I've watched all three conferences. My first impression is that Nintendo is continuing to flirt with a new gaming audience. They do it well. Their conference were kind of boring though. Reggie talking stats isn't that fun. Sonys conference were the best one in my opinion. Maybe it's because I'm sort of a Sony fanboy.

Ok, now it's a day later and I'll write something about yesterdays press conferences.

Nintendo

So, this wasn't a really good press conference. Reminded me of E3 last year. A large portion about how much money Nintendo make and a lot of bragging. DS is a the largest handheld and Wii is selling a lot but I still won't buy one at the moment. Mainly because many of the big releases that are coming is party games or other compilations of small games. Wii Sport Resort, Rayman Raving Rabbids is two examples. I actually can't stand that kind of games. They get me bored after 15 minutes.

Nintendo is continuing to flirt with casual gamers. Wii music looked kind of cool until they told us that all you have to do is wave the control and the game plays perfectly for you. At least that is the impression I got. Star Wars might be fun but I think The Force unleashed will kick Clone Wars @ss. Nintendo have a couple of games that always sell good and it is no surprisethat those are back again. Another Pokemon game, Animal Crossing, Wii sports, Wii music, Rayman and so on. Nothing that excites me.

Snowboard using the balance board might be fun so that was the best game in my opinion. One of the biggest news to me was GTA for DS.Call of Duty World at War is also coming to Wii. Don't think that will be that good. They also announced Wiimote plus which enhances the sensitivity of the wiimote. It makes the wiimote as it should have been from the begining.

So that was Nintendo in short. Nintendo clearly make a point of making games for casual gamers so there were nothing that excited me enough to make me buy a Wii. A weak performance and I think Nintendo is forgetting their fans to some extent. In that regard they have to reconsider in the future.

Sony

This was the strongest show so far. Unfortunately there were few games announced that we didn't already know about. They talked about the 10 year lifespan and how the ps2 is still going strong suggesting that the same will go for ps3. Also they talked about where ps1 and ps2 were one and a half year into thier lifecycle comparing it to ps3 and where it is today. Reading between the lines they said "take it easy, the best is yet to come". That was a smart move I think.

The numbers presentation were made with the help of Sackboy and LittleBigPlanet. A brilliant presentation that show how versetile that game is.

The games we saw were Resistance 2 and Resistance for the psp. A trailer showing God of War 3. Some psn titles including a Ratchet game. They talked about home, the new movie service within psn, gttv, google and youtube via ps3 and so on. The big point of the press conference according to my impression is comunity. The psn community is growing and evolving.

MAG was cool and during the clips we saw a glimpse of some other cool games like Prince of Persia, Yakuza, Warrior Orochi, Mercenaries 3, Bioshock, CoD World at War and so on.

It feels like Sony is picking up speed and is getting a big contender to the xbox 360 world wide. The psn community with home is really promising, there are some really interesting games coming and the connectivity between psp and ps3 is great. Right now I'm gladthat I'm a ps3 owner. The future looks bright for us.

I guess that's it for the moment. I made notes during the conference but there is just too much to write about so if you haven't seen the conferences I recommend that you do that and see for yourself.

Take care!

After some inital difficulties I watched MS press conference that took place earlier today. I must say that I expected more than I got. MS is looking towards the casual gaming market by releasing Lips (Singstar rip-off), Avatars (Mii rip-off) and some other more casual games. They talked a bit about Live Arcade and the movie content coming through Xbox Live and Netflix.Also Rock Band 2 and Viva Pinata 2was a part of the lineup.

On the gaming side they showed Resident Evil 5, Fallout 3 and Gears of War 2. Square Enix showed off some games including FF13. I must say that there were very few exclusive titles being showed and none that excited me (other than RE5 that is). Resident Evil will come to PS3 as well so I don't mind. The other Square Enix games felt like they were to attract the japanese xbox market.

They also talked numbers and told us how much better the 360 is compared to ps3 and wii. Sounded like a lot of bs to me. The most bold statement was that they think the 360 will outsell ps3 throughout the entire console generation. Considering that the s3 is closing in and is currently outselling the 360 in the most of the world clearly didn't discourage them from making that statement.

So what is my impression. I think MS is getting nervous when wii is selling in great numbers and when the ps3 is starting to sell better. They are trying to get a piece of the casual gaming market that has been the teritory of nintendo and sony to some extent. The problem is that MS is copying everything. Lips is like Singstar. Ok it has the functionality so you can import your own music into the game is kind of cool but it still is the same concept. Scene It is like Buzz, avatars is like miis the new functions of the dashboard looks a little like home in 2d.MS need to do better than this if they want to keep market shares. There really were nothing that excited me and everthing felt like reactions to Sony and Nintendo rather than new innovations of their own. I truly believe that this press conference will hurt MS more than it helps. I guess there are a lot of disappointed gamers out there today. I myself is glad I don't own a 360. If I did I would be pissed right now.

I thought I would get really excited when starting GTA IV. I'm not, though. Everybody praises the game but for som reason I can't get into GTA IV the way I got into GTA 3. It looks great but since I've heard so much good about it I tend to get irritated about the flaws. The AI sometimes isn't what it should be, and when I run and hit a wall I just stand still and keep running on the same spot. Why make a ladder on the wall if you're not able to climb it and so on. Well, in my book the game is far from perfect. A good story can make up for that but so far the story isn't that great either.

Maybe GTA will grow on me if I can look past the things I don't like about it. I'll keep playing. I still play a lot of CoD4. I'm about to reach my fourth prestige.

Summer is here and I planed on playing a lot but I have actually read books more than I have played games. I rereading a series of books a swedish author, Jan Guillou, have written.The game I play the most is Okami for the PS2. Okami is one of the best games I ever played. I love the art style and the story is good as well. There are a lot to find and some fun and challenging side quests. I'm 50 hours into that game and is about to finish the fifth chapter out of six.

Guess that is about it at the moment. Take care!

Been on a hiking trip with my students. It was the exam trip of a coarse they have had during this last semster. We went to an island just outside the eastern coast of Sweden that is called Öland. It has been three days full of sun and fun even though it is nice to be home again. Now it's only a week and a half until summer vacation. And tomorrow (or today since it's past midnight) it is 6th of june and the swedish national day and everybody has a day off from work. Unfortunately I have to work anyway. Well, I have had a great couple of days hiking so I don't mind.

Take care out there!