Consolidated Letdown: E3 2009

[Azazel]

I enjoyed the Helicopter's chaingun rounds being unable to penetrate an overturned wooden desk. They build those suckas solid.   

[Megrim]

I wonder what kinds of sentiment towards Natal and PS-dildo there are in Europe and Scandinavia.  In that part of the world, instead of soccer-moms they have LARPER-moms that take their kids to the park to play live-action Castles&Crusades.  I'm willing to bet across the pond they're frothing at the mouth over this tech.   We fatass Americans simply cant be troubled with it though.   

If you have the ability to play live-action Castles @ Crusades by wearing full plate and beating the shit out of each other on the weekend, i suspect that the fatass Americans are going to be the only ones interested in it. Also, that picture of the guy doing the bicycle kick while holding the controllers - lol.

[HaemishM]

What's really laughable to me is you know developers want to cut to the chase and just start making spandex mo-cap suits for gamers to wear. 

No, they don't. They WANT people to see everything they do in full 3D as an environment around them and the player to interact on all things in that environment without ever moving an inch. They want a goddamn holodeck. Because they (and we) ARE NERDS.

[Ghambit]

What's really laughable to me is you know developers want to cut to the chase and just start making spandex mo-cap suits for gamers to wear. 

No, they don't. They WANT people to see everything they do in full 3D as an environment around them and the player to interact on all things in that environment without ever moving an inch. They want a goddamn holodeck. Because they (and we) ARE NERDS.

The holodeck requires movement, only you dont actually move anywhere.
What we Nerds want is this only w/o having to drive to a park 100's of miles away and/or deal with other Nerds face to face. (which as we all know is terribly unnerving)

Picture Barclay from ST:TNG.  yes, that's what we want.

+Troi

[Azazel]

(Spoiler'd to save space)

If I could do that kind of thing, I'd be out doing it in a real-life soccer team, not on my lounge room floor (which is a lot harder than a soccer pitch, let me tell you.)

[Falwell]

(Spoiler'd to save space)

If I could do that kind of thing, I'd be out doing it in a real-life soccer team, not on my lounge room floor (which is a lot harder than a soccer pitch, let me tell you.)

The real question is if the paramedics that show up to the house to scrape up the 350 pound video game soccer superstar attempting a bicycle kick will also be picked up by the camera and rendered on screen.

[schild]

God, stop talking about the silly picture. >_<

The picture is not a representation - at ALL - of what Sony expects people to do, it's simply a better diagram than one of a guy holding a ball and something appearing on the screen.

[Ghambit]

(Spoiler'd to save space)

If I could do that kind of thing, I'd be out doing it in a real-life soccer team, not on my lounge room floor (which is a lot harder than a soccer pitch, let me tell you.)

The real question is if the paramedics that show up to the house to scrape up the 350 pound video game soccer superstar attempting a bicycle kick will also be picked up by the camera and rendered on screen.

What's really cool is that the game would know that the 350 lber had need to be scraped up.  So it could like, automatically alert the authorities.  :)
Which brings me to my next point.  In all seriousness, there are medical uses for this technology as well.

Physical therapists are already using the Wii for very nearly every damned thing.  Autistic kids also come alive when combining games with active movement.  The list goes on and on. 

And dont forget military interests.  DARPA has been fooling with this stuff for a while now.

[Bzalthek]

Face it, we won't be happy until we invent the neural shunt and are able to consciously interact in a virtual world.

[gryeyes]

Naw id say holodeck over a datajack in the "ultimate gaming" contest.

[UnSub]

God, stop talking about the silly picture. >_<

The picture is not a representation - at ALL - of what Sony expects people to do, it's simply a better diagram than one of a guy holding a ball and something appearing on the screen.

In future, I promise to ignore what developers show and instead focus on their intent and promises. 

[schild]

God, stop talking about the silly picture. >_<

The picture is not a representation - at ALL - of what Sony expects people to do, it's simply a better diagram than one of a guy holding a ball and something appearing on the screen.

In future, I promise to ignore what developers show and instead focus on their intent and promises. 

Sony didn't promise a damn thing. That picture is for the patent app and the demo was just "Hey, here's some cool shit, think of cooler shit."

They're the ONLY ONES that didn't promise anything. >_< Seriously.

[Venkman]

Naw id say holodeck over a datajack in the "ultimate gaming" contest.

Nah. Fat and slothful in the real world is still fat and slothful on a Holodeck. Neural shunt is the great (physical) equalizer.

[NiX]

I enjoyed the Helicopter's chaingun rounds being unable to penetrate an overturned wooden desk. They build those suckas solid.   

I noticed that too. I understand why they did it, but at least make it a bit more believable.

[schild]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOWHO0f2Wo0

8:20 in is hilarious.

[Azazel]

He didn't say anything about <what the fuck did he say?> ?

[Trippy]

Solid Snake.

[Bzalthek]

Hah!  1:30 on that video has the skateboard controller/natal dissonance. 

[Velorath]

They're the ONLY ONES that didn't promise anything. >_< Seriously.

Given how things went with the Sixaxis, I don't imagine they'd want to promise anything this time around.

[taolurker]

Hah!  1:30 on that video has the skateboard controller/natal dissonance. 

At least with Natal there won't be a skateboard shaped projectile that kids will attempt to break everything with, including their bones/bodies.. The Skateboard is cool looking and the name of it should be "Hawksuit controller" unless each one contains a liability and property damage waiver attached to it.

[Venkman]

Thought this chart (based reporting about E3) was interesting. Chart ranking the relative interest of each announcement at E3.

For those whose eyes bleed at Kotaku:

[schild]

The disparity between Milo and Natal says a lot.

Also, I am once again depressed with society given the location of Xbox Facebook and Xbox Twitter. Bookending a Zelda? Christ. What have we become?

[fuser]

Bookending a Zelda? Christ. What have we become?

A society of marks. I wonder if most people will be let down because the facebook app won't allow you to play scrabble online or do the quizzes, maybe it will be a DLC addon.

Oh wait I *could* do that on the PS3's web browser allready

[tmp]

Thought this chart (based reporting about E3) was interesting. Chart ranking the relative interest of each announcement at E3.

Interesting to see complete lack of FFXIV in that list, even though it was listed as 'most popular e3 game' on gamespot page at some point, ahead of Sims 3 et al. Wonder if they messed up and just combined all FF discussion together.

[Venkman]

Also, I am once again depressed with society given the location of Xbox Facebook and Xbox Twitter. Bookending a Zelda? Christ. What have we become?

The console targets the exact same psychographic of the narcissistic passive exhibitionist as Facebook does.  That it's taken this long to get this ready is the only thing I'm surprised at. I only figured they wanted to save something for the "next evolution" of XBL, with last year being the face lift.

This really felt more like a hardware/feature show than a software/IP one. Some awesome titles, but those are the usual things people talk about. High-fidelity wii-motes and 3D cameras from companies targeting the exact people that are both interested and can show up to E3, that's news.

[UnSub]

Thought this chart (based reporting about E3) was interesting. Chart ranking the relative interest of each announcement at E3.

Interesting to see complete lack of FFXIV in that list, even though it was listed as 'most popular e3 game' on gamespot page at some point, ahead of Sims 3 et al. Wonder if they messed up and just combined all FF discussion together.

They just did a social media search and printed off the top level results. The people most interested in FFXIV either didn't hear about it and / or don't blog / twit / forum post about it to the same extent.

[tmp]

They just did a social media search and printed off the top level results. The people most interested in FFXIV either didn't hear about it and / or don't blog / twit / forum post about it to the same extent.

Well, doing just basic google search shows something like 45k results in the last week for FFXIV while Invisimals which made it onto that list give 200 results or so. So i guess these social media don't reflect rest of the intrawebs too closely.

edit: FFXIII shows ~65k results in the same timespan.

[fuser]

They just did a social media search and printed off the top level results. The people most interested in FFXIV either didn't hear about it and / or don't blog / twit / forum post about it to the same extent.

I don't know about that FFXIV was huge on google trends the whole day here's some stats:

http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?sa=X&date=2009-6-2
1. final fantasy 14
16.    ffxiv
74.    ff14

http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?sa=X&date=2009-6-1
2.    project natal
36.    xbox natal
47.    microsoft natal
90.    project natal xbox 360

But to your point searching of blogs, your right a huge more percentage blogged about it.
6/2/2009 - 6/2/2009
2,294 for final fantasy xiv
12,172 for natal (6/1/2009)
15,204 for natal (6/2/2009)

[Cyrrex]

I can't figure out if you're all just fat and lazy, or just plain crazy.  I would love to do the full video capture thing, complete with spandex, dildos and swordfighting on screen.  Maybe even a bicycle kick.  Don't know what a bird kick is, but I'll try one of them too.

Seriously.  I may be in a tiny niche group, but that would be the best thing ever for me, assuming it is precise enough.  I am STILL waiting for my lightsaber game, and this may be the path to it. 

[tmp]

I can't figure out if you're all just fat and lazy, or just plain crazy.  I would love to do the full video capture thing, complete with spandex, dildos and swordfighting on screen.  Maybe even a bicycle kick.

It just looks more fun in one's mind or even on PR video carefully scrubbed from every ounce of humanity. But once you add the actual human(s) it turns into this. Or this.

[Cyrrex]

I can't figure out if you're all just fat and lazy, or just plain crazy.  I would love to do the full video capture thing, complete with spandex, dildos and swordfighting on screen.  Maybe even a bicycle kick.

It just looks more fun in one's mind or even on PR video carefully scrubbed from every ounce of humanity. But once you add the actual human(s) it turns into this. Or this.

There are two problems with your argument.  The first is that I am decidedly (and obviously) more awesome than the average schlub.  Second, have you seen the Star Wars Kid video where they added all the visual and sound effects?  Even SWK can be made awesome with the appropriate technology.

[Yegolev]

If I wanted to do all that crazy shit with my own body, I'd not be sitting on the sofa playing games.

[tmp]

Second, have you seen the Star Wars Kid video where they added all the visual and sound effects?  Even SWK can be made awesome with the appropriate technology.

Visual effects are painted on screen. They do nothing to improve the appearance of actual kid who is still there in middle of it all, all busy panting and twirling and being a dork.

[Cyrrex]

Second, have you seen the Star Wars Kid video where they added all the visual and sound effects?  Even SWK can be made awesome with the appropriate technology.

Visual effects are painted on screen. They do nothing to improve the appearance of actual kid who is still there in middle of it all, all busy panting and twirling and being a dork.

He looks like a twirling and panting dork who is successfully deflecting blaster bolts coming from all different directions, in an entertaining fashion.  The effects don't improve the kid, but they improve the whole scene.

All I want is something that helps me suspend disbelief enough to make me think that when I make a stabby motion with my magical dildo while lunging forward, that it was my direct input that resulted in the lunging, stabbing hero on the screen.  I don't want all my games to be like that...but some of them could be made awesome.

[Lantyssa]

You could join the SCA.