With all the press conferences coming to an end, and E3 proper beginning with the show floor opening, there will be endless talk, interviews, and impressions from thousands of people across the internet. Talk has already been circulating that this E3 is one of the more disappointing E3s in recent memory, and this is most likely because of the weird transitioning period the industry is in with new consoles right around the corner. Sure, there have been a few exciting announcements, but even as someone who didn’t have access to any of that juicy professional pre E3 press information, I can still say I wasn’t too blown away with much of anything during these press conferences. That’s not to say that there wasn’t anything exciting, though. I’m surprisingly excited for a new Halo game, can’t wait to get my hands on a new SimCity, and I am definitely one of those many people who have been waiting for years for a new Pikmin game, but I can’t really say I had a “Wow” moment at this E3. And with all of this disappointment due to lack of new games because of new hardware on the horizon, I think there is an underlying story that most people aren’t pointing to.
It wasn’t too long ago that E3 was taken over by Microsoft and Sony trying desperately to break into the Wii’s “casual gamer” market share, and it was only just last year that Nintendo revealed their new attempt at reinventing the wheel with the Wii U and its fancy tablet controller. It seems this time though, Sony and Microsoft aren’t going to let Nintendo leave them in the dust with this new idea. Although it’s much more subtle this time than it was a couple years before, both Microsoft and Sony are again trying to play catchup/copycat to Nintendo, but in a more timely, and possibly even a more effective way.
A big focus for Microsoft was Xbox Glass. A big focus for Sony was gameplay between the PS3 and Vita. And the biggest focus for Nintendo was obviously the Wii U. These three things are essentially the same thing. Microsoft is trying to get you to use your existing tablets and smartphones to interact with your TV, Sony is trying to integrate the Vita with the PS3 livingroom experience, and Nintendo is also trying to bring a screen to your hands with the Wii U controller. It seems we have already gotten into the cycle of Nintendo innovating and everyone else copying. The question is if this is actually a good thing for games or not.
I’m definitely not counting Nintendo’s screen in your hands idea out, because if any company can make something like that work it’s them, but with everyone else jumping on board with the idea in their own way the stakes are now much much higher. These companies are now in a very weird place, and there are some extremely influential and perhaps industry changing decisions that are being made before our very eyes. New consoles are so close that Microsoft and Sony are definitely making decisions about what they want their new products to be, and hopefully there aren’t decisions being made today, that will hurt the industry as a whole a few years from now. We already see that the Xbox 360 is hampered by decisions made way before they could have ever predicted what that console evolved into today, and those same kinds of decisions are being made right now.
I’m not trying to be one of those people that thinks games for people like you and me will disappear because we are the backbone of the industry and those games will never disappear, but that doesn’t mean that these large companies are always going to make decisions that are in our interest. For the past 3 years or so we have been flooded with information about new motion controls, and now we are being force fed the idea of having a second screen in our hands. The Wii was a success for Nintendo, and the Kinect has been a financial success for Microsoft (even though the only retail Kinect game I can recommend buying is a Dance Central game), so it’s no surprise that Microsoft and Sony are trying to hop on Nintendo’s new idea early. The difference is that this idea hasn’t been proven successful, all these companies have jumped on board early, and the new consoles are going to be some of the most important consoles in gaming history. Who knows, 5-10 years from now we may not even need dedicated hardware depending on how things pan out. With the economy so bad in the recent years, and no sign of it making a dramatic upswing, there's no reason to believe that an already downhill company like Sony could afford to take a misstep with their new console.
I’m not saying that Sony and Microsoft are going to suddenly make their controllers have screens, but I am saying that this trend of ignoring the die hard consumers like you and me in order to make an extra buck by aiming for people that don’t play games is not a good thing for the industry. Large technology companies don’t really have that great of a reputation when it comes to caring about the people that buy their products. Almost everyone knows that the past few years have been consumed with TV manufacturers and movie producers trying to shove horrible 3D TVs and movies down our throats when we clearly don’t want anything to do with it. I actually don’t think this will happen with the Wii U, and I think it will be fairly successful (although not as great as the Wii), but I am still not 100% confident in what both Microsoft and Sony have been doing for the past 3 years or so, and I’m not 100% confident they won’t make a large mistake when it comes to new consoles. At least we do know that Sony has thrown out the idea of an always online console, but who knows that Microsoft is going to do.
This is why I think we should really be wary of what these companies are doing and what we tell these companies we want. One thing we “gamers” seem to be good at is giving our opinions with a keyboard, instead of with our purchases. We need to realize that a company seeking a profit will listen more to decreased sales than whining on the internet. I truly think there has never been a more important period in gaming than the one we are in right now, and I just hope we don’t see these companies make decisions that hurt our passion and the thing we love to do.
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