The E3 That Lacked a Winner

The E3 conferences came and went and to this day we still don’t really have a winner. As a matter of fact, I saw several losers. We were losers for watching, and Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo were losers for not truly delivering anything spectacular. If anyone was a winner, it was Ubisoft for being the true company giving us hope for the gaming future by doing exclusive content for the PS3, Vita, and even the WiiU. Besides that, a lot of swings and misses.


Microsoft showed Call of Duty, Halo 4, among other franchises we’ve all been accustomed to. And they announced a device that connects itself with the Xbox 360. The SmartGlass is supposed to be a slam towards the WiiU tablet and tablets everywhere. So, this is basically another feature of the Xbox that allows us to spend more money----as if enough isn’t spent on the system and Xbox Live already. And P.S. Microsoft: when you dedicate the last part of the show to a video game that will be available to other systems----you aren’t doing very well.


Sony showed us PSVita content for three seconds, spent too much time showing us Ubisoft material that most gamers already saw, and then spent a ridiculous amount of time on a reading mechanism involving the PS3 and Vita. Um…..why? Then they spent a portion of time playing Super Smash—er, Playstation All-Stars, which really wasn’t all that impressive. Besides handing out goodies to the people that saw the show, there wasn’t much for any witnesses to be excited about.


I came to the conclusion that the PS3 and the 360 are definitely running out of steam, and running out of ways to truly grasp our attention. So the sights were set on Nintendo to veer us into the next generation with its new console.


But…. Didn’t really happen.


Barely talked about the hardware, didn’t give a set price or a release date, and outside of Mario did not deliver a big Nintendo franchise at the conference. There was no momentum to have to shift, all Nintendo had to do was shell out several exclusives, reveal how the controller can truly alter the gaming industry, and show that the future is coming up. None of this happened, as there were no trailers, not a lot of gameplay, and still a mythical lack of information on the upcoming hardware. Newsflash: the holiday season isn’t that far away.

So the winner is, nobody. That being said, with E3 still going on, someone can still take the crown.




If only this were real though, then we would have had a winner for sure.

Mario Tennis Open: 5/10

In recent years, there has been a heavy backlash against Nintendo that has resulted in dripping profits and much more criticism from game magazines and gamers alike. This would explain the weak 3DS sales, comatose Wii sales, Zelda not doing so well financially and critically, and rising skepticism about the Nintendo WiiU. And while I do address and agree with these criticisms about Nintendo’s lack of effort and actual care towards the Western Hemisphere gamers—I had been giving them mildly the benefit of the doubt.


Not this time.


Mario Tennis Open stinks. Seriously, it stinks. The sequel to arguably the greatest arcade tennis game of all time (N64’s Mario Tennis) is disappointment heaven with a lack of features, lack of effort, and minimal reason why this game should even be purchased. Instead of trying to move forward, Nintendo and Camelot took three steps back and what we have is the weakest Mario sports game since Mario Superstar Baseball.


Unlike previous Mario Tennis entries there are no cutscenes or even evidence of a plot. Unlike previous Mario Tennis games on the handhelds there is no RPG adventure that allows you to build experience points and become a better tennis player----and it would have made infinitely more sense now that Nintendo has allowed us to create avatars.


It gets worse.


Gone are all the gimmicky courts. Gone are the large lineups of playable characters. Gone is the challenge in later stages. Gone is the customization of previous entries. And to repeat because it’s still frustrating to realize---there is no RPG mode to this game---it’s literally just a couple tournaments, a few mini-games and nothing else. The tennis action is indeed fun sometimes, but with no depth you aren’t going far before feeling the disappointment caving in. The graphics aren’t much of an improvement, the 3-D and gyroscope does not enhance the experience by any means, and unless you have plenty of friends this game will get boring very, very, very quickly.


I have grown up with Mario. Mario is still my favorite game character because he has given us some of the greatest video games ever in a variety of genres. But this time, he really, really dropped the ball. Shame on Camelot for half-assing this box of sadness. And extra shame to Nintendo for allowing this to come out.

Winning the Holiday requires going to War

Alright, we all just saw the trailer for the newest Call of Duty that will definitely release in November. Now that you have seen this trailer, let’s spit out some statistics:


The Xbox 360 starting with Modern Warfare and continuing through the third installment has sold over 48 million copies of a Call of Duty game---equaling $2,880,000,000 at least in revenue.


The PS3 starting with Modern Warfare and continuing through the third installment has sold over 38 million copies of a Call of Duty game---equaling $2,280,000,000 at least in revenue.

Call of Duty has made over 5 billion dollars in revenue amongst the Modern Warfare and Black Ops series. If we even include prior versions within the PS3 and Xbox 360 library and throw in the Wii numbers, you would have to add 24.15 million copies, which would add $1,207,500,500 at least in revenue.

All in all, Call of Duty has sold over 110 million copies in the past generation at least, and has sales revenue adding to over 7 BILLION dollars.

The big question is: what do we call Nintendo if they don’t push for Black Ops 2 to become a launch title? Would there even be a word that could describe it? You want a good launch? Like it or not, Call of Duty better darn be one of those launch titles. It only makes too much $en$e.

Source: Here