Here’s my take on Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.

Sony
http://www.examiner.com/handheld-games-in-national/e3-2011-sony-press-conference-summary
Their game reveals were somewhat boring. I guess Uncharted 3 will probably be ok, but I got really bored of annoying cover based shooting where the game can’t differentiate between rolling and sticking your ass to the wall. I would consider picking up the God of War HD remake because I’ve always wanted to play that but didn’t want to bother with getting PS2 out. Otherwise, the rest of the games looked stupid.

The PSVita is probably the one thing that saved this from being an utter failure. There is probably a 0% chance of me buying it, but the $250 price point is amazing. When I first saw that Sony’s Next Gen Portable would have 2 touchscreens and all this other hardware, I was thinking “How expensive will this thing be?” Is this going to be like an ipad and be $500+? It really blew me away that Sony was able to release this at $250.

When I saw the Uncharted demo running on PSVita, I basically just laughed. There are 2 methods of control when climbing walls. You can use the control pads to actually navigate the handholds and make jumps. Or you can be pro and just tap on the screen where you want to go and Drake will automatically climb the wall and reach that point. Tap on another building and he will automatically run and jump across. I’m waiting for the day they just make it you tap on the enemy and Drake automatically shoots and kills him.

Nintendo
http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/220069/e3-nintendos-press-conference-the-roundup/

They announced a bunch of games that have been coming out like clockwork for the past 20 years. It always confuses me when people get excited about another Mario remake or another Zelda remake, particularly 3DS remakes which offer nothing new. You definitely need MORE Mario Kart versions that are all identical.

But really, all Nintendo had was the Wii U, their new console. So the selling point is that the controller has an inbuilt 6″ touch screen that can be streamed an image from the console. They then showed a bunch of concept videos of how you could use this touch screen to enhance your game experience.

There are 2 things I think this touchscreen could be useful for. The first is displaying HUD and additional game info, so that you can have a completely uncluttered screen on your TV. I guess that is kind of useful. The second thing is that it allows you to have more buttons, meaning you can have more complex interfaces. Instead of having to scroll through lists of abilities and such, you can just instantly press them. But I guess having a controller bigger than the original Xbox controller affords you the space to do that.

However, Nintendo seems to think this touchscreen shit is going to revolutionize how you play games. One of their selling points was that since it streams the game to the touchscreen, you don’t even need the TV to play. OH REALLY? Because I’m going to buy a full sized HD console and instead play on a shitty 6″ screen. Get a fucking PSVita and you can play on a tiny screen except also take it outside your living room.

Another selling point was that one person could play on the touch screen and other people could play on the TV. Then the touchscreen player would have a different role than the TV players. How is this any different from just a normal split screen, other than screen looking? It won’t matter for any online game because everyone gets their own screen anyway. It’s a party game gimmick. They should just bundle the Wii U with a free TV and they’d get the same result, except better.

All the unique control schemes and motion control is a big gimmick that doesn’t make games better. I don’t want to have to swipe the touchpad to shoot ninja stars. I don’t want to have to lift the controller and look “through” the touchscreen when I zoom in on a sniper rifle. I don’t want to have to wave it around to block fireballs being thrown at me. I’m calling it now that in the new Zelda game, you will come across some locked door with a puzzle on it. They will make you do some stupid minigame on the touchpad like outlining some secret shape in order to unlock the door. Those are gimmicky party game mechanics that don’t add anything to the game besides the fact that you have to perform some arbitrary action.

However, I’m sure it will outsell everything else because people have boners for touchscreens.

Microsoft
http://www.wpcentral.com/microsoft-s-e3-2011-keynote-summary

I briefly watched it and it had so much Kinect BS in it I stopped. Kinect is the king of stupid gimmicks.