[Industry] 1Up Editor scrive "The Next-Gen Battle Begins to Take Shape"

[.:|Physalis|:.]

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After spending almost two weeks in Japan, it's great to finally be back home! I hope you've enjoyed all of the coverage we've delivered from the Tokyo Game Show -- it's been a lot of work but also a lot of fun. Not only did we get to report on a ton of new games, we were able to meet with a lot of Japan's finest developers -- some of whom you saw during the show coverage, while others you'll see pretty soon. We also had the chance to speak with Sony's Ken Kutaragi and Phil Harrison about the PS3 (stay tuned for those interviews as well). And then there were the nights of getting to just hang out with friends from SCEA, Sega, EA, Konami, and other companies. I spent a good few hours drinking beers and chatting (or, well, trying my best to chat, given the language barrier) with Kenji Kaido, the producer of Ico. I was hoping he'd tell me a bit about his PS3 project but he was more interested in talking baseball.

TGS was pretty much as I'd expected it to be -- it's funny how some things never really change. The layout was the same as it's always been, the booths were the same as they've always been -- and in a lot of ways, the games were the same as they'd always been, too. Gran Turismo was front and center at the Sony Booth, Devil May Cry getting played up at Capcom, Final Fantasy trailers were running at the Square-Enix booth, the new Metal Gear Solid trailer was blaring at Konami's. Yeah, things haven't changed much for TGS. I suppose the only big difference was actually seeing a crowd at the Microsoft booth -- but we'll get to that.



The big question on my mind going into TGS was PS3. I was hoping to go to the show and see stuff that would demonstrate why I'd spend an extra $200 on a console...and I did. Virtua Fighter 5, White Knight Story, and especially MotorStorm (OMG) were well beyond anything I've seen on the 360. I don't know if you can really tell from the videos we posted, but MotorStorm is just so damn impressive. Every once in a while I'll see a game and just take a step back and think to myself how far the visuals of games have come. Titles like the original Virtua Fighter arcade game, the Daytona USA arcade game, Metal Gear Solid 2 -- with each of these, I distinctly remember having those feelings. MotorStorm was the same for me. The high-res graphics running at 60 FPS with all of those special effects (like mud on your windshield) -- it just looks real. Honestly, I don't know how I'm going to play Excite Truck after having seen this. It's like, on one hand I could be playing this phenomenal looking game that controls really well, or on the other I could play this "kids toy" with last-gen visuals and steering that actually never feels like I'm in complete control. Heck, if Sony adds tilt control to MotorStorm, there really will be no reason for me to play Excite Truck.



Maybe it was that Sony just had all of its games running on super sharp flatscreen TVs, but almost everything on PS3 just looked like it was more next-gen to me. It was kind of like the difference between, dare I say it, the PS2 and the Dreamcast. Which, as you know, wasn't that big a deal at first -- the Dreamcast had some fantastic looking second gen games -- but you could still tell the PS2 was a more powerful system (and to reiterate, I'm only talking hardware here -- I know the 360 is in a much different place software-wise). I think that's a rather fair comparison, to be honest -- similarly, as with the PS2, the PS3 is a platform that will distance itself even further once developers get more familiar with the hardware. Julian Eggebrecht of Factor 5 told me that they've only just scratched the surface of what they can do on PS3, and he fully expects all second gen PS3 games -- or certainly all third gen PS3 games -- to run in 1080p.



So yeah, there's a tangible difference in the visual quality between PS3 and the Xbox 360. Does that surprise anyone? It shouldn't -- the PS3's coming a year later and costs a lot more. the games damn well better look nicer. But I needed to see proof of this -- I needed to know why I'm about to plunk down $600 for a games console -- and TGS definitely offered me that. But don't start posting comments about how I'm biased towards Sony now (just read a couple of my previous blog entries and you'll know how critical I've been of them lately). I got such a kick out of seeing all the comments about how we were either pro-Sony or pro-Microsoft biased during TGS. I think it actually flip-flopped a few times during the show. My favorite thing is when people actually get confused over who we're supposedly biased towards or against -- I've seen comments and discussion board posts where people have questioned even each other. I don't know, anyone ever think that maybe we just like to tell it like it is? We're gamers just like the rest of you, and we like to write report things just as we'd tell one of our friends. It just amazes me that people come up with all these conspiracy theories about us -- like we benefit at all from whether Sony or Microsoft sell another console. Especially Shane -- people have labeled him pro-Sony, but I think he's about as impartial as anyone. You know why he's been all positive on Sony these past few months? Because he's well aware of gaming trends and history and is just being realistic. As much as Sony has screwed up these past few months, as much trouble as they've had with manufacturing, and as much as we wondered what the hell Kutaragi was talking about for two hours last week, Sony is the market leader. PS2 will still outsell 360 this holiday season, and PS3 will likely carry the torch next holiday season. PS3 is a better piece of hardware, has better games from Japan, and will quickly catch up with 360 as soon as production allows. Xbox 360 doesn't stand a chance in Japan (sorry, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey aren't going to change the situation much). And you want to now why PS3 got delayed in Europe? Because Sony doesn't see Microsoft as much of a threat there. By the end of next year, Sony will be the market leader in Japan and Europe. North America is the only real battleground, and that's why we're getting the majority of units this fall.



The whole bias thing makes me laugh, though. I posted a news story about how Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon had long lines at the Microsoft booth -- I went out of my way to highlight some positive news for Microsoft coming out of TGS -- and then got labeled as Sony biased because at the end of the story I pointed out that we weren't so hot on Lost Odyssey at the show (even though I said we liked Blue Dragon). Can you imagine that? What, would some people rather us not report our honest impressions? Garnett, who wrote up our preview, was so excited about the game before the show -- I'd say it was the game he was most eager to try (especially after seeing it being played by Sakaguchi at the Microsoft press conference two days earlier). Right after he got out of the demo he called me to express his disappointment. He loves his Xbox 360 to death, but those are his real impressions. The TGS demo wasn't that great. Oh well. Are some Xbox fanboys that afraid of that getting out? Besides, does anyone think Sakaguchi will actually ship a final product that sucks?



Of course we're going to be all hot on PS3 coming out of TGS -- this was always supposed to be Sony's big show all along. Nintendo almost always has little presence at the show (it had its own event a week before), and Microsoft was holding a lot of its cards for X06 (which starts tomorrow by the way!). For all we know, Microsoft may have some mindblowing stuff that helps tilt things back into their favor. Who knows? But just to be clear, TGS surely wasn't an even battleground.

It was a bit disappointing that Nintendo didn't allow publishers to have playable demos of their Wii titles at the show. I'm assuming it had to do with Nintendo not having a presence of its own at TGS (if Nintendo can't show its own stuff, apparently no one else can). They pulled this same tactic with the DS before, and it's kind of annoying. I got to play a good deal of the Japanese third party Wii lineup at the event in Tokyo a week earlier, but I felt it was a shame that the system had such little visibility at Japan's biggest games show. I know in the U.S. Nintendo is going to have some sort of road show, and I'd expect the Wii will be playable at the upcoming DigitalLife event in NY, but I wonder about the Japanese gamers. A SpaceWorld in November? Hmm...

I'm curious to hear what more people thing of the Wii once they get their hands on it. Sure, everyone was all giddy at E3, but that's because it was the first time we got our hands on The New Thing from Nintendo (it's also because Sony's presence was shit and Microsoft had all of its best stuff behind closed doors). They could have made the Wii controller look like a piece of poo and there would have still been four-hour lines at the booth. Now that I've spent some time with the system at various events (E3, Leipzig, Tokyo), I have to say that I'm still kind of iffy on it. OK, wait, let me clarify this a bit. I'm not iffy on the concept -- Nintendo is so right-on about removing the controller as the barrier for non-gamers -- and I'm not iffy on the console itself (except for the fact that it's not HD), I'm just iffy on the software lineup. What games are you most looking forward to playing on it? A Mario, a Metroid, and Zelda all right around a system launch -- a Nintendo fan's dream come true! Except it doesn't quite feel like that. Zelda? That should have just been a GameCube game. Metroid? Same deal. Mario? OK, yeah, it's kind of cool -- but is it better? Is it a better Mario experience than what we've had in the past? I'd seriously question that.

Here's the big problem I have with the Wii right now: the nunchuck. It feels like a cop-out, and it seems like every game that uses it doesn't deliver on Nintendo's promise, which is to make games fun for everyone. It's like, here you're saying you're trying to make things easier for players, and yet just about everything I've tried that uses both the remote and the nunchuck has been a chore to get the hang of. Red Steel? Battalion Wars? Mario Strikers? Give me a break! I think I've yet to play a game using the combo of the two that's really intuitive. It's also almost always an excuse for third parties to offer traditional game controls on the Wii (making it easier for companies to port existing games to the system). OK, so some games play a little differently on the Wii -- but are they any easier or better? With some of them, I felt like I might as well be using a normal controller -- at least I wouldn't have two damn pieces to worry about.

There's also the asthetic problem of the thing. Notice why you rarely see the nunchuck in any of Nintendo's promotional material? That's because it's not exactly sexy. The Wii controller makes sense -- a remote everyone understands, and there's no stigma attached to it. How cool are you going to look waving around some wand with a string attached to it to another thing that looks like the garage door opener? Yeah, that's gaming for the masses right there. Way to go Nintendo. Heck, I'd say the damn motion-sensing PS3 controller is better poised to broaden gaming than that setup -- it's a lot less cumbersome or intimidating, that's for sure.



Now, yes, I know Retro really wanted the nunchuck so it could make Metroid work on the Wii, but I just wonder if we really needed it. If you're going to do something radical, go all the way with it. Force people to think different.

Of course, not every game requires the nunchuck, so maybe I'm just overreacting here. And who knows, maybe there will be some terrific gameplay experiences that come of it -- stuff that wouldn't be possible otherwise -- but I haven't really seen them yet.

Thankfully for Nintendo, the DS has earned it quite a bit of credibility. If it weren't for the DS, I think a lot of us would have thrown our hands in the air, called them batshit insane, and just counted them out a while ago. I'll admit, it took a while for a lot of us to realize the potential of that portable (I mean, heck, when even Nintendo couldn't come up with with any good launch games for the platform you had to wonder what was going on). Now, we've all seen the light. Forget PS3, if there's any system you're buying based on potential, it's the Wii. A lot of the early stuff is going to be A. ported (Zelda), B. gimmicky (Excite Truck), or C. just feel plain silly (Need for Speed Carbon), but give the system a few months and we'll start to see the cool stuff. As I mentioned last week, one of my observations about the Wii event in Japan was that half of the games were basically just collections of mini-games. Yeah, a lot of them were fun and all, but those just seem like little diversions. I want to see the real stuff the Japanese developers come up with.

Still, when I think about this Holiday season, I have a feeling I'm going to be spending the most amount of my time with the Wii. Why? Well, stuff like Zelda and Mario are going to be must-plays no matter what, but mainly because it's going to offer some new gameplay experiences. I'm going to want to show all my non-gamer friends and family stuff like Wii Sports. I'll have it playable at parties. I'll want to mess around with all the cool online functionality. I'll download games for the Virtual Console. I'm just going to enjoy the pick-up and play nature of the thing (nunchuck aside).

The PS3 will be close behind. Resistance looks phenomenal -- Ted Price gave me a demo of it at TGS and I was standing there the whole time thinking how bad I want to have that game at home. Ridge Racer 7 is going to be hot. MotorStorm will be what I use to show the system off. And I'm looking forward to driving the Ferrari in GT HD. I want a PS3 so bad now that I've seen all this good stuff at TGS. The only thing Sony could do now to make the system more appealing would be to pay Immersion off figure out how to get rumble into the controller.



Of course, 360 will still see a lot of my time, as it always does. Who knows, if Gears of War is as good as I think it could be, maybe I could just get hooked on that game alone and forget the Wii and PS3 for weeks at a time. Having written all that stuff about how PS3 games just look superior to the 360 stuff, Gears is probably one of the big exceptions. That game blew my mind at E3 (I said it then, but I'll say it again: it was almost like seeing the Killzone demo in realtime). It's Epic, so it's expected to look good -- I just didn't expect it to be that damn good. So yeah, Gears is the big one for me on 360 this fall.



Who knows what the next few months will really bring, though. We're under two months until the release of the PS3 and Wii and we still don't know their complete launch lineups, plus it's still too early to make the call on a lot of 360 games (the 360 has been pretty consistent in producing hits almost out of nowhere -- Dead Rising, Saints Row, etc.). I know a lot is still up in the air, but now I can at least say this: PS3? Absolutely worth the money. 360? Has the best game library this year. Wii? Buy it for Zelda, but don't expect to really love the system until next year.

[Quelo]

Sunto? 

[.:|Physalis|:.]

Sunto? 

PS3? Absolutely worth the money. 360? Has the best game library this year. Wii? Buy it for Zelda, but don't expect to really love the system until next year.

[Solid Snake]

PS3? Absolutely worth the money. 360? Has the best game library this year. Wii? Buy it for Zelda, but don't expect to really love the system until next year.

In italiano ignoranza rules 

[.:|Physalis|:.]

In italiano ignoranza rules 

PS3 vale i soldi che costa - X360 ha i giochi migliori dell'anno - Revo comprate Zelda ma non aspettatevi di amare questa console fino al prossimo anno

[Solid Snake]

PS3 vale i soldi che costa - X360 ha i giochi migliori dell'anno - Revo comprate Zelda ma non aspettatevi di amare questa console fino al prossimo anno