Crecente: Welcome to Gameland

Entertainment expo uncloaks favorites, underdogs in competitive console race

Published May 26, 2006 at midnight

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Each year, game developers and publishers gather in Los Angeles and spend millions of dollars to try and capture the attention of the world's gaming buyers and journalists.

The Electronic Entertainment Expo doesn't just show you what games are coming for the next 12 months, it often sets the tone for the entire industry.

This year's show was mostly about hardware, with both Sony and Nintendo showing off their upcoming consoles and Microsoft reminding everyone of the one they launched just last November.

After spending a week immersed in video game sights and sounds, you come away with a good idea of what's going to be hot and what's not.

Wii wows the crowd

The view from Nintendo's offices overlooking the floor of the Los Angeles Convention Center painted a telling picture.

Nintendo had extended the invitation to watch from above as the doors opened for the final day of this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo. And at 9 a.m. on the nose, the doors opened and a flood of people surged into the hall from three different points, many running, and all seemingly headed for the same point: Nintendo's Wii booth, where they could get their hands on the new and innovative controller for a test drive.

It's an image (which you can see on video at Kotaku.com) that epitomized this year's show.

"I've never seen something quite like that," said Beth Llewelyn, Nintendo of America's spokeswoman. "We've always had lines . . . but I've never seen that mad rush of people running to our booth."

While Microsoft and Sony remain locked in a death struggle of graphics chips, multi-thread CPUs and high-definition videos, Nintendo has decided to chart its own course.

Nintendo's Wii (pronounced We) may not be as fast or as pretty as the competition, but it is completely unique. The console delivers a wireless controller that looks like a remote control, can detect motion, be used as a pointer and can spew out sound through a built-in speaker. An auxiliary device, dubbed the Nunchuk, also plugs into the controller and features a little thumbstick and button and can also detect motion. Combined, they give Nintendo a new and visceral avenue into gameplay.

Unveiling a new way to play

When I played a tennis game on the Wii, I held the remote like a tennis racket handle. When the ball bounced to my character, I swung my arm like I would in the real sport and my on-screen avatar hit the ball. When I played first-person shooter Red Steel, I held the remote at shoulder level, pointing it like a gun, and squeezed off shots at on-screen enemies with a button push. I was able to look around a room by aiming to the sides, top or bottom of the screen and I used the Nunchuk's thumbstick to move. Later in the game, I used the remote to draw a sword and swung it around to slash at an enemy. I flicked the Nunchuk toward the enemy to parry with a second sword.

It was easier to use than a typical controller and quickly immersed the player into the game.

For the Wii, it's not about being better; it's about being different. The console may not offer better graphics or a faster processor, but it will give gamers innovation in what really matters: interaction.

The Wii's graphics will be a step up from the GameCube, but not in the same field as the HDTV-quality images from the Xbox 360 or the even better graphics promised by the PlayStation 3.

But Nintendo thinks their easier interface will give gamers something they didn't know they wanted. They hope the Wii will do for gaming what Netflix did for video rentals and the iPod did for music: tap a new market.

"We wanted to create a home console that wouldn't so much be just a video game console, it would be a device that would be fun to connect to your TV and very easy for everyone to use," said Shigero Miyamoto, Nintendo's senior managing director and the man who created Donkey Kong, Mario and Zelda.

"Therefore, we wanted the interface, the Wii remote, to be a device that anyone in the family could feel is approachable to the point where you could just leave it on your coffee table and anyone could pick it up and immediately begin interacting with the television set."

Fighting new competitors

Nintendo ultimately concluded that the competition for the next-generation console audience wasn't really between Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, but between Nintendo, television and movies.

Miyamoto told the News that the company's goal is to "show just how strong a form of entertainment video games can be in comparison to the other forms of entertainment that people have to choose from."

While the Wii's remote added a new dimension, the version I tested still needed some tweaking. Broad movements - like those used to conduct music, fish or play sports - worked quite well. But the more precise controls used for first-person shooters like Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Red Steel had a few glitches.

The units on the show floor were early models, and conditions weren't optimal for gaming, so improvements are likely before the Wii hits stores. Another cause for concern regarding the Wii remote: it uses a small black strip, which needs to be attached above or below your TV, to sense where the remote is pointing in gameplay. If the strip isn't installed properly, it can throw off your controls, and installing it on a system that uses a theater projection system might be impossible.

Nintendo hasn't announced the price or release date for the Wii, but rumors peg the price tag somewhere between $200 to $300. The lower price might be the thing Nintendo needs to grab the attention of non-gamers and hard-core gamers alike, who often base their initial opinions of a system on how its graphics look.

Nintendo

• Console: Wii

• In stores: By Thanksgiving

• Price: Unknown, although likely between $200 and $300

• Impressive: Expected low price; innovative new controllers; extreme backwards compatibility; ease of use.

• Disappointing: Graphics look very last-generation; Nintendo's history of online support is sketchy; controls still need some work.

Sony betting on technophiles.

The PlayStation 3 may be going after gamers, but its first audience will likely be early adopters of technological innovations - people who want to watch high-definition video on a Blu-ray player, people who get excited about Cell processors, people who want the highest level of video output and people who will pay $500 to $600 to get it.

While the PS3 will likely be the most advanced console to hit the market when it comes out Nov. 17, the console's price tag - $100 to $400 more than its two competitors - is already raising eyebrows.

The PlayStation 3's $500 version will come with a 20GB hard drive and be able to play movies on Blu-ray or DVD and music from CDs. The system will also come with a motion-detecting wireless controller and sport the highest video output available on the market. The $600 version will come with an additional 40GB on the hard drive and also include a MemoryStick reader, WiFi support and HDMI output for use with high-definition televisions.

Sony says you will be able to add all but the HDMI support to the cheaper unit.

The 10-pound console will also sport a new microprocessor technology called Cell, which was developed by Sony, Toshiba and IBM.

But Sony insists the PS3's technology is really just a means to an end.

"The PlayStation 3 is a very powerful machine, yes, but technology is just an enabler," said Kaz Hirai, Sony Computer Entertainment America president.

What sells consoles are the games that play on it, and Hirai promises that there will be about 15 titles at launch for the next-gen console.

Hirai didn't name any particular games, but E3 showcased some standouts.

While titles like the adventure sequel Genji 2 and the new action game Heavenly Sword highlighted the PS3's muscle-power, the type of augmented-reality gaming found in The Eye of Judgment will go a lot further toward convincing gamers that the console is worth the money.

In Eye, a gamer will play real cards on an actual table under the watchful lens of a camera connected to the console. Each card is encrypted with a code. When the card is played, the PlayStation 3 shows the live image seen through the camera on a TV and then places a 3-D image of the creature represented on top of the card. The creature then reacts to the cards around it and can interact with the real world movements on the table.

PS3's own unique controller

WarHawk was the only game unveiled at E3 that offered a chance to test out the PlayStation 3's new motion-sensitive controller.

The wireless controller, which looks like a slightly tweaked PS2 controller, can sense movement in six directions. Unfortunately, Sony said they had to remove their popular rumble feature to include the motion detection. The controller will also come with a USB cable to charge it while playing.

In WarHawk, you can use the controller's motion detection to guide a futuristic helicopter/jet hybrid through aerial dogfights. The motion controls were surprisingly responsive, making it easy to send the WarHawk through a series of aerial acrobatics simply by tilting and moving the entire controller around.

Another standout title for the PS3 on display at E3 was Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed. The third-person action game has you playing as an assassin stalking his targets in the midst of the Third Crusade.

The game - created by people pulled from two of the developer's most popular franchises, Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell - uses a blend of parkour freerunning and bouldering to give the game a fresh approach to the acrobatic moves that made Prince of Persia such a tremendous success.

In a demonstration, producer Jade Raymond guided the lead character, Altair. In one section, she had him climb a building - not by simply pushing up on her joystick, but instead by making Altair identify, grab and scale bits of the building's architecture that stuck out.

After being hammered at E3 for PS3's price tag, Sony is banking on this sort of inventive game play to help justify the cost in gamers' eyes and help the PS3 in its battle of next-gen consoles.

Sony

• Console: PlayStation 3

• In stores: Nov. 17

• Price: $499 and $599

• Impressive: Built-in Blu-ray support, 1080p output, free online gaming and fully backwards compatible, new controller offers motion detection.

• Disappointing: Over-priced; lower cost model missing key components; online support not fully fleshed out.

Microsoft's head start

While Sony and Nintendo unveiled their next-gen systems, Microsoft vied for gamers' attention with an impressive list of titles set to debut around the time that their competition hits the market with the new consoles.

Microsoft Vice President Peter Moore likes to refer to the 360's fall line-up as a chain gun full of silver bullets. But second-person shooter Gears of War stands out as the game most likely to distract from the competition - and the game's creators recognize the stakes.

"Careers are on the line here," Epic game designer Cliff "CliffyB" Bleszinski recently told the News. "We are spending a lot of money to make this game, Microsoft is spending a lot to market it. We're betting the farm on this."

Despite being based on a genre many consider tapped, Gears of War injected new excitement through creative use of camera angles and by employing a strong horror and survival element.

"I think a lot of games don't have a soul," Bleszinski said. "It's like they are selling 1988 to me - that whole looking-down-the-barrel thing."

Gears of War shows your character from the waist up, although the shot sometimes tightens in or falls away from your avatar depending on what you are doing and what's going on in the game.

Bleszinski said the designers spent a lot of time thinking about screen time, about what gamers spend the most time looking at, and they didn't want it to be the gun.

The result is a gritty, cinematic shooter that forces gamers to concentrate on finding cover and conserving ammo.

Bleszinski calls it the Prince of Persiafication of a shooter, referring to the Prince of Persia franchise that introduced a level of cinematics and acrobatics previously unseen in action titles.

"You watch the gameplay videos, and it looks like you are playing a movie," he said.

A different sort of innovation

Moore says he's not worried about the direction Nintendo, and to a lesser extent Sony, is taking with controller innovation.

"We like to innovate, but we believe innovation is in services and online play and doing all of the fundamental things we are doing," he said.

He points to the Xbox 360's ability to download high-definition video and play it on your TV. During E3, Microsoft made videos of many of their game's trailers and portions of their press conferences available online as soon as the games were announced.

Bleszinski sees Nintendo's introduction of its portable DS and the Wii's new control system as developments that are splitting gamers.

"There is a significant divide between two types of gamers," he said. "You have the Halo/GTA gamers and then the Brain Age, Nintendogs and Kingdom of Hearts gamers."

"I'm happy to be on the Halo-side of things. You need to to do what you like and what you know."

For the most part, Microsoft's E3 was about the software - the games that drive console sales. But the publisher did announce some new hardware for their console.

Chief among those was the HD-DVD player, a device that looks like a smaller Xbox 360 that attaches to the console with a USB connector and comes with a wireless remote. The player is Microsoft's answer to the PlayStation 3's built-in Blu-ray player that will also play high-definition movies, but in a different format.

Although Microsoft didn't announce the date or price, they did say it would ship this fall and many expect it could be as low as $100.

Other announced accessories include a wireless racing wheel, wireless headset and a video camera, which is due out in September.

The other big announcement of the show was Microsoft's Live Anywhere, a system that allows gamers on Xbox 360 to communicate and play with gamers on Windows PCs and mobile phones.

When the dust clears, Sony's high price and Nintendo's decision to pursue a different market could leave Microsoft with an opportunity to solidify its position in the gaming market.

Bill Gates told a crowd of press the day before the expo kicked off that Microsoft expects to have sold 10 million Xbox 360s by the time the PS3 and Wii hit stores, and he promised to have 160 Xbox 360 games available by the end of the year.

While the big news at E3 was most certainly gamers' reaction to the Wii remote and the PlayStation 3's price and date, the big winner of the show may very well be Microsoft.

Microsoft

• Console: Xbox 360

• In stores: Already

• Price: $300 to $400

• Impressive: 160 games promised by the end of the year; robust online support includes active community and plenty of free and pay content; platform has a one-year head start.

• Disappointing: HD-DVD only available as still unpriced add-on; top output is 1080i; controllers are slightly tweaked wireless versions of the Xbox controller.

Channeling at E3

BATMAN AND MRS. DOUBTFIRE

It's not just pale, housebound gamers who descend upon the annual gaming Mecca these days. Some of the celebrities spotted at E3 this year:

• Steven Spielberg

• Adam West

• 50 Cent

• Dave Navarro

• Clint Eastwood

• Joe Rogan

• Robin Williams

GOTTA HAND IT TO NINTENDO

Wii doesn't just come with a creative new controller; it also apparently comes with a hand gesture, as demonstrated by Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto at the conference. By holding up three fingers on the right hand and two fingers on the left, Miyamoto spelled out the console's name.

WAYS TO PLAY WITH THE WII-MOTE

The new console's wireless controller that detects motion allows gamers to use natural motions to do a number of different things on the Wii. A sampling:

• Conduct an orchestra

• Fish

• Duck Hunt

• Swordfight

• Tennis

• Baseball

• Football

• Swing a hammer

• Drive

• Golf

WONDERS NEVER CEASE

A woman dressed as Wonder Woman was barred from E3 after being told her star-spangled hot pants were inappropriate. Los Angeles Convention Center security guards called in the LAPD after the woman, a commentator on a web-based radio show, refused to hand over her press pass. The police arrived and said they didn't want to arrest Wonder Woman, instead convincing her to turn over the pass and walk from the expo.

I SEE PARIS . . .

"Sorry I'm late. I'm really excited to have my new video game, Diamond Quest. Thank you all for coming, and you can download the game."

Paris Hilton, who attracted the second-longest line at the convention. The press had a field day calling out the heiress for seemingly botching the name of her own cell-phone game, thought to be dubbed Jewel Jam. But the game's publisher later announced that Hilton had in fact gotten the final name right.

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