E3 2007 - Does the show suck or just the media coverage?

daphatty

daphatty

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After attending the last 6 of 7 E3 shows, I'm forced to rely on media coverage to get my gaming fix this year. Thing is, I can't find ANY interesting news regarding the show. So I am left to wonder, does this year's E3 suck ass or do we have the "game journalists" to blame?

I've been to several sites including joystiq.com and next-gen.biz. These two sites usually provide decent information but dayum...

So yea, what are your impressions? Does the show really suck ass? What sites are you getting your news from?
 
G4 aside, Microsoft isn't pushing anything new, Nintendo isn't pushing any "traditional" games, and Sony is making a lot of new IPs we don't know much about. There hasn't been any huge surprises this E3. Beyond that, coverage has kind of sucked too.
 
[quote name='lordwow']Well G4's "Let's go to a commercial break in the middle of this important part" was certainly great.[/QUOTE]

They didn't just do that. The went to a commercial break every what 10 seconds. Atleast thats what it seemed like in the coverage after the Nentendo and Sony press confrence. I have never been able to go so all I have ever done is got my info from the media. I have to agree E3 does suck this year. But you have to remember its not the same E3. What had over 60,000 people going now is down to only 3000 or 4000.

Microsoft is showing nothing new other then Resident Evil 5. We know nothing for next year. So it makes you wonder what is coming out next year. Will Too Human finaly come out or will it be another year.

Sony is showing every thing Microsoft already showed. What Microsoft didn't show and only Sony is geting we are finding out that Microsoft IS going to get it but will be about 6 months later. What 6 or so games are PS3 only, and them are from Sony or some one that deals with Sony only. I'm not a handheld person but I saw more for the PSP I want then for the PS3. It would be nice to have somthing other then Resistance Fall of Man for a system that I paid 600 bucks for. I'm surprised Microsoft didn't say "Hey were geting Resistance Fall of Man and going to have lots of extra content." and next year they say its going to the PC. Sony had a good showing till I found I can get most of it on the 360 and chances are with more content.

Nintendo had the best showing if you ask me. With the Wheel and Zapper comeing out packed with a game, the FPSs coming out, the new Mario, and Mario Cart. Also Wii Fit looks interesting although I don't think I will buy it.

I don't know if the coverage sucking is because the companies covering it are doing a bad job of it, or if its due to the cut back. However that is still no excuse for telling me about games that will be out in 2 or 3 months that all your showing me I could find online. Show me stuff for games that all I have to watch is some CGI only show me game play. I want to see some one playing it not video that you say is real time. Show me what is coming out in the next 12 months not in the next 3 to 6. Thing is I'm not seeing that. At past coverages they did. Don't know if no one is showing this stuff or are they just not showing us.
 
I think it was more the content than the coverage. I was happy to see some hands on for some games, but generally the whole thing was "lets pat ourselves on the back."

MS honestly needs to realize that Halo won't work forever. Perhaps it's me, but does anyone really need to see peter moore play rockband on stage? Or the scene-it thing? Are you series. RE5 was the only big shocker for 360.

From what I saw of Nintendo's, it felt like a shareholders meeting. Hey look what we have done, but lets not talk about the longevity of the experience that people "won't let go for 45 minutes." I think they are going in the wrong direction with the third party games. Both first and third party needs to realize that the "realistic" approach to art direction is not suited for the Wii. More XIII less Metal of Honor.

As someone who was sorta let down thus far by Sony, and being a former hardcore PS2 player, I was pretty impressed to see more. Killzone looked nice ( sans bizzarre face models ). Infamous seems hit or miss. I like where they are going with the "home anywhere" things. I'll never use the mobile features, but as a more design centric person I like the idea of nice interfaces between my PC and console. Securing MGS4 is a smart move, and I think people may underestimate the ability to transfer mods from PC to PS3 in UT3. I can't wait till the mod scene can really move to consoles.

Only things that really blew me away were CoD4(hated every other cod game). As much as I would have loved AC or Mass Effect to really bring it, they didn't blow me away as much as they just fueled my desire to play them.
 
I'm disappointed overall at this year's E3, but I knew I would be from the start. I think the reason the media coverage has been so shallow is because there hasn't been much there to cover that we didn't already know about.

I was hoping for some more exciting stuff from the console side, like a 360 price drop, or a Wii sku without WiiSports packed in, hell even a PS2 pricedrop would have been something. I wasn't surprised at Sony for the new PSP redesign, but I do like the new slim model, and some of the games coming for it.

So, in my opinion, I would say that the PSP has had the best showing console-wise so far, and it really needed it. Of all the consoles and the various games, it was the PSP's thats made me the most interested.

As for the games, hmm. The games coming this year for the 360 seem more interesting to me. From Nintendo, the only games that I've really cared about are Phantom Hourglass (which looks awesome) and the new Fire Emblem (which wasn't even mentioned at the conferance). I'm not much one for FPS games, so I could care less about Halo vs Metroid, but the 360 did show a couple RPGs that I've been keeping an eye on.

I'm probably one of the few here on CAG who hasn't gone next-gen yet, and going into this E3, I was leaning more towards the Wii than the other consoles, but the lack of games available now (ones that I actually want to own) is slim, and ones coming before the end of the year are also slim. So, my preference has now slid towards the 360. Unless Nintendo or Sony has something else up their sleeves or down their pants, looks like I'm gonna get an XBox 360.
 
E3 is not a commercial. It is not for the customer. It is for publishers and retail buyers. This is how it was SUPPOSSED to be, but the last 4 or so years it got out of control and became a media circus.

The reason Microsoft is focusing on this year, and on their success in selling software is they want publishers and retailers to see that 360 is where people are spending money on the highest profit items, Games, and thus bring more software to 360 and put more 360 software on shelves. Business people could give a fuck about what's coming in 2008. Let's make the most of Christmas 2007, then worry about that.

Nintendo's wordy sales conference happened for the same reason. Boosting confidence in their brand and improving their image. It works. You will see stories for weeks about how Nintendo won E3, and about Wii Fit. Sony went with a more traditional method, focusing on games. Good for the consumer, but it's obvious why they went that route, since their sales numbers aren't anything to brag about (aside from PS2) to prospective business partners.

E3 is only disappointing to the consumers, info-wise. I don't see how you could be dissapointed with the lineup this year from any of the hardware makers.

Bioshock, Mass Effect, and Halo 3 alone are enough to keep me busy the rest of the year. The rest is just icing on the cake.
 
Basically, most of the big games from last year haven't come out yet. Mario, Smash, Metroid, Assassin's, Mass Effect, Blue Dragon, Lair, Heavenly Sword, MGS4. So no surprises = no fun.
 
[quote name='jer7583']E3 is not a commercial. It is not for the customer. It is for publishers and retail buyers. This is how it was SUPPOSSED to be, but the last 4 or so years it got out of control and became a media circus.

The reason Microsoft is focusing on this year, and on their success in selling software is they want publishers and retailers to see that 360 is where people are spending money on the highest profit items, Games, and thus bring more software to 360 and put more 360 software on shelves. Business people could give a fuck about what's coming in 2008. Let's make the most of Christmas 2007, then worry about that.

Nintendo's wordy sales conference happened for the same reason. Boosting confidence in their brand and improving their image. It works. You will see stories for weeks about how Nintendo won E3, and about Wii Fit. Sony went with a more traditional method, focusing on games. Good for the consumer, but it's obvious why they went that route, since their sales numbers aren't anything to brag about (aside from PS2) to prospective business partners.
[/QUOTE]

While I agree that E3's original purpose became ridiculously convoluted over the years, I feel that manufacturers, developers, and retailers failed to seize the opportunities that the evolution of previous E3's presented. Consumers that managed to get onto the show floor became more powerful than ANY hype machine the industry could invent. Do you have any idea how many PSPs and Xbox 360s I've convinced people to buy based on my impressions from E3? But I digress...

E3 is only disappointing to the consumers, info-wise. I don't see how you could be dissapointed with the lineup this year from any of the hardware makers.

Bioshock, Mass Effect, and Halo 3 alone are enough to keep me busy the rest of the year. The rest is just icing on the cake.
Click to expand...

Ironic how none of those three titles do anything for me. I guess, in the end, it's all about perspective.
 
E3 isn't over yet is it, they still have the demos for press to play no?

Jer, how long have you been playing videogames?
I've been watching E3 since it's inception, it's ALWAYS been about the NEW.
It's the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

If there used to be a show about 'what's up for later this year!' it was CES when they used to showcase games.
 
Well we got to remember E3 was pushed back. Its like people who want their xmas gift early and then are sad when xmas comes and they get nothing new.

Microsoft had some major announcements earlier in the year like DMC4/Ace Combat 5 coming to 360, the 360 elite, heck even that Halo 3 was coming in September.

If E3 was earlier then maybe they could have held that info a little longer for the big event. Finding all that out at once would have been a blast added on top of all the cool games coming this year.

July though, you cant really hold back that info because you would be killing sales to do that most likelyy.
 
To me, it seems like the coverage of many of the games at E3 has been more or less spread out over the past few months, so that not every game being shown is new and fresh in terms of coverage.
 
[quote name='FriskyTanuki']To me, it seems like the coverage of many of the games at E3 has been more or less spread out over the past few months, so that not every game being shown is new and fresh in terms of coverage.[/quote]

qft


imo some of the games that typically would have been announced at e3 in years past had already been announced, with trailers...so there isn't anything really new to look at.
 
Biggest let down for me was seeing Assassins Creed again; that game looked like ass this time around. The hot chick laughed when the body of a dead person had a major clipping issue or whatever but I thought sheesh I hope its more cleaned up than this for the release. For a game that is that far along I couldnt believe how bad it looked.
 
[quote name='BREVITY']Biggest let down for me was seeing Assassins Creed again; that game looked like ass this time around. The hot chick laughed when the body of a dead person had a major clipping issue or whatever but I thought sheesh I hope its more cleaned up than this for the release. For a game that is that far along I couldnt believe how bad it looked.[/QUOTE]

Take it you didnt see the interview with her yesterday. She said that bug has been fixed but the demo for E3 was made before they fixed it. She said that they are right now in the debugging and polising up stage now. So unless they find alot of mager bugs, all should be good and it should come out on time.
 
I really don't like this E3. Nothing is new. It's all old stuff. I kept expecting the MGS4 on 360 announcement and now it's "exclusive" to Sony. I still think we'll see it on 360 eventually, disc swap be damned (it isn't like we haven't done it before).
 
[quote name='jer7583']E3 is not a commercial. It is not for the customer. It is for publishers and retail buyers. This is how it was SUPPOSSED to be, but the last 4 or so years it got out of control and became a media circus.
[/quote]
Not exactly true, E3 exists to serve two purposes; it's there to inform developers, publishers, and retailers of a companies future plans. As well as to hype their respective hardware/software to their costumers. If the ladder was not true, then they would opt to show their wares behind closed doors, instead of having it televised and reported on.
 
everything was too focused on these press confrences to even cover anything else. None of the list of games to be shows were even given previews. Also a few publishers weren't there, the biggest one was Tecmo. I think TGS is gonna be bigger this year
 
Let me explain why it was so difficult to get anything from E3, seeing as how I was there.

Number 1. Moving from one hotel to the next was very difficult, despite the fact that they provided shuttles for us getting even 3-4 blocks down took nearly 15 minutes of waiting for the shuttle, getting through downtown traffic (while construction had at least one lane shut down), and then the fact that not all of these places (to my knowledge) offered free wireless/internet access made getting news out there extremely tough.

Number 2. Not being the event that the E3's of yesteryear were, I don't think every company came ready to show all their cards. Case in point Midway, who showed Stranglehold and Area 51: Blacksite which are being released within the next 2-3 months still dropped the old, "we'll be releasing more details in the future" line on us. WTF? One of those games is scheduled to be released next month, and we still have to wait? BS. If you didn't want to show it, don't effing show it! But don't jerk our chains either when you've got arguably the entire industry watching, with some tired line. That was your chance to hit everyone, now you'll only hit a select few with your press release next week or whenever. Dumbasses.

Number 3. Getting back to the media center from the Hangar took like 20-30 minutes. How can you get information out in a timely manner when you just don't have time? We had booked meetings on Wednesday and Thursday basically bell to bell. From the Nintendo press conference (9am? I don't know I didn't go, one of our other editors went) all the way to our last meeting of Wednesday which was Konami and ended at about 6:30pm or so. The time that you're using to travel was the time that in the past you could've used for updating your blog/site/etc. If we had 30 minutes between appointments we were using that to get on a shuttle and fight traffic. If you wanted to avoid that and drive, then you'd be forced to shell out the cash for parking at each location, this being a downtown doesn't make it cheap. Parking meters were an option, but who's going to walk around with a roll of quarters? Not me. Thursday was the same. Friday was our exception which we left open for "mop-up" we hit Nintendo and got about 2 hours of hands on and the hangar for more hands on and pictures, etc.

Number 4. When we returned to the media center at the Fairmont, which was HQ for the event. They had lost all internet access at about 4pm. This was 3 hours earlier than they had planned leaving many of us "in the dark" with no access and to fight the LA traffic if we had to go into the city back to our own hotels. It's much more expensive to stay in Santa Monica than it is to stay in LA itself, so the whole E3 experience was much more expensive than years past.

Maybe that explains it, maybe it doesn't. That's my experience and although I had a good time and met Peter Moore, Peter Molyneux, Shigeru Miyamoto, and tons of other designers/producers/team members/PR reps (Halo 3 and Gears of War notably) I'd like an E3 in one central location like the previous shows, with the intimacy of this one.

Edit: Oh and I met CheapyD.
 
I've been saying this exact same thing sinec E3 began.

People who don't go to E3 don't see E3, they only see the media's coverage of E3.

Best example is Gaffe's blog, which says "this years E3 sucks" and then goes on to explain that comment by listing a bunch of reasons why G4 sucks... G4 of course having NOTHING to do with E3's quality.


(Gaffe, not being a member of the press, didn't get into E3 this year)
 
He must not have tried because there were plenty of exhibitor's wandering around. He could have gotten in with Sony as an exhibitor. If he didn't go, it's because he didn't want to. I met lots of people there who were just kind of hanging around, I'm sure he's working on something that he could've shown in some form to get him in. There were plenty of exhibitor's simply showing off trailers.
 
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