What the Big 3 have to do at E3...

Well I didn't mean not to post over the holiday weekend but I had some crazy back to back shifts and was just too exhausted to do much besides sleep (well and get in a little Xenoblade Chronicles, but mostly sleep). But back on track, E3 is a mere 5 days away, with lots of anticipation behind it, hoping to see updates to our favorite franchises, new original stuff and of course new technology. This year may be one of the most crucial for all 3 companies for varying reasons, so here's what I think they need to do in order to win the show this year:

Microsoft: Microsoft's press conferences usually aren't all that exciting, but last year's was pure torture, focusing on casual Kinect titles & integration aimed at a target audience that doesn't even know what the hell E3 is. Arguably the core game meant to bring in actual gamers, Star Wars Kinect, is a huge embarrassment. The show can't be all Kinect all the time, though some titles showing it's actually worth it for more than just Dance Central would be a good idea. This may be the last big year before Microsoft moves on to focusing on their next system, so showing the core audience that really bought into series like Halo & Gears of War a little actual love should be in order. And for god's sake find somebody who doesn't bore the hell out of us to do the presentation, Microsoft has been missing a decent spokesman since J. Allard left the company.

Sony: Sony may actually have the toughest battle here, amid flagging sales of the Vita and troubling rumors about the financial future of the company and what that means for the games division in general. Move has pretty much been a complete bust, unless they can drastically re-invent it, it should probably just be completely written off and ignored. I am also really not impressed by the announcement of a God of War prequel, so impress me, show me why I should care. But obviously what Sony arguably needs most is to reverse the Vita's fortunes. Much like Nintendo's slow start with the 3DS, the high price and lack of quality software have unsurprisingly led to it being pretty much bust. Sony really needs to show that this is not an expensive piece of gimmicky hardware, and showing quality games that really show off the power of the system while not forcing us to use the touch features are pretty much a necessity.

Nintendo: Simply put, Nintendo really has to explain the Wii U. Give a clear definition of what it can do and why we should be excited about it, and it's going to take more than the fact that we will finally have a Nintendo console that is finally going to be getting current gen ports, because that's what the majority of the lineup looks like at this point. A couple surprises for Wii owners would be nice, but frankly I think pretty much the entire show should be focused on impressing us with the Wii U. They've turned around the fortunes of the 3DS immensely, they can pretty much just show upcoming games for that on the show floor and ignore it in the big press conference. They probably won't, but seriously the presentation should probably be at least 90% about the Wii U because they really need to blow off the doors with it.

That's all for today, I should have another post up by Friday, in the meantime here's your TRAILER OF THE WEEK: Indie Game: The Movie