I'm on my way,Well I'm on my way, Home sweet home

by: Chuck - posted: 5/12/2006 11:35:00 PM

I'm currently sitting in LAX and looking at the plane that will take Ben, Sean, and I back to Columbus.  We'll be posting our day three coverage later this weekend as we are all a bit knackered from the cumulative effects of being on our feet for three plus days, a lack of sleep from staying up late to finish our reports, and the E3 diet of hot dogs, pizza, and soda.  This is going to be a mini-wrap up of my E3 experience and will suffice until I can get more than six contiguous hours of sleep in my own bed and write something a little more detailed.

All in all it was a very interesting E3.  If anyone says that Nintendo wasn't the belle of the ball this year then they need to have their head examined.  When you have a three plus hour long line to get into your show every year you know you have something special.  My big question is if Nintendo can deliver enough units to keep all their fans happy and avoid the shortages that plagued the Xbox 360 launch.

Microsoft comes in a close second this year.  If anyone had any doubts about the advantage of a having a year's head start just has to look at the second generation box 360 that will be appearing on store shelves later this year.  Gears of War, Lost Planet, Mass Effect, Alan Wake (I'm basing this on last year's showing and just a bit on the recently released new trailer), and Bioshock will all help push the boundaries of what we should expect for next generation systems.  Combine that with the new Gaming for Windows push and I think Microsoft is going to have a great year if everything goes as planned.  The Live Anywhere materials that where shown this year was really cool but I'm not sure if we'll see that happen any time soon or in the format that Microsoft showed off this year.

I'm not sure why I was disappointed with Sony's show this year, if it was a case of high expectations or if the price tag and the little trickery with the "Core" version of the PS3.  There were certainly a few good games on the floor (Heavenly Blade, Full Auto 2, and Warhawk spring to mind) and there will be other solid launch titles like Marvel Alliance but I still get at weird vibe from Sony as to if they really are going to be able to deliver.  The addition of the motion sensor to the PS3 controller (while excellently executed in the Warhawk demo) seems almost a bit desperate and as if Sony is trying to catch up with Nintendo rather than innovate something new.  The same can be said of what we know of their online service right now.  We'll know more when the console ships later this year but I really don't feel like Sony is breaking any new ground with their system.