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When confronted with the multi-million dollar lightshows that constitute E3’s platform-holder press conferences, it’s easy to miss the point. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo are so eager to let off fireworks, wheel out dazed celebrities, and fill the auditorium with wispy clouds of dry ice that the notion of there being some larger point to all the audio-visual braggadocio can feel positively alien. If something looks, sounds and is generally presented as entertainment, its entertainment value becomes the principal barometer for its success – we concentrate on the delivery rather than the content.
For an event like E3 that could scarcely be more inappropriate. This is the venue of choice for the industry’s most powerful companies to unveil their most important products. The information revealed at E3 can affect what and how we play for years after the fact, yet the majority of critics seem to assess the quality of its conferences on laughs-per-minute or surprises-per-second.
In that respect, Sony won the conference war by a comfortable distance. Jack Tretton is a far more natural orator than Don Mattrick, spent far less time discussing his company’s enormous success than Reggie Fils-Aime, and had the ultimate secret weapon in the form of the amiable Kevin Butler. There were no farcical technical problems and no pre-teens saying ‘Good dog!’ to virtual tigers, which more than made up for the frequent, undignified swipes at Microsoft. Sony delivered the best show; Nintendo came a commendably targeted second; Microsoft a hopelessly wooden third.
However, it’s important to remember that, beneath the pyrotechnics and slick presentation, E3 is really about businesses showcasing their products to specialist journalists and enthusiasts. With that in mind, content, and the market appeal of that content, is king, and in that sense the platform holders are more difficult to separate.
After last year’s stellar performance, it was Microsoft’s race to lose. Even with the possibility of Nintendo announcing the 3DS, the pre-show buzz was largely reserved for Project Natal, or Kinect as it would soon be known. Yet despite investing an enormous amount on a launch party devised by Cirque Du Soleil, and demonstrating the technology’s impressively diverse functionality in the press conference, the response from the press was muted, and in some places openly hostile.
When Kinect was first unveiled, the core audience expressed vehement concern about the tech being ‘shoe-horned’ into games – this year, their disappointment seemed to stem from the fact that it hadn’t been. In the interest of clarity, on a personal level we’re no more interested in Kinect Sports or Kinect Adventures than the haters, but they aren’t being made with the core in mind – it sounds trite, but Microsoft brought a tween onstage for a reason
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