E3 2016 Thoughts

Ok, I’ll get the bulk of the E3 coverage over that I think is cool. Ready? Here we go.

horizon-zero-dawn

Horizon: Zero Dawn looks awesome and I’m glad that I bought my PS4 (ignoring the fact that that is the only reason I bought the PS4 in the first place… that and Uncharted 4.) I will also continuously be disappointed by the release date not being this year, but February of next year. (“But Daddy, I want it nooooooow!”)

Zelda: Breath of the Wild looks even better than I anticipated and I can’t believe how excited I am to play it. Will I buy it on the Wii U or NX… or both? I’m not sure, but I’ll probably be waiting for the NX copy. I knew this wasn’t on my Christmas list though so I’m OK with it.

Yeh, that’s basically it really. Pokemon… meh and I already knew about the next set of Monster Hunter games. Nothing else really got me excited (sense Scalebound no longer looks interesting to me), but there were some things that bothered me. If you saw my comments on Facebook, I’m a little bothered by some comments by Nintendo as of late:

“For us, it’s not about specs, it’s not about teraflops, it’s not about the horsepower of a particular system,” Fils-Aime explained. “For us, it’s about the content. Nintendo is a content-focused company; we create entertainment that makes people smile. So for us, we’re focused on bringing our best entertainment to both the Wii U and the NX in the future.

“Whatever Microsoft and Sony are doing in terms of talking about new systems, that’s for them to fight out… For us, we want to make sure we’re bringing our best content forward, and right now the reaction to Zelda has been more than we could have ever imagined.” (Thank you Gamespot)

What Nintendo is saying here makes sense. This is something that would expect to come from either a group that is “losing a fight” or “not in the fight”. While I understand that Nintendo doesn’t see themselves as “in the console wars”, they will be grouped there none-the-less by the rest of the world. They will be, once again, third in power and probably last in the eyes of the “hardcore” audience (whatever the heck that means any more because personally Madden and CoD aren’t hardcore games, just yearly renewals and I used to be a huge CoD fan). Devs will jump at the chance to make their games look better and that means EA, Ubi and the like will be bringing all of those third-party titles that people are complaining about not having and using as an excuse to not buy a Wii U, to the newer Sony and Microsoft console variations and Nintendo’s NX might be left out again.

On the flip-side, If the NX does have the power of the current gen of consoles, or a little more, then Nintendo will be in a position to possibly be hugely successful. Both Microsoft and Sony say that they aren’t abandoning their current consoles. If that holds true, there will already be two different consoles on the Wonder Twin’s fronts to develop for and the “low-end” will be on par with Nintendo’s console and that leaves little room for excuses not to port barring any crazy controller or funky chip architecture Nintendo may implement and leave only bias or exclusivity. If only Nintendo would be more open with details, then we’d have fewer questions. However, they feel that it’s very important to keep their info close to the chest at this time and all we can do is wait and hope… or make some crazy crap up and post it online as truth.

While I believe in Nintendo’s first party titles, I don’t feel that it is enough to make the kind of money that they would like to make or did make during the Wii era. I’m not sure if they are trying to catch that Wii rainbow again, but sometimes it sure feels like they are. It almost feels like Nintendo is saying to go big or go home with their innovations and exclusives and their lack of willingness to go toe to toe with the Wonder Twins. If Nintendo truly feels that they aren’t in this war, then they are fighting a good fight and I’ll be happy to enjoy those Nintendo exclusives when and where they land. If they could make all their games as well as this next Zelda game is looking, then the next Metroid will be amazing and another RPG from Monolift Soft would blow my mind. I also wouldn’t mind a return to another Mario 64-esque type single player title. Will that be enough to stave off the internet? Probably not. Will that be enough for the level-headed Nintendo enthusiasts? If we can get the “console war” concept out of our heads, it might. Because basically… it’s going to have to be.

Jonathan Amarelo Sig

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