The Highlight Reel

So, you may have heard that E3 was a little low-key and disappointing to some, this year. Small show floor, no booth babes, no crowds, and no big announcements.

I have to say, though, I liked the framing of E3 as a "business summit." The glam and overwhelm of previous years felt a little manipulative, don't you think? I realize that the rock-concert excitement helps drum up fan interest in the industry and the products it offers, but to me, the entire E3 "letdown" felt like an indictment of the hype cycle.

I'm not even sure that the average gamer realizes that the fact that there were few big reveals isn't because the publishers have nothing to say, but because by July, they've said it all already. I'm not sure precisely what governs announcement timing relative to release schedules and the holiday shopping season, but it seems that usually the Fall and Holiday announcements start trickling out from all doors in early Spring -- meaning by mid-summer, their cats are largely out of the bag.

At the same time, however, I look at a large segment of the audience and wonder what would have impressed them?

Let's look at Microsoft, widely perceived to have had the most successful presser of the Big Three, despite the awkwardness of You're in the Movies. Notably, Microsoft unveiled a redesign for the Xbox 360's user interface. It was a smart move, if not a sexy one, because if I were asked to list three reasons why I tend to choose to play on my PS3 when I own both consoles, the primary reason is an irrelevant intangible -- the interaction with the machine, the aesthetic experience. Xbox 360's dashboard always felt distinctly male, an ugly car accident of orange and green, unintuitive, while from the first concerto swell and delicate chime, switching on the PS3 felt swank.

I know, I know, it doesn't affect gameplay, but it's a perception issue.

Granted, at the end of the day, such a thing probably makes little to no difference at all to the average gamer in the core audience. If you asked people to remember one thing about Microsoft's presser, it'd be the relative bombshell of FFXIII as multiplatform, faithless whore (I recall reading last year, actually, that FFXIII's exclusivity was not assured).

This is a big deal because it's polarizing, not because it'll ultimately matter to anyone. I hazard to guess that major Final Fantasy and Square Enix loyalists have sprung for a PS3 already, and that the reaction on the part of Xbox 360 owners can be summarized as, "Oh. Cool." They'll probably buy it, but it seems to me that the ultimate beneficiary here will be Square Enix, not Microsoft, who won't even get a much-needed userbase injection in Japan because the deal doesn't go there.

If not for the FFXIII announcement (and the fact that primary rival Sony perhaps has much more pressure on it at this juncture than Microsoft does), I suspect fans would have been as disappointed in Microsoft as they were in everyone else.

I think the bacchanalia of previous E3s, coupled with the industry habit of announcing titles long months if not years ahead, has conditioned us to anticipate spectacle over substance, and to respond to the former more than the latter. I think a more toned-down E3 is a sign of a maturing industry, and it disappoints me a little that most people are too busy speaking doomsday proclamations and huffing at Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo to realize just how stunningly high this year's quality bar is across the board, and how subtle and wide-ranging experimentation and innovation is from just about every publisher.

I saw RE5. Is it naive, is it terribly coarse and innocent of me, to have been floored by the way partner AI Sheva seems so lifelike, casually reloading her gun on her own? Or by the fact that this is the first Resident Evil I've ever seen where the hero actually stoops to pick up items rather than merely walking over them? Am I a juvenile, am I too easily pleased, am I looking too close?

Because I really just don't feel "let down," guys, I feel touched by the enthusiasm and creativity I saw. I feel hopeful about the future of the medium, and I feel I've had my taste range broadened a little bit. I'm not sure what I should be looking for that I didn't see.

A new Zelda? Is that all it takes? More of the same? Really?

I've got more to say -- you can expect me to give Sony and Nintendo's pressers a little turn under the microscope over the week. I suppose RE5 and Dead Space stuck out in my mind, as I also hope to talk a little more about survival horror in general, soon.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to see my E3 coverage -- interviewing Microsoft talkers on video; liveblogging Konami's presser, checking out Flock, Resistance: Retribution, various upcoming XBLA titles (including awesome Castle Crashers), Infinite Undiscovery, Monster Lab and others; interviewing EA CEO John Riccitiello about EA's turnaround and the new Activision superpower, and Take-Two CEO Ben Feder (not about EA, alas), and probably lots more stuff that I've forgotten in my exhaustion, it's probably best for me to just link you to my page at Kotaku, where you can flip through and read/watch anything that happens to grab you.

SVGL is back in New York, so regular blogging is just about resumed as we tie up the last of our E3 loose ends!