johng Blog

I watched the three pre E3 press conferences today (another busy day i know) and here are my immediate thoughts.

Sony

• Don’t like the look of PS3, kinda bloaty.
• I like that they are sticking to standards - USB, 802.11g, Bluetooth, SD, Compact Flash. Yes this is Sony we are talking about, I almost had a heart attack when they didn’t invent or use their own proprietary versions of each of these technologies.
• Control pad is a bad move. From many years of working in a games store I can tell you people liked their old Dual Shock pad, don’t get me wrong I’m all for innovation but this just looks like a cheap 3rd party knock off.
• Killzone: WOW! Ok if that is not pre rendered I will eat my hat, it looked incredible and although the original stank this one could be a winner.
• Blue ray support is bad because it’s not a ratified standard and costs more to manufacture (drives and media). It simply isn’t necessary this generation which just goes to show Sony are going to use this as a vehicle to try and push it ahead of HD-DVD. The scent of burning betamax tapes is in the air again.
• This will easily be the most powerful next gen console and will have the best looking games as they have tried to cram as much raw power in there as possible. I would like to see a price for this thing.

Microsoft

• J Allard is really starting to annoy me, he is clearly trying way to hard to be cool…ahem…hoody over a suit!
• Could you hear the sigh of relief when they said it was backwards compatible? Curse you for teasing us!
• I like the console’s exterior, it’s far more eye pleasing than the PS3.
• The software that holds all this together is fantastic and the media center component is identical to the interface on MCPCs.
• No Perfect Dark footage yet but the dude from Square showed up to announce Final Fantasy XI, he must have just come from the Sony presentation.

Nintendo 

• It seemed Nintendo had been forced into showing something this year due to pressure from MS and Sony. So it left me very underwhelmed when the Revolution was shown but none of it’s specs were revealed.
• I like the backwards compatibility idea of being able to play their entire back catalogue on there - very cool. I’m guessing this doesn’t extend to third party games so no GoldenEye.
• Love the Game Boy micro, the screen is excellent. Shouldn’t it be Game Boy Advance micro though?