Category Archives: E3 2008

Talking to VG247 today, Bethesda’s Peter Hines said the firm’s “pretty pleased” with the press reaction to Fallout 3 from E3, and that many journalists we shocked they could actually play the game.

“I think we’re pretty pleased,” said Hines. “A lot of folks that came to the booth were surprised they were getting to play the game and outside of a few things (perks, achievements, main quest) could go and do whatever they wanted in the time they had. We sort of feel like that’s what our games do well, let people do things on their own without forcing them.

“So I’d be walking around and people would be in completely different parts of the world. Some just exploring, some talking to everyone in Megaton, or trying a quest, and so on. So I thought that went well and the game showed well and the feedback seems to be pretty good from the articles and previews I’ve been reading.

“Obviously it’s more important what guys like you thought of the game than what I thought.”

Fallout 3 took a headline slot in the Microsoft E3 press conference, following a lead performance from Gears of War 2.

The game releases on October 7 in the US, with no fixed date yet given in Europe.

Speaking to MCV at E3 last week, SCEE boss David Reeves said today that he believes PS3 has the best line-up based on the platform holder showings at E3 last week.

“I think from what Jack Tretton said, the reaction has been well summarised by Yahoo, who said that in terms of games, the competition have probably got a slightly weaker line–up than PS3,” he said.

“And we obviously agree with that – we think we’ve got title after title after title, not only first party but third party and I think in America they have the advantage of the video downloads service, which came at exactly the right time.

“We’re confident, but not only that we’re confident about the games industry more than anything else. What we should be celebrating is how well the games industry is doing compared to other industries in the last nine months with the current recession worldwide. More and more people are coming in – it’s astounding.”

Despite a slew of reports “confirming” Final Fantasy XIII for Windows in the past 24 hours, Square Enix has told VG247 this morning that nothing of the sort is planned.

“We have no current plans to release Final Fantasy XIII for PCs,” said a company rep.

The chatter appears to have arisen from the fact Square devs said the game was being developed on PCs after the 360 reveal in Microsoft’s E3 press conference, seemingly to explain that porting the game to the console is easy meat.

Read the Square statement again. See?

EA Sports’ Peter Moore, posting on his blog, has added voice to an increasing chorus of industry-watchers calling for a consumer component to E3.

“We’re confident that we can work with the ESA to make this right. There are important meetings ahead that we think will be substantive and be productive in finding the right path forward,” he said.

“Let’s invite the community. With the right planning, involving our biggest fans in E3 would bring back some of the raw passion the event has lost.”

Moore also said he believed the 2008 lacked “soul.”

“Soulless and lacking an epicenter, the fragmented layout gave no indication whatsoever that we are the fastest growing entertainment medium in the world,” he said. “While I am not sure I want to revert back to the old days of excess and one-upmanship, I do know that this format isn’t working.”

Las Vegas. Consumer. Like Leipzig. We’re going to put it on macro.

Full thing through the link.

They’re from last week’s E3 and GamersHell has them.

It all looks very “shaky shaky” to us, but any game that let’s you play as a grinning, sombrero-topped monkey gets a double thumbs up. Sega’s Sonic Team behind it too. All good.

See for yourselves.

By Mike Bowden

Speaking to MCV recently, Sega of America president Simon Jeffery commended the efforts of this year’s E3, but compared the atmosphere of the event itself to being in a hospital corridor.

“E3 was a strange beast this year,” he said. “We had an extremely strong product showing, had some great meetings, and got our messaging over pretty strongly – all at an event that had all the atmosphere of a large hospital corridor.”

That certainly isn’t the most encouraging of images.

There’s more through the link.

By Michael O’Connor

Oh, fucking hell. Bungie’s Harold Ryan’s told Eurogamer that Don Mattrick’s idea that Bungie wasn’t miffed at being pulled from the Microsoft E3 conference is a load of bollocks.

“Keeping things clean, I certainly didn’t agree with the decision to delay our news until sometime after E3,” said the developer’s boss.

“Bungie is always concerned first and foremost with our fans. Whenever we are prevented from exceeding their positive expectations it is not a laughing matter.”

Ow. More through the link.

Speaking to Eurogamer at E3, Xbox boss Don Mattrick reiterated in capital letters his claim that Xbox 360 will win this console generation against PS3.

“Yes, absolutely,” he said when asked if he meant 360 would beat PS3 on a global level.

“It gets boring getting asked the same question from different people all the time and there’s been a lot of misinformation, so I used the E3 opportunity.

“We’re the first box in this generation to pass 10 million units, we’ve passed so many thresholds in terms of quality titles. You look at aggregated reviews from around the world – you go onto Metacritic – and count the number of 90-rated titles on our platform, compare that to Wii, compare that to PlayStation 3: there is no comparison.”

Mattrick added: “We know is Sony’s given guidance and said their goal is to create 10 million units this coming year. Needless to say, our aspiration is to do more. We also know we have a volume lead both in Europe and North America, and with that volume lead in the aggregate, when you add in Japan, is larger than Sony’s.

“All those things – I basically just do the math: know what growth we’ve got, know all the new things, all the capabilities to add value, utility; we’ve got an amazing product and we just have to keep evangelising to get more people to try it, because when they do, they love it.”

There’s a full interview through there. As far as we’re aware this is the first full Mattrick interview from E3 published anywhere. So you should probably read it.

Speaking to MCV at E3, Sony boss Kaz Hirai’s questioned Xbox head Don Mattrick’s claim that Xbox 360 will outsell PS3 this generation, saying the American exec needs to clarify the statement.

“The key word there is this ‘lifecycle’ or ‘this generation’,” said Hirai. “As you probably know, we’re working on a ten-year lifecycle, we’ve said that since day one and we’ve proven it with PSone and PS2. I guess Don is saying they’re also going to be embarking on a ten-year lifecycle, then?

“If they are then that’s terrific, but I’ve never seen them manage it before. Last time I checked, the Xbox went by the wayside four or five years after launch.

“On the other hand, if he’s saying that Microsoft will outsell us after five years, if he calls that this generation, then he’s saying he’s going to exit the 360 business within five years. I’m not exactly sure when he says ‘this lifecycle’ or ‘this generation’ what standard he’s using – five years, 10 years, I don’t know.”

More through the link.

You may remember this ill-advised comment from Nintendo of Europe marketing boss Laurent Fischer, saying that only “geeks and otaku” care about Wii storage. Well, among everyone else ever, Reggie Fils-Aime strongly disagrees with his statement.

“We have a consumer base who loves virtual console,” Nintendo of America’s commander-in-chief told MTV Multiplayer. “We have a userbase who really is enjoying WiiWare content. So for us really our challenge really is how do we satisfy all these consumers who are loving all of the product we make available on a download basis?

“As we continue to have things, as you point out, like Mario Kart that has its own channel when you’re playing from an Internet perspective, we’re just making this challenge tougher and tougher. So in our view this is becoming much more of a mainstream problem, which is why we have a sense of urgency to solve it.”

All well and good, but when are we actually going to get some details?

By Nathan Grayson

In what easily wins the “quote of the day” competition, Peter Molyneux has said he feels sorry for Denis Dyack, and that Too Human doesn’t deserve the attention being poured on it by the h8torz.

“I feel sorry for Denis Dyack because you know, I think a few things were said wrong, there was that really unfortunate showing at E3 a few years ago,” he told Videogamer at E3.

“Everyone got on the bandwagon of saying things about Too Human. Now I’ve played it and, you know, it’s a good game. It doesn’t deserve a lot of that harsh criticism. But as soon as something starts it’s very hard to turn the tide and pull it back again. Unless you’ve got something in your back pocket to say, ‘Ahaa, but what about this?’ then it’s really, really tough.”

More through the link. As we reported yesterday, Dyack will be in London on August 5 to answer questions about his game before it releases on August 29.

Speaking to MTV at E3 last week, Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime said that he’s open to discussions on bringing GTA to Wii.

“You know, a GTA on the Wii is all based on what Rockstar and Take-Two want to do,” he said. “And again, from our standpoint, if they build a bottoms-up game that takes advantage of what we do well, I’d love to see it on the platform.”

The exec did say, however, that there have been no discussions on whether or not the game will ever appear on Wii.

Fils-Aime’s comments come after Nintendo announced a DS GTA game, Chinatown Wars, at E3 last week.

Speaking to Eurogamer at E3, Xbox boss Don Mattrick said that Bungie head Harold Ryan laughed off the decision to not announce the developer’s new Halo game in the Xbox 360 press conference.

“Sure they’re disappointed. Any software creator would be disappointed,” said Mattrick.

“Harold just laughed and he said, ‘Boy, just a sign of growth inside the business, we agree’.”

He reiterated that Microsoft will host an event to show the game for the first time later this year.

“That’s what we’re going to do and I think we’re smart,” he said. “I had so many people come to me and say ‘look at that, that’s a measure of growth and maturity of Microsoft – the fact that you have the best show, the best collection of products and you didn’t even have to show Halo’.”

More through the link.

We skipped this yesterday as we got blinded by ubiquity of the whole Nintendo E3 casual hardcore disaster “thing,” but Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has actually apologised for the company’s E3 press conference in general.

“If there is any perception that Nintendo is ignoring the core gamers, it’s a misunderstanding and we really want to get rid of that misunderstanding by any means,” he told Forbes.

“We are sorry about [the E3] media briefings, specifically for those who were expecting to see Nintendo show something about Super Mario or Legend of Zelda.

“However, the fact of the matter is the so-called ‘big titles’ need a long, long development period. We really didn’t think this year’s E3 media briefing was the time to do so.”

Fair enough. He’s a real man, is Iwata. More through the link.

Titan PSN game Fat Princess, announced at E3, has instantly attracted some heavy comments from the feminist side of the gaming press, which are claiming the title to be “heteronormative”.

“Congrats on your awesome new game, Sony,” said Melissa McEwan, writing on Shakesville. “I’m positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes.

“It’s not often I have the opportunity to congratulate a cutting-edge tech company on such splendiferous retrofuck jackholery. Way to go! The Fat Princess of Shakes Manor salutes you.”

“I didn’t care one whit about the objectification of women or fat-bashing, I would think this was the best thing since… well, Team Fortress 2,” added Mighty Ponygirl from Feminist Gamers.

“Instead of running out into the forest to find cake to fatten up the princess with, why not go out and find gold (which is a lot heavier than cake) to stuff into a treasure chest. The more gold in the chest, the heavier it would be, and the harder it would be to carry.

“Oh, but that’s not as “cute” as cake and fat chicks. Right.”

So there we are. Thanks, NeoGAF.

Speaking to MTV at E3 last week, SCEA marketing exec Peter Dille played down Microsoft’s FFXIII 360 announcement, saying he thought the decision would bear little fruit for the console.

“What you have with Final Fantasy XIII is a lot like what they’ve paid for with GTA,” he said. “It’s not an exclusive on their platform. It’s now a cross-platform game… If you look at how GTA behaved in the marketplace and how it drove — or didn’t drive — either console, that’s what I’m talking about. Consumers responded to GTA on the PS3 just as they did on the 360. And it becomes a bit of a jump ball.

“But it didn’t rise the tide for them. And I think if you fast forward to when Final Fantasy XIII comes out I think you’re going to have millions of people who grew up playing Final Fantasy on the PlayStation playing it on a PlayStation 3. They spent a lot of money, I’m sure, to get Final Fantasy onto the 360 but at the end of the day it’s on our platform as well.”

More through the link.

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has admitted in a post-E3 interview that Wii’s Friends codes system isn’t a complete product quite yet.

“I don’t think the current system we have with Friend codes is perfect,” he told GameDaily. “However, if it’s an online world where you can get access to anybody without any restrictions, I as a father do not feel like allowing my daughter be engaged in that kind of world.

“So for Nintendo, especially in terms of the people who have never experienced online video games before, we think that it’s still very important to create a world where we can assure that there will be no harassment for these online beginners, and we really want to assure the security and safety for them to do that.

“So we will be studying this on an ongoing basis in order to improve Nintendo’s own circumstances where people can freely and safely enjoy the communications through the net.”

Lots more through the link. Read it: very few people got close to this man at E3 this year. Also, games companies take note: this is a corporate portrait. A beautiful one. Stop taking pictures of executives that make them look like they’re trying out to be on 9021fucking0.

BioShock senior producer Melissa Miller told Videogamer at E3 last week that the PS3 version won’t be looking to stretch over the 360 version in terms of graphics.

“We’re looking to match the quality of the original version,” she said. “We want to make sure that the water is just as great, and I think you can see from the demonstration, that it looks no different from the 360 version.”

The game’s out in October, Trophies and all.

Speaking to Eurogamer at E3 last week, SCEE head David Reeves said that his announcement at London’s PlayStation Day in May that PS3 had overtaken 360 in Europe was correct.

Microsoft’s David Gosen rubbished the figures after the event: the company was wrong, said the Sony exec.

“I think we’ve only made one – I would say – controversial announcement and that was to say that we have a higher installed base than Xbox 360 [in Europe] and we stand by that. We know what the figures are,” he said.

“But I think – and I keep repeating this – that the more important thing is the growth in the marketplace is just absolutely phenomenal.”

It’s David versus David. Who will win? More through the link. The full Reeves interview’s here.

Speaking to VentureBeat at E3 last week, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick has said that one of his main challenges since taking over at the firm has been to deliver a business that’s stable in the “off” years from GTA – and he feels as though he’s close to achieving it.

“We aren’t giving guidance for 2009 yet,” he said. “But I feel very good that we can deliver on that goal of a profitable enterprise even in non-GTA years.

“Look at our array of hits and owned intellectual property. We have 30 million-plus selling titles, 15 of which are fully owned. BioShock. Carnival Games. Our entire 2K sports line-up, like NHL, MLB, and NBA. TopSpin tennis. Carnival Games for the DS and Carnival Games for Mini Golf. Civilization is out in the market now and doing extremely well. Midnight Club LA is coming up and the list goes on.

“It’s just not true that we are only about GTA.”

Lots more through the link, and very much worth a read.