The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Because there isn’t enough of them on the internet, here comes my impressions of the big three press conferences at E3.

In Chronological Order, of course. So let’s start with Microsoft.

Microsoft… did okay? Their presentation was very split. They were trying very hard to push Kinect seriously while not making a Nintendo sort of mistake and missing appealing to their core. However, none of it really connected together well. It was almost like two different conferences. Most of their “hardcore” gamer stuff was mostly sequels I knew about and didn’t interest me much. Black Ops? Halo: Reach? Gears 3? I will play these things, but they don’t get me excited. They are known quantities. MGS: Rising was interesting, but I’m also not a rabid MGS fangirl, so I couldn’t get too worked up from that. Was there anything else hardcore? I think that was it? Anything hardcore from Microsoft I’m going to be excited about just wasn’t shown off here.
To their credit, though, I think Kinect could be appealing to the right audience. Game after game that they showed, I went, “Man, my mom would probably really get a kick out of that,” which is what they were trying for. For me, I was especially interested in Dance Central. I trust Harmonix with everything music-related, and I think that game could be obscenely fun. If it’ll be worth the cost of Kinect, though, I have no idea, seeing as they didn’t even announce a price. What the hell? That sort of thing doesn’t bode well for it being affordable enough to have a chance to take off. The problem is that people get the Wii, and people like my parents feel like they “get” the Xbox, and that it isn’t for them. Sometimes I prove them wrong with trivia games, but that’s basically it. The people who bought the Wii probably won’t care about Kinect. It’s going to be a horrible battle to make that work. Not as much of a battle as Sony, but a battle nonetheless.

Then, at the end, there was an Oprah pulled. “Everyone in the room gets a new, redesigned Xbox!” Well, whoop-de-fuck. That was kind of stupid, because everyone at home, including me, just went “What the hell? How is this supposed to get me excited?” Still, at the same time, I realized why they did it hours later when the internet was flooded with unboxings and hands-on impressions of the new system. There was a reason for it. It was just kind of silly. The redesign looks nice, and thank god, they finally built wifi in, but it’s nothing that someone would replace their current system for, unless they simply really, really, really, really, really hate drive noise, and installing games just isn’t enough for them.

In any case, I have no worries about Microsoft. I think they’re still going to continue to win the “hardcore” vote. They simply have the best controller, and the best multiplayer, and even though I don’t give a shit about Black Ops map packs, having those exclusively for awhile is going to net them tons of money and support. They’re doing fine, and I will continue to use their system over the Playstation 3, mostly because of Nerdpoints, but also because that’s where all my friends are. And that will be back.

Stay tuned for more of me boring you with old news about E3 the next two days! Maybe even three, if I think of stuff not press conference related to say! Won’t you be thrilled?