Xbox E3 2014: Initial Thoughts

Okay, so it's E3 time again, let's dive right into it with MICROSOFT'S XBOX.

It seems that this year Microsoft focused really on games, they've got their console, they've got it all ready, all games, no kinect nonsense, just a focus on (primarily) third party developers bringing their stuff to the Xbox One. In many ways this seems to be the most succinct conference. No handhelds, no new tech, nothing but games - and it's nice to see something like that. I don't have an Xbox One, can they convince me to get one?

Starts out with Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, yeah, that's fine and good and all. But once again just very generic, I really think at this point Call of Duty needs a break. It's an obvious statement but even if Advanced Warfare turns out to be as awesome and groundbreakings as the original Modern Warfare was, I can't see myself buying it because it looks the same as Ghosts, Black Ops 2, Modern Warfare 3, it's just so generic feeling and I think the slowly dropping sales figures are pointing to franchise fatigue too. I'm not a CoD hater or anything, I like the series, but I don't want to see it become Guitar Hero, annual releases creating fatigue and eventual abandonment by the IP holders Activision.

On the other hand, Sunset Overdrive looks freakin' awesome. Lots and lots fun, really crazy stuff, a lot of bat-shit fun. And it's colourful, I love that, I love that it's bright and colourful and doesn't rely on a dark grim story to hide the fact that the gameplay sucks. In fact, here's an awesome game that doesn't seem to stick to any conventions whatsoever. It's just a lot of fun, with crazy shit going on. I'm excited, and it's an Xbox exclusive, so that's certainly a notch towards me wanting my first Xbox.

Dragon Age: Inquisition was up next, not much seen here really just a fairly generic fantasy trailer but it does look very beautiful. I'm sure more will be see at EA's conference later.

There's new DLC for Dead Rising that mocks the living hell out of Capcom. It looks hilarious using Capcom's huge amount of IPs to their advantage in this downloadable content release. Interesting of note, there's a great deal of awesome Mega Man music being used here for nostalgia sakes, except... where was anything else to do with Mega Man. No costumes for him, no cool weapons or something. I can't tell if this was intentional to parody their whole Dead Rising, Super, Hyper Turbo Ex Alpha theme, the fact that Capcom continually claims to love Megaman but does everything to avoid him at all costs. Hmmmm....

The next game on stage was Fable Legends, honestly, it doesn't look half bad. I'd be willing to buy it... if it were a new IP. The fact that this has the Fable label to leaves me very nervous, they've just gotten worse and worse throughout the years. Even one of the actors from my show Cody Griffis was in one of their commercials for their Fable Kinect game. Let's see how this one pans out before I invest any money in it.

Project Spark on the other hand, looks incredible as ever. I wanted this game last year, I want this game this year. This is one game that really does influence me to get an Xbox One. The Conker thing was nice, but no new game? That's not very nice of them, feels like a bit of a slap in the face. Well, Conker never felt  right to me on Xbox anyway, Xbox has always had the more dark-gritty games, so them having Conker just felt in the background. The original Rare game on Nintendo 64 was great because he fit in with all the cute cuddly Nintendo characters, but had this hilarious foul mouthed and aggressive edge, which made it a fun parody of characters like Kirby, Yoshi and even Mario.

Now the HALO stuff:

The Halo 5 trailer looked good but otherwise generic unfortunately. Didn't see any gameplay, which seemed to be a recurring thing, even Project Spark showed off only CG trailer, which as we know from last year, gameplay DOES exist... interesting. Anyway, they also showed of the Halo Master Chief Collection, which is another notch on the the "buy Xbox" belt for me. I always wanted to get into Halo but couldn't because I never played the original and just had no reason to. But four games in one, with a fifth coming, I'm down for that. Especially the original Halo 2 multiplayer which from what I hear was amazing. When I get some more money together this collection could be part of what seals a deal for an Xbox One purchase for me. 

That being said there was no price drop announced, and I'd really need that to justify an Xbox for me. I think at least $299 or $350 with Kinect for me. What astounds me the most is that we've actually reached a time where the original Xbox is now nostalgic. Where "with the flick of a button" as they say, you can switch to the original graphics of Halo 2. I mean, I get Playstation nostalgia, they've had three consoles now and the original had some of the best exclusives in gaming history. But when did Xbox nostalgia happen? Am I really getting that old that ten years can't be nostalgic to me anymore? I WANT TO PLAY THE ZX SPECTRUM AGAIN!!!

Finally, they also showed off a little from Halo: Nightfall, a digital series, which I'm looking forward to as a fellow Digital series producer. It's being done by Ridley Scott, which is excellent but is this the series that was being produced by Steven Spielberg they announced last year, I can't tell. When they say Digital Series to they mean like My Life as a Video Game style or House of Cards style, because it could be either. It wasn't very clear, especially as Microsoft loves to namedrop and we heard nothing about Spielberg in this.

Overall I'll say this, Phil Spencer seems way more genuine than his predecessors when talking on stage. Less jargon, less bullcrap.

Inside was a new indie game that look fascinating. I really like the look of it. Made by the people who made Limbo, it should be a hell of a lot of fun and a beautifully made game.

And here we go The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt  - right into it, no bullshit. We're here to show this and they do. This looks excellent, I'm actually very excited about this. It looks beautiful it looks huge and it looks polished within an inch of it's life. Now I've not played the original or The Witcher 2, which was the more popular one - kinda like Street Fighter II. I'm curious readers, can I play 2 without playing one, or will I be able to play 3 without playing 2. I've played BioWare games backwards and just couldn't do it. I went from Mass Effect, the original, to Knights of the Old Republic and it drove me insane, the lack of voiced hero, the slow gameplay it just felt sloooow. I hope that doesn't happen with Witcher 3, that it's so good it outclasses it's predecessors to the point that they become unplayable.

Towards the end we got a big indie reel, which didn't show off much but we did get The Division, which as last year looks great, once again they didn't show off much more than they did last year, in fact we got more last year because we got a CG intro. Looks great, looks fun, but I'm holding my breath after the whole Watch_Dogs, delay, "not console graphics", Wii U delayed for months extra, more gun-centric additions, too GTA-like fiascos that dimmed the hype of that game.

Platinum Games announced their new next gen game Scalebound, which while just a CG trailer like a lot here, looked awesome. Big beasts with original designs on a Monster Hunter-esque scale except with a modern day hero who (for some reason wearing Beat by Dre) and this dude, in addition to listening to some shitty dubstep, can adapt to a monster and take on their scales as armour, which looks AWESOME. Their games have always been these fast-paced crazy games from Metal Gear Rising to Bayonetta to Wonderful 101. It's fast paced awesome action. This looks no different, I'm looking forward to seeing gameplay.

The final thing I cared about was Crackdown, which supposedly is a returning IP... but I don't remember it personally. To me it looks like a Metropolitan Borderlands, that same cool art style and that same crazy action and fun.

So overall that was the Xbox Press Conference. It was fun, better than they've had in years honestly. They focused on third party games this time around and hopefully it should pay off. A lot of it felt like exclusives and I'll be able to tell more tomorrow when I hit the show floor if these can pay off. There didn't appear to be anything spectacular, like mind-blowing shit your pants jump up and down. But there were a lot of new IPs, which is a VERY good thing, if they can continue this momentum to the show floor this will be a great E3 for Microsoft.

FINAL SCORE: 8/10

MY LIFE AS A VIDEO GAME - EPISODE TWO: DUTY CALLS

EPISODE TWO: DUTY CALLS

MY LIFE AS A VIDEO GAME premieres it's second episode and it's sure to be a blast.

Don is finds himself a war-torn world surrounded on one side by a mysterious but beautiful woman and the hulking super soldier "The Sarge" and on the other Nazi's, Communists and Terrorists in the most awkward of alliances out to kill him. Time to First Person Shoot and questions later!

NEXT EPISODE AIRS TUESDAY NOVEMBER 20th! 

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DIRECTED BY

Brian Dickson

WRITTEN BY

Petros L. Ioannou

STARRING...

Petros L. Ioannou as Don DeWitt

Jennifer Polansky as Kera Althorn

Brent Black as The Menu System

GUEST STARRING

James Ramon-Baker as Greg Nathanson

Sabrina Jean-Hughes as Don's Ex "Jenny".

Created by Petros L. Ioannou

Produced by Leon Films, Ltd

MY LIFE AS A VIDEO GAME - EPISODE ONE

EPISODE ONE: LOADING...

MY LIFE AS A VIDEO GAME gets off to with a bang.. literally, there are explosions within 5 seconds.

What if your life was a Video Game? Don DeWitt is what you'd call a "hardcore" gamer. So much so that it's been to the detriment of everything in his life from work to romance. One day however he gets more than he bargained for when he is pulled into an alternate reality where video games are real life and realises that things are a lot tougher when your life is a Video Game.

WATCH EPISODE TWO NOW

Watch Don fight his way through real life video games, First Person Shooters, Arcade Beat 'Em Ups, Space Combat Simulators and more, only on Leon Unity.



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CHECK OUT THE GAMER BAR FROM THIS EPISODE: "LOADING" (Yes, it's real).
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Great bar, now located on Rupert St in Soho, London.

STARRING

Petros L. Ioannou as Don DeWitt

Jennifer Polansky as Kera Althorn

Brent Black as The Menu System

GUEST STARRING

James Ramon-Baker as Greg Nathanson

Sabrina Jean-Hughes as Don's Ex "Jenny".

Written & Created by Petros L. Ioannou

Produced by Leon Films, Ltd

Sony E3 Press Conference

Sony... Sony, Sony, Sony. My hats off to you guys, because there has not been a body slam like that since this one here. Only this one ends with Sony marching out triumphant and Microsoft walking away in tears. I literally cannot see a way back for Microsoft at this point, this launch period at the very least, they don't stand a chance in hell. Okay so onto the conference. This was possibly the best E3 in history, I know it's early to call this as Nintendo are going to have their hour-long Direct in less than nine hours and they're going to hopefully be bringing a lot to the table but not one of the conferences has been disappointing and this one was not the icing on the cake nor the cherry on top of the icing, or the cherry on top of the icing on top of the sundae of awesome. This was a whole extra cake added on and being told it tastes just as good but is completely sugar free and gives you superpowers. It really hit hard bringing out their strongest for what has turned out to be possibly the most epic E3 ever putting doubters like myself in their place.

Starting from the beginning, Jack Tretton stuts out on stage and essentially says "We know you've all been waiting for the PS4... so we're going to talk about the Vita". My instant reaction being "Give it a rest, the Vita is dead dude...". He starts talking about it, stats, PR bullshit, what have you. Now he's on about the PS3, yeah, yeah, get to it. Shows a bit of The Last of Us, the new game by Naughty Dog which is getting rave reviews at the moment.  Then a new game called Pupeteer takes the stage, looking interesting. Another game called Rain is shown, seems very stylistic, don't know anything really about it though. Beyond Two Souls goes out there, looks like an interesting mesh of Movie and Game starring Ellen Page. Gran Turismo 6 is unveiled, congratulations, you've successfully made the same game for about ten years now. They go on about "tessellation of polygons". I was getting a bit bored at this point to be honest. A bit more went on, we saw another CG trailer for Batman: Arkham Origins and a little bit of Grand Theft Auto V. These are all great games but nothing Sony should be bragging about too much, we knew they were coming and they were dragging time here. Well, from what I can tell, that was intentionally so.

Here begins the PlayStation 4. Starting out with finally showing the design, a somewhat unremarkable black box, or trapehzoid, nothing special. But the Sony Entertainment Network is expanding to include more movies, more music, and an Exclusive Sony Network of TV and Film on PSN Tailored specifically to gamers, whether this is like a Sony Netflix or their old shows and movies streaming for PSN+ customers, I'm not entirely sure. They're also bringing Redbox Instant, Live Events Viewer (A god send for me as I have no cable) and Flixster to PS3, Vita and PS4.

Onto some games; Killzone: Shadow Fall, we saw this at the February conference in New York. It was a somewhat unremarkable Sci-Fi First Person Shooter, as we expected. Nothing new, but it's a launch title none-the-less. Then there is DriveClub, a game free to PSN+ users on launch date, once again nothing new, same old. Next up is inFamous: Second Son, the spin-off title that actually looks pretty damn good if you ask me and something I hope that can be made to be a lot of fun. The trailer looked pretty slick, with the lip syncing almost perfect a rarity in video games because often mouths with move a bit, but it feels like a voice over, this felt like the voices were coming from their mouths, their lips truly moved. A New Steampunk game, called The Order: 1886, set in Victorian London, kinda looks like a cross between Dishonoured and what I assume is Arthurian Lore as they had a guy called Gallahad, and a quote from L'Morte De Arthur at the start, could be an interesting take to see some kind of Arthurian Legend revival in a Steampunk based setting. Knack seemed interesting a kind of action fun quirky game. Interesting visuals, a launch title. The Dark Sorcerer looks very nice, thought it was another cheesy generic dark western fantasy game turns out to be...well I have no idea, there was a green screen and a film crew involved and a bit of comedy.

Then they went onto the independent titles, right now Steam and Nintendo lead the way with indies, but Sony seems to be set to give them all a run for their money with the ability to self-publish content. Transistor, from the creators of Bastion looks pretty slick similar gameplay different setting and style, very nice looking. Don't Starve was another indie game shown off, didn't quite catch a lot of this as my stream kept failing on me. Mercenary Kings kind of a retro shooter along the lines of classic games like Metal Slug, from the creators of the Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World game. Young Horses, Rays, a Western Game, a space sim called Galaxy and a game I can't remember the name of because I was too busy laughing at Sony's ability to poke fun of their own bad meme by saying it's based on fact but does not contain any "Giant Enemy Crabs".

Then onto their blockbuster titles coming to PS4. Diablo III, without the always online requirement, and new Sony based items from games like Uncharted as special exclusives. And then what came next was like nothing we'd ever expected....



FINAL FANTASY Versus XIII... or should I say FINAL FANTASY XV. A Sony Exclusive taking the elements that were once a part of the fabled Versus game stuck in a hellish development cycle now put into Final Fantasy XV, a game that had gameplay that looked incredible, seemed to play smoothly and was visually stunning. For a Final Fantasy fan like myself, this was the killer blow to Microsoft, that was enough to make me get a PS4 over and Xbox but they didnt' stop there... Kingdom Hearts III. A game we've been waiting for since the days of the PS2. It's like Square Enix essentially have turned around and said "We're done f-ing around with mobile games, spin-offs and crap like that. We are bringing the big guns to the forefront!" Not to mention that Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, which was being warmly received by this point after all the good news, was console exclusive to Sony. A Final Fantasy double and Kingdom Hearts III really has put them on the map. Let's hope they can deliver. After that they showed a little more of Watch_Dogs, which looks great as ever, some more of Assassin's Creed IV: The Black Flag. The Elder Scrolls: Online coming to PS3 with an exclusive first run beta of the game.

Then came the actual killer blow: in what almost seemed like a mockery of Microsoft, Sony tells us it will back the player, play used games, everything that is normal for us now, will continue and given recent fears it's great to see they've listened and totally gotten it right. They even released this hilarious commercial about how the PS4 shares used games and deliver a damaging blow to Microsoft. With Jack Tretton back on stage now gleaming ear-to-ear. What came next was well, to put it in Mortal Kombat terms, a "Fatality". The price point of the PS4 is... $399. That's one hundred dollars LESS than the XBox One and it includes all the exclusives mentioned, plus all the third party titles like Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. This killer blow to Microsoft has left them in the dust. Come Holiday Season 2013, there will be one winner and it's the PlayStation 4. They've also made Microsoft look so bad now that they might be forced to drop the anti-used games policy or good news for Nintendo fans like myself, it's likely many people will go for the Wii U also.

Final Thoughts: This conference was masterfully performed and has made me realise just how much I'm going to miss the crowd at tomorrow's Nintendo Direct. It's been an epic day at E3 and Sony has taken top prize delivering the best E3 Press Conference in recent memory if for no other reason than it has proved gamers still have a say.

Rating: 10/10 - PERFECT

E.A. E3 Press Conference

Now for a quick rundown on Electronic Arts's Press Conference and my opinions on it. The start made me laugh, they opened with a rundown of what's to come then said "A franchise loved by millions" will be on stage next. Suddenly we get what appears to be the static, drums and lens flares of Battlefield 4... followed by; "BRAAAAINS!" Yep, that's right, it's Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, the game that actually might convince me to buy a Used Xbox 360 (yep, that's right Microsoft, suck it, I'm getting a whole used console now). It looks to be a lot of hilarious fun and it's coming to both Xbox 360 and One, take a guess where I'll be putting my money. After this however things take a bit of a dip then rise, dip then rise for an interesting EA Press Conference.

Star Wars: Battlefront, let's put that out there. Whatever they're doing with this game, it looks to be exciting and it got the nerd community all riled up even if it was just a basic 5 second CG trailer followed by a logo. That was a rise, what followed was the announcement of Need for Speed: Rivals. A game that looks pretty solid, but it's really gotten to the point now that not much new in the way of racing games can be offered, a problem faced by Nintendo with their own comedic racing franchise, Mario Kart. The cloud-based opponent A.I. from Forza looks interesting their "Drivitar" as they called it. Yeah, that's going to be an E3 meme for years to come alongside "My Body is Ready", "Giant Enemy Crab" and of course "Non-Specific Action Figure"... man that last one was weird. I'd call Need for Speed a dip, but it was actually alright, it's just they didn't announce anything actually new for it and spent an awful lot of time on it.

This semi-mistake was followed by showing off Dragon Age III: Inquisition, a game they seem to be taking their time with now, due to be released about three and a half years after it's predecessor Dragon Age II, the game is going open world, with you having your ability to influence the world to save it or destroy it. Oh and there's actual dragons this time. So basically it sounds like a better version of Skyrim. The lore in Dragon Age always appealed to me more than in Elder Scrolls, especially the Quinari, they're pretty awesome. I also love the way Dragon Age mirrors their world to ours in the middle ages but in a more fantasy setting. This was followed up by about twenty minutes of sports games. Don't get me wrong, I like sports, hell I love football, I am an ardent Tottenham Hotspur fan, often waking up at 4am to watch games over here in L.A. that are airing at sane hours back in London. But EA Sports took to center stage for so damn long with a weird lyrical intro with a basketball, lots of talk about dribbling and while I'm sure it's all nice and I've played Fifa quite a bit, though I still suck bad, they spent so damn long on it. Especially right after they spent no more than three and a half minutes on what could be BioWare's masterpiece. Perhaps like Battlefront EA just didn't have much to show off of the game. It was a CG trailer once again afterall. Interesting that they've kept the more stylised art style.

There was also a bit more on Battlefield 4, doesn't seem all that different to Battlefield 3 but still looks like a solid game and given how fed up I'm getting with Call of Duty, seems like the game I'm going to try out next as an FPS, along side their new I.P. Titanfall, which looks pretty mecha-badass too. The visuals of BF4 and it's sound are once again absolutely superb I should add. Though aside from "Commander Mode" returning from their previous entries, I didn't' see much new stuff about Battlefield 4, afterall the game is due out soon, so how much more can they say?

Final Thoughts: Overall EA had a fairly good conference, it wasn't much in the way for more hardcore gamers. Nerds like myself were a little disappointed we didn't see more but there's certainly a lot to look forward to and either way, there's always... GARDEN WARFARE.

Conference Rating: 7/10 - GOOD

Microsoft E3 Press Conference

Microsoft's E3 Press Conference went down pretty much as expected. They threw games out there, lots of games. Everything they didn't' show at the XBOX One reveal was shown. They showed a lot of games that were new like RYSE: Son of Rome and Titanfall as well as old favourite like Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, a game we all knew was headed to XBox after Rising became the first Metal Gear game to crossover to Microsoft and become cross-platform. Then you've got the surprise announcements, like Killer Instinct returning this time to Xbox, which for Nintendo fanboys like myself serves as a bitter reminder of the fact that Nintendo has lost so much third party support. That being said even if it's not the same Rare that was at Nintendo, it's nice to see them reviving an old favourite once again, I look forward to smashing some skulls as Glacius. Or maybe I don't because the price point rolled around. $499...

And this is for a console that essentially bans used games and puts the power with the game publishers rather than the gamers themselves. The 24 online check in requirement and other DRM issues were not addressed at all in the conference, probably to their benefit or else they'd probably cause all kinds of issues. To be honest, had they just ditched the disc drive system, they might have avoided a lot of this hassle for themselves because that's essentially what they're doing, but discs are still around and I literally can't remember the last PC game I bought that had a disc, it's all steam or formerly Direct2Drive for me.

Now speaking as a person who before the reveal, wanted so badly to be excited for the next XBox and for their E3 presentation. I am not an XBox guy, I have never owned a Microsoft games console but I'm a PC user all the way, even a somewhat defender of Windows 8. I'd hoped the Xbox One would blow me away, and honestly, between the extortionate price point and the ban on used games, I feel I can't justify the purchase of their new console. I don't think I ever can unless they sort these issues out. The Microsoft Press Conference was solid for gamers, until you look behind the scenes a little more and realise that for all these great games, there are the huge flaws and issues in the Xbox One.

Perhaps for many Xbox Gamers, they don't care too much about that, they'd like to play the new Halo game that was announced, with no number or subtitle, we'll see how that goes down. But it's looking like the console will have a solid line up but it's a line up that for the most part, Sony will be able to compete with, match or even out do, we'll find out more soon enough.

Final Thoughts: A Solid Presentation of Games and Exclusives, but the $499 Price Point and the DRM issue still lurks over the Xbox One.

Conference Rating: 8/10 - GREAT***

*** Note the conference was great itself, but not enough to override what they'd said in the past, which at least they got out of the way early.

Pre-E3 Expo Thoughts

Just a short update this weekend. This week I will be at E3 Expo 2013, I'll get to see all the awesome new stuff Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft put out there, as well as see what else is in store. Will there be a new Zelda? A New Final Fantasy? Will Call of Duty: Dog Warfare be any good, or just yet another cash-in sequel by Activision and Infinity Ward. And perhaps most importantly, does the Xbox One actually play video games?

I'll be doing a three-day analysis at the end of each day, try and give you some impressions of what I get to play. Bearing in mind I am working at E3 this year for gaming website Screwattack.com, for whom I'll be editing many of their videos in the media room. However I'll try and give my best impressions, specifically relating to the major conferences, we have Sony and Microsoft dishing them out and Nintendo with their hour long Nintendo Direct trying to bring the conference less in a bombastic approach and a more... well direct one.

How will E3 go down this year, no idea. Everything seems pretty level this year, Sony and Microsoft have their new consoles coming up, Sony appearing to be in the lead here. They've shown off more games, though people seem to forget how bad their conference was in face of how disastrous the XBox Reveal was. Microsoft have be all about the games this year, tell us what is going to make someone like myself a person who has never owned an Xbox console before, buy one. What exclusives are you bringing to the table? The DRM thing is a real crap, so maybe they might sort something out there, but it's growing increasingly concerning that they won't be changing that any time soon and we'll all have to pay full price for used games, which frankly is BULLSHIT.

Sony on the other hand have shown off a few games, however they haven't shown off any heavy hitters really just the usual Sony stuff that we expect from them. When I saw the PS4... the presentation that is, I really hope they actually show the goddamn console this time, I was quite disappointed that all they showed off were games that had minute graphical enhancements and there was nothing new about the PS4. They've spoken about using the Vita in a similar way to the Wii U, but for someone to do that would cost them somewhere in excess nearly $1000 in all likely-hood. One thing they should emphasises is a worldwide price cut for the Vita and a massive push for cross-platform play. I love the idea that you can play one game on your PS3/PS4 then go play it on your Vita when you leave your house. The only problem is that you have to buy full copies of each. They've changed that for a couple of games but really they need to make it across all games, buy one copy get the other digitally free. Or buy the game digitally and you get the game on both handheld and home console.

Nintendo have to show off their big guns on the software side, with a very rough start to the Wii U, as an old-school fanboy I'm hoping they can pull something out of the hat. We're expecting Smash Bros, Mario, Zelda and hopefully a few surprises along the way. I'd hate to see their direct show off stuff we already knew was coming. I'd like to see some Mario Kart going on and perhaps most important for me, I want to see what Monolith Soft is working on, everyone keeps talking about Retro Studios... yeah, yeah Metroid Prime was a good game and DKC Returns was great too. But Xenoblade Chronicles was probably the best game on the Wii, and now Monolith Soft are bringing that kind of awesome RPG to the Wii U. What's coming up, I have no idea. But I'm very excited, let's just hope they don't flop like last year's conference, which started out so well and then completely lost steam by Nintendoland, which ironically has turned out to be one hell of a game.

How will things go down, it seems all companies need to focus on their games, with Nintendo probably a step behind because despite their one year jump on the others, they've not done much with it. Let's see how things go down, I'll see you guys and gals on Tuesday.

Mobile Gaming: A Threat to Consoles?

Okay, I'm going to start this by saying that really, anyone with a brain can answer this but apparently it needs to be addressed. Mobile Gaming has become a huge part of the industry it cannot be denied. Now whilst many people out there think that mobile gaming is a big threat to the industry. That by having easy access via downloads from an App Store or Google Play or whatever Nokia is doing nowadays, the smartphone and tablet gaming companies have captured many gamers and it will drastically damage the industry forever. I'm here to say; no in fact it is the opposite, it's made it bigger and better than ever. 

Let's start by realising that the audience hasn't transferred, this current generation of Wii, PS3 and 360 has sold more console units than any of the previous generations including the previous where the PS2 became the best selling home console of all time. Now before anyone points out that smartphones have only been around this generation and just started gaining steam, I should point out that the first iPhone, the smartphone that kick-started this so-called "competition", was released less than a year after the Wii, the best selling home console of this generation. In addition as I write this the pre-orders for the Wii U are sold out practically everywhere and I can't find a damn single one to buy, which is really pissing me of and getting me so god-damn annoyed that I can't contain it anymore I'm gonna scr-- Sorry where was I? Ah yes; iPhones... 

The audience hasn't shifted, it's just grown. People are still looking at the gaming audience like it's 1985 and the NES has just been released, they fail to realise that gamers aren't just people who play these things for a giggle and a bit of fun to pass time. They play it for hours and hours, they try to be the best, they actually compete online like sports, sometimes even for money.  Now were this 1985 I'd say yeah, these smartphones are a competition because gamers back then were pretty casual. There weren't many games that took longer than five hours to complete tops if you were good at it and even those that did like Final Fantasy don't take anywhere near the kind of hours invested that their modern counterparts have... even if those games aren't quite my "personal favourites" shall we say? It's much the same as movies, people don't watch movies to pass time, they watch them to be truly entertained and for the art of it too; otherwise films like The Godfather wouldn't be so popular.

Let's compare the NES games of the 80s with the Smartphone games of today. Super Mario Bros. is not a game for the hardcore, it's something fun to play to pass a bit of time, you go from level to level in a linear fashion, take a few shortcuts here and there, find secrets and just enjoy a fun little game you can beat with easy in an hour or two even if you've never played it before. What is Angry Birds? A game where you go from level to level in a linear fashion, shooting birds at wooden beams and pigs, each level gets more difficult and you can easily pick up and play this game. Sure there were some more "hardcore" games out there, like The Legend of Zelda, Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. Well, the same Final Fantasy, with improved visuals from the original PSP port, is now out on iOS too but Final Fantasy XIII sure isn't. 

See back in the 80s, for the most part games had a pretty  much 90% casual audience. Just look at the controller at how simple it was. A directional pad that is easy to read, Up, Down, Left, Right, two buttons, A and B. And a Start and Select, which at the time, were literally used for just that, Starting the game and Selecting the mode you wanted to play. It was simple, it was easy to look at and hey, it was something to pass the time or have a little fun with; only a few games were there to be taken seriously and even those were very basic at the time. Final Fantasy wasn't the epic kind of storytelling that exists today and nor was Zelda the kind of complex game it is today really, it was a "kill bad guys, solve puzzles, save the princess" kind of game. Anyone could understand it, your Grandpa could play these games. The controls and the game itself were so damn simple...

Try giving this monstrocity to your G-Pa today! What is this, stick, there's like four buttons and.. a... an... another stick? Buttons on the back and what's this glowing X in the center... is it... is it radioactive? Why is it vibrating, Oh my god, oh Jesus, lordy help me!! What the fuuuuuu--?!!

No-one would know what the hell to make of this if it had been thrown into the market in 1985. People would lose patience and get angry with all the buttons and all the complexities. Nintendo kept it simple with their controller and then, did the same with the GameBoy when they went handheld to play on the go. It was simple, it was easy to use... not unlike a touch screen of a smart phone no?

Finally here come the 90s and everyone's used to these two buttons so... BAM! Two new buttons! Two shoulder buttons that, well weren't used much in those days but still... SUPER NINTENDO IS HERE MOTHERF***A!! This control was built in mind for people who had played the NES, they knew the basics of playing and game and now they were ready for those training wheels to be taken off and go wild with four face buttons, the games have now taken a leap up. Now admittedly as I write this I'm constantly hearing egoraptor's voice in my head a little from his Megaman X Sequelitis Episode. And he had point, everyone had played MegaMan, they were used to it, so it evolved into Megaman X, a true sequel, the training wheels are off bitch! Now you're playing with power... because it's so baaaad... and Super Nintendoes What Genesis Do--? I'm getting carried away here.

Point is, upgrades. The third Nintendo console ramped it up. Added an analog stick and... for some reason three handles... I dunno maybe Nintendo figured, eh, but the late 90s Nuclear War will have turned everyone into a mutant with three arms. Then when World War III didn't break out they just rolled with it anyway. Sony brought the rain with two analog sticks, the third of which, sorta wouldn't be used until like 2003 really, but it set a new Standard that Nintendo launched out with the C-Stick on the GameCube and Microsoft rolled out on their... well I certainly ain't gonna call that controller because it's nothing but a monstrosity designed for bigfoot to play video games.

See that's how video games have evolved. The market has shifted because well, the gaming companies had their peeps. They had gamers now, people who bought consoles for games to get invested in these two-sticked, four face buttoned, four shoulder buttoned, controller rumbling games. They had grown up with them and become gamers, it's own new culture. But that was kind of a problem in a way, no new people were getting brought into this industry unless it was to grab a cheap DVD player from a PS2. Gamers were the only people buying these consoles. And these consoles were only getting more and more expensive causing adults to go crazy and scream "shut up and stop taking my damn money!"... that's the meme right?

So in 2006 comes a whole new console for the home market... The Nintendo Wii. To this day, it's still the dumbest name I can think of. No wait, scratch that, Wii U is the dumbest name I think of. This console got hardcore gamers panties all in a bunch. "What is this game, there's no blood and violence in it?" and "This is for babies, I'm gonna go play my console with an X on it because it's X-Treme!!!" (which sorta plays into how I feel Microsoft are sort of the new Sega but more on that later). But Nintendo realising the state of the industry and their own dwindling sales as a gaming company realised what went wrong. People were looking at the controls, seeing them as too complex and thinking "SCREW THAT!" and moving on. I must admit, even as a long-time gamer, I was getting a bit exhausted too just like all the non-gamers out there. But not with the Wii they wouldn't be. The Wii was simple, it was easy to grasp and perhaps most importantly, it was cheap. Did this damage Nintendo's reputation, actually not as much as people think. Nintendo fanboys like myself stuck around and enjoyed the new control. And really by the time of the GameCube those gamers who wanted to stay with Nintendo were sorta stuck with them for life as fanboys, so their reputation wasn't as badly damaged as people seem to think, the people who would have left Nintendo's fanbase had... kinda already left with Sony and Microsoft taking what was once Sega's fans.


The Wii Remote was simple: you literally do what you're doing on the screen. You've seen tennis right? Swing the remote like a tennis racket. You've played golf right? Swing it like a golf club. You've shot alien monsters before right? Point at the screen and pull the trigger. It was genius, and it brought a whole new set of gamers to the industry along with the Nintendo DS, propelling Nintendo to new sales heights. But in addition to that, it was a simple button set up too, one big ass button on where the thumb is that basically means "YES" and turned on the side, you've got that classic NES controller once again. Suddenly people who'd never played games in the past were buying up Wii's like they were going to run out of stock, and well, they did for a time. It took me literally a year after launch before I finally managed to get one and even then I had to bribe a few people sell my soul go to extreme lengths to get one.

Casual gamers were back in the fold once again, they didn't have to deal with complex bullcrap and didn't have to read a frickin' tech manual to use it. This control was like their TV remote at home, hell I'm actually really surprised it never became one. Casual gamers had a place they could play games to pass some time, maybe they'd try out the nunchuck attachment, seemed easy enough; Play some Zelda or some thing with a bit more meat. Perhaps they'd even invest a little money into a Classic Controller and try out something bigger like Xenoblade Chronicles or Monster Hunter 3... maybe their foray by becoming gamers afterall.

Okay, time out from the gamer-tech-talk. What is a Smartphone exactly? It's a thin phone with a screen that is literally impossible to not know how to use. You touch the screen, any moron could learn how to use it. It's perhaps even simpler than the NES controller. The screen can create touch-pad controls for you to use with icons that indicate what they do rather than letters to make it even simpler. So of course, casual gamers flock to these devices. They pass the time on the go. But the days of the NES and Gameboy are long since gone. Companies have moved on and a subset of people known as gamers have been created. Casual gamers are being brought into the fold by smartphones just as they were by the Wii. They give people who have never even tried a video game before their first taste of the gaming world. Perhaps they'll buy a Wii U because they like the idea of the tablet, it's simple and easy to understand and has an even greater evolutionary bracket to turn them into hardcore gamers with the buttons that smartphones don't have. And see that's the problem with Smartphones, they don't have buttons and even if someone invented buttons, you can't replace a big 50" screen with a tiny 4" iPhone 5 screen. Nor can you just suddenly get gamers to give up what they've become accustomed to with those multiple-button controls by saying "hey look $0.99 games!" You just can't. Especially not with Nintendo's eShop, the PlayStation Store and XBox Live Arcade giving cheap games too in the near future. Can you integrate new functions like a touch screen, sure, the DS and soon to be Wii U are evidence of this. That adds something new to the formula whilst changing nothing from the old, it evolves it further. 

Smartphones have helped crack open much of the casual audience. But no self-respecting gamer is going to stop playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, throw away their controller and go say "Hell yeah, I want me some Plants Vs. Zombies, I'm gonna throw my time into this badboy!". In fact companies have even realised this. The upcoming launch of the Ouya, a console built on made-famous-by-smartphones Android OS, will be launched soon taking easy to program and cheap approach to the home market for a cost effective $99. The Wii U, a console with Nintendo's market in mind and the Smartphone audience evolving at the right time could make a killing and based on my frustrations of not being able to find one, it already is.

The point of all this is this: The Smartphone is not a threat to consoles, if anything it's helping to broaden their appeal. Smartphones are growing sure, and the fact that a new model is released each year with greater processing power is fantastic but without a big screen, without buttons, this doesn't even begin to hamper the market of the handheld console, let alone the home console. Handhelds like the 3DS (not really the Vita) are selling like hotcakes because they are essentially offering something Smartphones simply can't and never will without losing their sleak, held in the hand, easy to carry appeal and then would lose their primary reason people buy them. TO BE PHONES! Don't believe me? Google: Nokia N-Gage. In addition they'd lose their secondary reason people buy them, to be use-all devices for everything. If Smartphones became gaming devices then they'd be just that; gaming devices. They wouldn't be smartphones anymore. Home consoles have nothing to fear and everything to gain from the increase of casual players on the phones. Of course many gamers are complete morons and don't realise this yet and will continue to bash "casual games" and "casual gamers" because they just don't get the concept of a constantly evolving market but the figures don't lie... the world of gaming isn't going anywhere and it isn't headed for another crash.

If anything, we gamers are in for a golden age soon the likes of which hasn't been seen since we saw a little brown and red plumber jumping on fanged-walking-mushrooms and eating glowing flowers to shoot fireballs (yeah I realise it as I write it) run across our screens twenty-seven years ago, bringing us back from what could have been the end of video games as we know it.