The Time is nearly upon us again folks. The time for cheers, the time for surprises, the time for ‘what the hell were they thinking?’, the time for fanboys to declare mortal kombat, and quite possibily the time for more internet memes to be produced.
The event this year shall take place June 13 and Big 3’s conferences and smaller conferences will be on as follows:
Microsoft: Monday June 14 at 10 a.m. PST ( 1:30 p.m. East Coast)
EA: Monday June 14 at 2 p.m. PST (5 p.m. East Coast)
Ubisoft: Monday June 14 at 5 p.m. PST (8 p.m East Coast)
Nintendo: Tuesday June 15 at 9 a.m. PST (12 p.m. East Coast)
Sony: Tuesday June 15 11:30 a.m PST ( 2:30 p.m. East Coast)
Konami: Wednesday June 16 1 p.m. PST (4 p.m. East Coast)
Microsoft will also be holding an event June 13 to show off Natal and it’s games early on and Ubisoft and EA have press conferences on Monday after Microsoft’s.
So far 245 Companies have been confirmed to be showing up this year
The Big Games List:
This is the list of games that have been confirmed to be there so far. Take note this is NOT the full list of games…it’s only what has been officially confirmed. This list will constantly be updated probably up until the actual event so keep checking on it every so often.
I will edit this post with more information as we get closer and will also gather up a Rumors section. If you’ve heard any rumors on things that may show up at E3 post about it in here and I’ll try to add it when I get the chance. In either case what are you guys hype for? What are you guys not hype for? Discuss!!
E3 Rumor Mill
Sony Related:
Twisted Metal may show up during the conference. David Jaffe went on record to say he wasn’t attending this years E3 but then a list showed up on the web stating that the game would be there. Jaffe believes that the list is fake which probably isn’t a far fetch. We’ll see how this turns out.
inFamous 2.The domain has already been registered. And the V.A. for Cole already stated he was shooting for a re-cast. Chances of at least a trailer showing up this year I think are pretty great. (CONFIRMED!)
PSP 2. This rumor has been awhile for at least a year or so. If it’s real then it could possibily show up this year.
Rumors of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus being put in HD
Nintendo Related:
It’s all but 100% confirmed that LOZ will be there. Both Miyamoto and Iwata made mention in interviews past that it was going to show up this year but then Reggie decided to try to go the opposite way and state that they aren’t sure what’s going to be there.(Confirmed!)
Retro Studios Project has a very good chance of showing up this year. An interviewer tried to get Reggie to talk about Retro and his words were something along the lines of ‘we’ll get to that at E3’. Recent rumors now suggest that they’re working on a Donkey Kong revival. (Confirmed!)
Pikmin 3
Microsoft Related:
Incidentally that same list that Jaffe thinks is fake also has Killer Instict 3 on it. That and Rare has been hinting at it for some time now. So far rumors have stated that Natal is going use it. Are you prepared to wave your hands in front of you to perform c-c-c-c-combo breakers? (not confirmed)
Xbox 360 Slim (Confirmed!)
Hulu coming to XBL? (not confirmed)
Square Enix related:
Final Fantasy Versus XIII could go multi platform. I swear if Wada comes out on stage during Microsoft’s press conference I think I’m going to be able to hear the simultaenous breaking and/or tossing of TV’s.
Capcom Related:
A new Mega Man game that isn’t a retro revival may show up.
Personal thoughts on what to expect from the Big 3’s conferences :
Nintendo’s Press Conference:
Nintendo has been on the failboat in terms of conferences for the past couple of years (that Wii Music one was probably the worst one they’ve done in history and I easily make it the 2nd worst in E3 history). This year though based upon what’s expected from the Big 3 I actually think Nintendo has a pretty good shot of being the best this year. Reasons for me saying this is that in comparison to Microsoft and Sony this year, they aren’t going to be trying to push motion controls down your throat. They’ve already been there and done that. They also have lots of surprises that could easily be dropped. Sakurai’s new studio Project Sora and Retro Studios have been busily working on projects nobody knows anything about. Hal Laboratory has been working on a Kirby game for some time now so that could appear at the show. I’m sure they could have a plethora of surprises in store to go with the a good possible solid showing of LOZ and the new 3DS. I’m sure Other M would probably be there since it got pushed back as well. Having a trailer for The Last Story would be nice as well.
Don’t get me wrong though…Even though I feel Nintendo could also make a fantastic showing this year they could easily fuck it up horribly. Nobody knows what this vitality sensor thing is that they’re coming out with or how it could be applied so it could just turn out to be a big gimmick. I fully expect Nintendo to do the whole ‘LOOK AT OUR SALES!’ for at least 10 minutes of the conference. I hope they don’t dwell on that forever but they’ve always been rubbing people’s noses in the fact that they’ve been no.1 for the past few years. Then there’s the usual casual stuff that they’re inevitably going to focus on for a section of the conference. Again just hoping that it doesn’t take up a large majority of it.
Sony’s Press Conference:
I’m fully expecting Sony to have a solid showing this year. They’ve come a looooong way from when the PS3 was first revealed. Move looks like it has some nice potential if it’s done correctly but both Sony and Microsoft have a long uphill climb for their motion controls…Sony’s battle isn’t as uphill as Microsoft’s though imo. It’ll be pretty interesting to see how far they’ve come in it’s tech since the first initial showing. People also need to know what price are they gonna end up paying for this thing. Last heard they were planning to have it ‘less than $100’. Sony is really going to have try to win people over on this which makes me believe that a good portion of their conference is going to be dedicated to move and it’s games. If they fail to impress then it’s going to hinder their conference significantly. There are quite a lot of gamers on Sony’s console who just plain don’t care about motion controls so they’re going to have to give the nay sayers a reason for picking it up.
The real goods that most people are waiting for are the games and the possible showing of the PSP 2 if it is indeed real. I’m wondering what do they plan to bring to the table to combat the 3DS? They can’t just put another handheld out there and just up the graphics on it and call it a day because that’s not going to work. They should do something along the lines of the Little Big Planet presentation that they did once before that could probably help promote LBP2. I thought that was a really nice touch in there E3 presentation. Gameplay of the Last Guardian would be awesome and I’m sure plenty of people have been waiting to see more Gran Turismo. It would certainly be a nice surprise if Twisted Metal were to make an appearance. Then there’s Killzone 3 that could also show up.
Microsoft Press Conference:
I’m pretty sure people have heard me say it before but I just don’t see how Natal can work in most situations in hardcore games but I’m willing to be proven wrong. I can see the device being used in shooters as sort of like a Minority Report type interface that allows you to play with the controller…especially for shooters. I mean that’s cool and all but who is going to be willing to drop close to 100 bucks for that? I’m sure the device will work fine without a controller input for casual games but they’re really going to have to give hardcore gamers a reason to pick it up. Hopefully they’ll give us a price range on this thing and show how the tech has improved since last year. We might even finally be able to find out what the bottom of an avatar’s shoe looks like. That or Milo goes self aware in the middle of the Microsoft conference. That would be epically horrifying.
I’m sure Microsoft isn’t going to disappoint on the games end. I’m looking forward to seeing Gears 3 in action and what new they have for the conclusion. The new direction Molyneux and Co. at Lionhead studios are taking Fable III is going to be interesting. Of course they’re gonna have to have their Halo baby there taking up a portion of the conference. Killer Instinct 3 showing itself has mixed feelings from me personally since it’s been rumored to be Natal related. I honestly don’t know what else to expect from Microsoft this year but they’ve often been able to drop at least 1 bomb during their conferences.
Stream and LiveBlog Links
IGN
IGN also have a schedule up on what will be shown on their live stream feed throughout the week here. This is also where I’m assming they will have their link to the live stream. If it changes I’ll fix it.
GameTrailers
GT will probably have a stream link going up at some point in here
GameSpot
Microsoft
Nintendo
Sony
Ubisoft
EA
G4
G4 will probably have their steams posted up here. They’re supposed to also be showing it on their channel but if you want to make sure they don’t try to take any commercial breaks in it during some big reveal then I’d suggest trying to catch it online or having a website ready just in case.
If their are streams at other websites that you want to share then make me aware of it and I’ll update it.