article titled: Nintendo And Its E3 Fans: A Failure To Communicate by Stephen Totilo. It was pleasingly odd that my brother recommended this article to me after my suggestion for him to check out this blog some weeks ago. The article highlights the misunderstandings among Nintendo and its “hardcore” fanbase using last week’s E3 presentation as the case in point.

To be honest, I was expecting another off the shelf smear article on the conference despite my great admiration for Stephen and his gang of writers over at MTV. What he posted was actually something that I myself was planning to write in this time slot; a clear outline of the misunderstandings between Nintendo and the “hardcore” audience that follow them. This issue has been something that I’ve been struggling to write about for a few months now and with the dismay over the conference still relevant, I figured that this was the perfect opportunity to give it another shot. Fortunately for me, Stephen summarized my thoughts much clearer than I could do myself. I strongly recommend that you read this article as it’s one of my favourite articles that I have read so far this year.

- Link Me


Tags: e3, nintendo
Posted in Industry Issues | Comments (0)

What’s with all the Hating on E3?

July 20, 2008

I’m very disappointed with this year’s E3 and unlike the majority of press and enthusiasts alike it has nothing to do with the convention itself. I’ve been greatly let down to read the overall negative toned commentary put out in the media and community. What really bothers me most of all though is the comment that the conferences were boring.

While I understand that E3’s is, of course, not the show that it use to be, I fail to agree with the idea that it was in any way boring. I personally got something out of each of the conferences and they all excited me in different ways with uniquely interesting software. While by no means earth shattering, they were all closer to success than failure. I can understand people being disappointed by the Nintendo conference due to the bullshit rumour mill, given steam by so many of the press. The typically “hip to be over critical” factor is probably at work here too but even with these in place, the level of pessimism is unfortunately off the charts, much to my dismay.

Much more commentary will be pouring out over the next week (ready for your “Best of E3” propaganda?) so maybe that will bring this confusion to light. Anyways finding professional opinions (let alone opinions from the press at all) in this industry is like getting blood out of a stone.

How did you guys find the show?

- Link Me


Tags: e3
Posted in Industry Issues | Comments (0)

Microsoft’s E3 Slagfest

July 16, 2008

These comments are related to Microsoft’s E3 conference and showing. You can read an account here.

Considering that Microsoft has started loosing its grip on exclusive 3rd party properties to multiplatform-ism, unaided by weak first party support, they have done a fantastic job this E3 with the limited resources available. Much like my predictions, they flaunted their exclusives while added value to their already existing services.

As for their showing of casual games, I’m also quite pleased with how they avoided copying motion control and instead focused on key software to appeal to the casual audience (even though they still don’t understand them and everything except for Lips is destined for complete failure). The new front end and Mii styled rip offs are neat as well. What frustrates me though is how they have tarnished a more than solid showing with rude and outlandish comments regarding the “console war” and how the Xbox 360 is trampling all over it, casual gaming and the Playstation 3.

While Microsoft ought to be pleased about Final Fantasy XIII making the leap to their console, such a move doesn’t represent the pulling power of the Xbox brand at all, it represents a struggle to break even in a consolidating industry. This didn’t stop Microsoft’s cock headed gloating by Don Mattrick; “Final Fantasy joins a long list of former PlayStation franchises finding a new home on Xbox 360,”. He later raves of how Microsoft have been tallying the number of previous “Playstation exclusive” games making the switch to Microsoft’s console. (more…)

- Link Me


Tags: casual gaming, e3, microsoft, xbox 360
Posted in Analysis | Comments (3)



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