E3 sucked overall…again..but Sony did walk away with the best list of exclsive games which is what matters

MS definitely had the biggest bombshell with FFXIII and Sony’s event lacked any real shocker. Also, the Xbox Netflix deal upstaged Sony’s Video Store.

On second thought: Sony wins by a large margin.

2008 game lineup is much better, although no major surprises.
2009+ game lineup is awesome and Sony gave out lots of new info. I’m sure Microsoft has some great stuff for 2009, but they intentionally kept slient on that.
Not to be a hater, but the great games that Microsoft showed were multiplatform, Microsoft’s new game announcements were really lame, and their big ‘08 exclusives (Gears, Fable, etc) are a little stale.
The Xbox Netflix deal is just a port of the Netflix client. You can already use a regular Windows PC or for living room access, the Roku player is $100 with built-in Wi-Fi and and doesn’t require a $50/year XBL subscription. Unless you are already a 360 owner and XBL subscriber, the Roku box looks like a way better deal.

It is interesting how the US and EU probably won’t see FFXIII on either system before late ‘09 because SE wants a simo release for both territories when they haven’t even started working on the 360 version yet.. While if PS3 fans wanted they can import it whenever it’s released in Japan.

Anyway, enough FF13 talk. I knew Sony wouldn’t have anything major to announce. Resistance looks good and it’s and exclusive that’s coming this year. I wanted to see some rpg news, outside of FF. I saw some of RE:5 gameplay and it looks like RE:4 in HD. The enemies are using the same type of weapons, the main character guy ( no clue on the name ) walks, motions and holds his gun the same way as Leon. Gonna pass on that one.

It’s good that they’re still supporting the PS2. Not everyone can or wants to upgrade to a PS3 nowadays.

All in all, this E3 is a disspointment. Except for the appearance greatest comic artist of all time, Jim Lee! That guy was my idle back when I used to collect comic.

They really announced nothing that would undo the hysteria of FFXIII going to Xbox 360. It’ll come out too late to have much of an impact on either system’s sales but this is like E3 2006 all over again for the media members looking for a reason to jump down Sony’s throat.

In terms of games, for me, among other things, Resistance 2 looked seriously impressive, and I’ve been looking forward to its massive 60-player games since I first heard of them. But by far the most impressive thing was MAG, with its 256-player games. 40-player Resistance was great - 60-player R2 will be epic, but MAG will be off the scale. Even most PC games don’t boast numbers like that.

Outside of games, I thought the movie service looked great, and I hope that we in Europe get a similar offering. I’d certainly consider the rental service, because some of the DVDs I rent are in such terrible condition that I often don’t want to put them in my machine… though I think I will always prefer to have a physical disc when it comes to purchases.

Over all, I’m sure the FFXIII story will be what most people end up talking about from this E3, but much of that will only be due to the overly hysterical reaction of many Sony/series fans. Other than that, I don’t think anyone had anything particularly spectacular this year. The Wii-mote upgrade/add-on is Nintendo’s DualShock 3 (”it should have been included from the beginning!”), and Live’s Avatars and ’social network’ looks like a rushed answer to Home.

I’ve said before that I have no regrets in bypassing the 360 and waiting for the PS3, and given the selections of games forthcoming for each system, that outlook hasn’t changed. For me, PS3 is still the system to own.

BTW your info on the SKUs is off. They are doubling the HDD on the 40GB and renaming it Core. Current 80GB with BC will be the same at the same price.

Video store prices are competitive to iTunes, but I hope the quality is better. Probably wont be though… Nice that you can take it with you and watch it on TV out on any TV and crap, but I don’t have a PSP atm..

Ratchet & Clank Future DLC
Crash Commando
Flower
Stardust portable
Resistance PSP

Man, I’m really tempted to get a PSP again. What would seal the deal would be PSOne games on the UK PS Store!!

Mmm. Wait a sec. A press release for iTunes movies I just read said that movie rentals would be $2.99 for old movies and $3.99 for new ones, with a $1 surcharge for HD. Strange. Maybe it’s cheaper on AppleTV than from iTunes on a computer?

No wait. I got it. I’m Canadian! So there’s the Canada surcharge in effect for you. $2 per movie. What a ripoff. I hope Sony doesn’t do the same thing, our currency is almost at par.

To summarize: SD movie rental is the same as iTunes (in the States). Sony HD movie rental is much more than iTunes (in the States).

I was expecting a bigger bang, but I’m still happy with what they showed. Except for the SKU change, which sounds horrible if I understand it right.

R2 and LBP look excellent and better than expected. I can’t wait to try the video store: prices seem a little high. I wonder how deep their selection is. Why didn’t they show White Knight Story? Even just having the Level 5 guys on stage to demo what they preivously had would have been great.