Do you know someone who's never watched TV because the remote control is too complicated? Someone who's never seen a movie because he considers them to be a pointless waste of time? Someone who used to read books but has long since outgrown them?
No?
How about this: You know anyone who doesn't play video games?
Bingo. Maybe it's your parents or your grandfather, your wife or even yourself, but you know a few people who just can't get into them. It's really the one realm of mainstream entertainment that has failed, time and again, to make itself universal. And even though a yearly revenue of more than $10 billion ensures that video games are in no danger of fading into obscurity, the interactive-entertainment industry will not be satisfied until every man, woman and child spends sufficient time unwinding in a pixilated world.
Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony each have their own ideas as to how to make gamers of us all, and these plans were revealed at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo, the largest video-game-industry gathering in the world. Along with 70,000 journalists and industry folks, I rushed the doors of the LA Convention Center to get a first peek at the future of gaming. This year, attendees didn't even pause to gawk at the C-list celebrities like Adam West (TV's Batman) or Paris Hilton (TV's attention whore). Nor did they stop to have their photos taken with the famous booth babes, who, due to new decency laws, were forced to exhibit more modesty than their scantily clad, in-game alter egos this year. Instead, everyone raced to the Sony and Nintendo booths, hoping to get their hands on the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii. Question is: Can these bold new consoles, along with the already-released Xbox 360, win over the thumbs of the stubborn holdouts?
Gaming Anywhere, Anytime, For Anybody
Since PlayStation 3 and Wii were generating all the excitement, people only attended the Microsoft E3 media briefing on the off chance there'd be a glimpse of Halo 3. But who needs excitement when you have a year-long head start? To say that Microsoft has a decent lead in the next console generation is akin to saying Bill Gates has a few bucks to spare. By the time people start lining up at Wal-Mart to be the first to buy a PS3 or Wii, Microsoft will have sold 10 million Xbox 360s.
While waiting for Halo 3's Master Chief, we got a surprise visit from Gates himself, making his first-ever E3 appearance. His strategy for bringing gaming to everyone involves an expansion of the online service Xbox Live, called Live Anywhere.
"Our vision is to deliver consistent, compelling experiences that make it easy for consumers to jump in and play, from any device at any time," Gates said.
Live Anywhere connects the users of all of Microsoft's various platforms, including Xbox 360, Windows Mobile and the new Windows operating system, Vista. This means that Xbox 360 players could engage in multiplayer games against PC users, or even use their mobile phones to download and play games from Xbox Live Arcade. So from now on, if it bears the Microsoft logo, chances are it can access games.
"By opening the Xbox Live entertainment network to the entire universe of Windows and mobile gamers, we're creating unparalleled game-play opportunities that will drive incredible growth of the online community," Gates said.
Microsoft has been promoting the idea of building an online community since before the release of the Xbox 360. Xbox Live has always been the act to follow for online gaming, but with the advent of the next generation, Microsoft has insisted that the service can offer something for everyone. Even if you rarely play games, you can create an online profile, build a friends list, exchange messages ...
Sound at all familiar? It may as well be called MycrosoftSpace. That's the problem. Microsoft is hoping to draw in casual and non-gamers with the lure of an online community, but if you don't play games, why would you dish out $400 for an Xbox 360 when you can get the same experience for free with MySpace.com? In spite of its ambitions, Xbox Live really only services Microsoft's current fan base.
On the bright side, Microsoft knows how to keep that fan base hooked. After showcasing gorgeous game-play footage from the upcoming Gears of War and a breathtaking trailer for Fable 2, the media briefing ended with a Halo 3 teaser, which had Master Chief walking to the edge of a cliff to observe Covenant spaceships gathering over some glowing ... thing in the ground. Essentially, it was about two minutes of nothing happening.
I've since downloaded it to my computer and watch it daily.
Waving Mario's Magic Wand
"Nintendo's way is to challenge conventional thinking, not just for the sake of doing things differently, but to do things better," said Reggie Fils-Aime, vice president of sales and marketing, during Nintendo's briefing.
No console challenged the conventional idea of gaming as much as Nintendo's. The company has decided that it's the interface—a game-controller that seems to add a few more buttons with each iteration—that has left many people feeling alienated by games. So they've reinvented the fundamental way people play games with the motion-sensing controller of the oddly named Wii.
"We want to thank everyone who wrote good things about [the console's name] the day you heard it. Both of you," Fils-Aime said jokingly in response to the backlash the name prompted when it was announced a few weeks ago. (You can see my own rant in the Weekly's May 4 issue). "Seriously though, the response didn't surprise us at all. At first, every distinctive name sounds strange. Did you love Lexus the first time you heard it? How about Ikea? How about Google? Change is good. Wii from Nintendo means just what it sounds like: we. It's the sound of inclusion—the sound of every gamer you know, and every new gamer who's going to join us."
But is this strange, remote control-style controller, with its bizarre nunchuck analog attachment, truly a more intuitive form of control? After some hands-on time, I've decided the answer is: sometimes. The Wii controller is a nifty little device, and it's perfect for simulations of tennis and Ping-Pong. In a demo for Super Mario Galaxy, a quick shake of the controller could send Mario soaring to a distant planetoid, truly granting you an unprecedented sense of freedom.
But in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, aiming the hyper-sensitive remote at distant targets was a haphazard affair at best. Of course, when a Nintendo PR person cuts you in line to try out a game in front of 20 people who've been waiting for two hours to play and would like to bludgeon you with the Wii remote, it can be difficult to hold your hands steady. So maybe it just takes some getting used to. Even so, I can't imagine anyone who isn't comfortable with a standard controller feeling more at ease, or less self-conscious, while waving a remote control around in front of the TV.
The Wii is fun the way Nintendo's other wacky innovations, like the DS touchscreen or the Donkey Kong bongos, are fun. It's a detour from mainstream gaming that's worth taking, but eventually I'm going to want to get back to the main road, and many gamers will feel the same way. But that doesn't necessarily mean the Wii isn't worth having.
Although the final price point for the Wii was not revealed, it's a forgone conclusion that it will be the most affordable of the new consoles. This is partly because Wii isn't the graphics powerhouse that its competitors are. It's best-looking title was Twilight Princess, and that game was built for the current generation GameCube. But at the right price, with its wildly different game play, Wii could be the console everyone's still willing to buy even after spending a good portion of their nest egg on an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.
Imitation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery, Right?
At last year's E3, Sony amazed us with PlayStation 3 game footage from Killzone and MotorStorm, but my Sony PR contact was conveniently unable to confirm or deny that the footage was from actual game play, rather than a highly polished and meticulously pre-rendered cut-scene. So no one knew for certain what the PlayStation 3 could do until this year's Sony media briefing.
"Along with our partners, IBM and Toshiba, we have invested billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of man hours in creating the Cell Processor," said Kaz Hirai, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America. "It's a processor with power rivaling that of supercomputers but is uniquely designed to support the massive data processing required for digital entertainment and other HD-intensive applications."
As impressive as all that sounded, I couldn't help but notice that last year's game-play footage looked a hell of a lot more remarkable than this year's. Everything from Tekken 6, which didn't look any better than Xbox 360's Dead or Alive 4, to Gran Turismo HD, which barely looked better than PlayStation 2's own Gran Turismo 4, left the audience underwhelmed. There were a few gorgeous titles, like Resistance: Fall of Man, but even that game didn't look any better than the Xbox 360's similarly-themed Gears of War.
But never mind the graphics. What is PlayStation 3 doing to get the whole world gaming?
"By offering a variety of functionalities beyond just gaming—whether it be account management, player profiles, ranking, friends lists, video chat, voice messaging, text messaging and many more—our goal is to create and offer an online environment that is more than just a place to play games. That is creating a personal society or community," said Hirai.
Well, that sounds like a good ... wait a second. Isn't that Xbox Live? It even looked like Xbox Live, minus the green color scheme (I believe Microsoft now owns the exclusive rights to the color green). But Sony saved its most shameless act of copycatting until the end, when it revealed the PlayStation 3 controller.
Aesthetically, the controller appeared the same as that of the PlayStation 2, and even the PSone. But then Phil Harrison, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, picked up the controller, which immediately had an impact on the onscreen action, revealing that it was, in fact, motion-sensitive.
"This controller has six degrees of freedom built into it as standard," he said. "It allows me to really unlock the most incredible, fluid movement in games, and for the game controller to really become part of my own body, but be based upon our ... controller interface, which has been enjoyed by hundreds of millions of people over the years."
In other words, in case Nintendo's revolutionary controller looks a little scary, here's a rip-off that kind of does the same thing but bears a familiar appearance to keep you feeling safe. Shortly after the presentation, I was first in line to play WarHawk, a flight simulation that makes rudimentary use of the controller's motion feature. It handled well enough, but the feature was clearly an afterthought, added at the last minute.
Basically, Sony is offering a sampler plate of its competition's features, which wouldn't be so bad if it were offering it at a price that was less than the combined total of an Xbox 360 and a Wii. But Sony revealed a price point of $499 for the 20 GB hard-drive version, and a whopping $599 for the 60 GB version. The price primarily has to do with the inclusion of a Blu-ray disc player. And since BD players are presently in the neighborhood of $1,000, the PS3 might be a bargain. Then again, there's always a chance that it might be a bad investment of Enron proportions.
In case you don't know, Blu-ray might be the next evolution of DVDs. But then, HD DVD might also be that next step. The two formats are about to go to war. If Blu-ray ultimately wins, you'll already have a disc player with your PS3, but if it loses, you may as well have a PS3 equipped with a Betamax.
So, Is Everyone Ready to Play?
The hard fact of the matter is that the video-game industry probably won't get every man, woman and child playing games with this new wave of hardware. There will be many people who will refrain from picking up a controller—no matter what it looks like—throughout this console generation's entire five-year life span.
I think part of it is generational. Many people born before the era of interactive entertainment may never join the ranks of gamers. Of course, to put it as gently as possible, the video-game industry only has to be concerned with those people for so many years. But there are still many people, particularly women, born in the age of video games who still don't play. Why?
I believe it has to do with content more than hardware. Games almost exclusively fall into the genres of action/adventure, sci-fi, fantasy and horror, and often in an over-the-top fashion. There are plenty of people who abstain from those genres even with TV, movies and books. Where's the video-game equivalent of a chick flick? Or something with the subtle artistry of, say, Six Feet Under?
I think it will come, but gradually; not in the form of some bold, new console that every human being will impulsively buy, but in the little touches developers put into their games. Until then, those who already are gamers can enjoy the industry's extra effort to innovate. Obviously, we're already satisfied with the status quo. That reminds me: Time to watch the Halo 3 trailer again.