Everything you wanted to know about gaming, and less.

by Jamison DeLorenzo

Last week, in case you missed it, E3 was debuted in its new format. That is, it debuted in its new, trimmed town, invite-only, debut. For gamers this is like football fans needing the NFL giving them permission to purchase tickets to the Super Bowl. One of my must-do items in my life was, at one point, to take the trek over to the West Coast and attend this event. Getting knocked off of my feet with an overload of gaming was one of those things that just felt like it needed to be done. Some other form of gaming event is going to have to take place instead. To tie me over until I figure out what this may be, I decided to hunker down on my couch after a ton of meaningless housework (repairing some electrical wiring, doorbell repair, deck cleaning, weeding, etc.) and go back to Final Fantasy XII. This was never going to be a monumental event for me, but it has been making my skin crawl that I have not completed this game yet. So I spent the next day and half leveling all 6 of the characters in the game to almost level 60… and nothing else. Good times all around, right?

Unfortunately, E3 did force me to think about something during this gaming marathon. Watching all of the coverage from G4, including the commercial break in the middle of the new Halo 3 trailer on Day 1, I got some pretty big messages from each of the console developers. Being the person that I am, it wasn’t the message they were intending. Let me share with you my impressions of where each of the consoles is going over the next few months:

Xbox 360: If you ask me by now Microsoft should know exactly what is going on with their hardware difficulties. One of its hardware consultants even posted on his own web log (or perhaps it ran in a tech journal… who cares?) where the heat problem came into play with the console. Good news right? The Elite version that was announced recently is going to solve this problem? Okay, the timing was a little off. Fine. There is an announcement from Microsoft that makes us think they have a good idea what the problem though, right? Well, they did announce eating $1.5 billion in warranty costs. Luckily for us, who are still nervous about their console dying at any second, that there’s no end in sight.

If there was a way to transfer saves off my hard disk for when the new console comes in this wouldn’t be an issue. I’m not going to replay all of my old games so I can go after the bigger achievements, are you? Wait, they still have no meaning, so why even bother caring? Well, then perhaps that is one problem solved.

On the plus side their online services are still a major selling point and they do have several intriguing games coming around the corner. Mass Effect, the new BioWare RPG, looks especially mouthwatering. Granted, you may not have much to look forward too if shooters or RPG’s are not your thing, but game selection for a lot of people is not an issue. Still, it should bother everyone who pays attention to games that Microsoft is too (ignorant?) to see that if they solved their hardware problems then they would own the U.S. market and perhaps the European one as well. It’s tough to love a console that you are scared to death of will die any second.

PS3: We just started to get a glimmer of hope that Sony was going to start to turn their PR image around. The firmware updates have dramatically improved the functionality of the console, their price drop felt like an admission of guilt and a decent market correction, and even working on getting the rumble functionality back into the controller made many people feel good about what Sony has been doing since Katuragi left with his tail between his legs. People wanting to like the PS3 were just starting to feel good about themselves.

Fear not- the recent price drop has been a liquidation of what is now a hardware configuration that is no longer in production. It is now time to make room for the 80GB model because… well… um… the extra 20 GB is the next step in the console’s evolution? Did Sony forget how awesome it was that they allowed people to take out the hard drive of the PS3 and swap it in for any hard drive we wanted? Microsoft wants strict control over their hardware and doesn’t allow this (and they’re the ones who still have the hardware failures- neat, huh?). I can pop in a 400 GB hard drive at any time into my PS3. The manual that comes with the PS3 tells me how to do this.

Nobody should be buying a console for this reason, and while technical superiority should never be the top selling point of a console (games should always be #1, in case you are lost), it should at least be able to be a selling point. It is rather pathetic when you are unable to point to such a powerful piece of hardware and convince people that you know how to sell it. The price dropped by $100, and while it is not enough for everyone it was enough to get plenty of people jumping at the console. Now the price is back to $599. Does anyone at Sony with a brain have an MBA?

The positive news for the PS3 is that there are a good set of games coming out soon and a ton in development. The current PS3 library pales greatly in comparison to the 360, but it is not hard to see that the library is growing at a good pace. If the good games do not come out for it soon then it is very possible that the consoles will never start selling. You can’t ride the PS2 sales forever (which, remarkably, are still selling quite well).

Wii: This is the most difficult console to like because I was a huge Nintendo fan for a long time. Their new controller, while somewhat scary, looks like a phenomenal idea (ignore the extra wrist strain for now). The Wii has reached into a previously untapped gaming demographic and is easily the most intriguing selling point out of any this generation. Gamers should be thrilled, not only at the idea, but that because their older relatives would actually by the Wii for themselves that they are way more likely to be getting games for their gift-receiving holidays.

While the consoles are flying off the shelves for this reason, it also begs the question- will people who never cared about gaming for the Wii buy any new titles after they get the initial box? There are going to be a percentage of people that do not get anything else. Most will probably only be a select few party games for the system and call it a day. Honestly, Nintendo could simply walk away from the Wii right now and still point to a big profit and laugh and Sony and Microsoft. I wouldn’t blame them for this at all, because at least that would explain their upcoming list of games.

This the one console that I want to like but fail to see any games on the horizon worth playing. One or two I can sort of talk myself into renting to check out, but a console needs more than that. I’m not picking up a console just to play bowling or go fishing. I have way more fun doing the real thing. Something like Smash Brothers is worth getting people over at a house and getting drunk to play, but, again, a console needs more than that to survive. E3 should have been an announcement of all the cool games Nintendo was working on, and instead we get a steering wheel, mat, and gun peripheral (the latter of which I thought the base controller handled quite well).

Give a gambler a reason to gamble and they’ll thank you for it. Gamers are a similar breed, and each console is struggling to give me a reason, although honestly the PS3 is giving me the best reason… assuming that I can focus on the upcoming games list and not the business decisions. If Microsoft can solve their hardware issues and Nintendo can solve their software issues than we would finally have a good battle of games between all three consoles- something that Nintendo would probably win. Instead, we have three hurdlers knocking over several gates past the first turn in the race. In other words, things are hardly a pretty sight.

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