Nintendo and Sony headlined the busiest day of E3 this year, with back to back keynotes that were sure to keep us entertained on E3 2009 Day 2.
Nintendo started proceedings with a bang. After a slight delay Cammie Dunaway kicked things off with a Mario montage, leading in to the announcement of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The all new 4 player Super Mario title was demonstrated on stage and will certainly please Nintendo fans of old.
Unfortunately the excitement level dropped directly after as Cammie went on to announce the leaked Pre-E3 Wii Fit Plus - a game that is heading in a 'new direction' and would help people "create a specific workout program that's perfect" for them. Cammie showed off a range of new minigames, including skateboarding and barrel jumping, which finally puts the gamer in Mario's shoes.
Reggie then came on stage to start talking about 'innovation' and went into a promotion for Wii MotionPlus and Wii Sports Resort, two items that were announced at E3 last year. Nintendo's Bill Trinen showed us that Wii Sports Resort will begin with skydiving, and then gave us a look at the very interesting archery and basketball games. Reggie reminded us that third party developers are making use of Wii MotionPlus, including EA with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 & Grand Slam Tennis and Sega with Virtua Tennis 2009.
Reggie dropped an interesting statistic by claiming that more 3rd party games were sold on the Wii and DS than any other platforms. Wow! He used Square Enix as an example of upcoming RPGs by showing off a trailer for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearer and Kingdom Hears 358/2 Days. Continuing the RPG trend Reggie discussed how Bowser sucks, and this time he literally means it. In Mario & Luigi RPG: Bowser's Inside Story the famous brothers have been shrunk and find themselves inside their nemesis!
The biggest under the radar announcement was that of Golden Sun DS. After a 6 year absence one of the best RPGs of the GBA era is back, and deserved way more excitement than it got.
Cammie replaced the Nintendo of America President on stage to announce Woman's Murder Club, an interactive book for the Nintendo DS. This is all about 'taking risks' and trying new things. It's definitely an interesting concept, and one we'll see more of if it turns out to be a success. Continuing with the DS content she announced COP: The Recruit. An open-world third-person urban crime game, Cop puts players behind the wheel, and on foot, as a street racer who's faced with the choice of returning to his criminal ways, or helping the police. The action packed trailer looked like GTA meets Driver mixed in with some Anime style cutscenes.
The DSi has some interesting unique features, including the ability to download content and 'applications' from an online store. In keeping with this theme Nintendo announced that it is developing a system for users to be able to share DSi pictures on the World Wide Web. Users will be able to take pictures with their DSi and then directly upload them to their Facebook page straight from their DSi console. WarioWare DIY is another DSi exclusive title and will allow players to create their own microgames, using features such as the DSi camera, then send them to their friends locally via Wi-Fi.
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata came on stage and confused everyone. He gave an extremely long, seemingly unnecessary speech, about Nintendo attempting to increase its audience. He said there are three active groups - those who actively play, those who never play and those who might. If gaming is to grow, it must come from the "maybe" group. There are 295 Million people in Japan, Europe and the US actively playing games. Then there's another 145 Million who say they might be involved in games. He continued to discuss non-gamers for quite a while and it seemed as if he didn't really have a point.
Eventually Iwata announced the Wii Vitality Sensor - a device the plugs into the bottom of your Wii Remote and receives information about your heart rate by being attached to your finger.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 was announced to the surprise of many since a new Mario title was announced at the start of the show. Check out the trailer to see Mario running around the spherical world, this time with the help of Yoshi. Super Mario Galaxy 2 is the first true sequel to a 3D Mario title, and the first time two 3D Mario adventures will appear on the same console.
Reggie reads the blogs. He knows we want more mature titles from third party developers. So, he decided to show us three games on the horizon that fit this description, and one of those games was Dead Space Extraction.
Nintendo started the show with a surprise, and ended it with a massive shock, by announcing that they were teaming up with Team Ninja to bring Metroid: Other M to the Nintendo Wii. It's Metroid like you've never seen it before, and as Reggie says, it takes a name you know well and turns it into something new. The game is due out next year and features a mix of 1st and 3rd person gameplay. With that Nintendo concluded their Keynote for E3 2009.
Later in the day, at their roundtable discussion, Shigeru Miyamoto confirmed that a new Wii Zelda title is in development. Don't expect it until 2010 at the very earliest and reports that we won't see it again until next E3 suggest it may be further away than that.
The morning continued with Sony's Conference starting at 4am local time. Jack Tretton started proceedings by thanking everyone for coming and stated that they won't be "out done" by anyone. He discussed the success of the PS2 and that Sony was the first company to have 3 successful consoles in the industry at the same time along side the PS3 and PSP. inFamous is just one of 35 titles to come exclusively to the PlayStation 3 in 2009 and looks set to further increase the 13 million PS3 that have already been sold worldwide.
Sony played montages of various upcoming games throughout the entire keynote. Out of all the videos the show early in the piece Heavy Rain received the biggest applause.
The PSP was a major player in the keynote as Sony officially announced "the worst kept secret of E3" the PSP Go. They also confirmed that the new iteration of the handheld wouldn't make the PSP-3000 or UMD obsolete and that they intended to continue to support both in the future, even after the PSP GO is released.
Sony did have a surprise or two in store for us, however, by bringing out Kojima to announce Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for PSP. It is set 10 years after the events of MGS3: Snake Eater and is said to be a true sequel to that title. The game is set in 1974, where a powerful group takes over Costa Rica.
Gran Turismo PSP kept the good news coming for PSP fans as it was announced along side the PSP Go and showcased with an impressive trailer. There will be over 800 cars, 35 tracks and 60 layouts of those tracks. The game will also run at 60 fps. It will be a launch title along side the PSP Go.
Finally Agent was announced exclusively for the PlayStation 3. "We have always enjoyed making action games, and with Agent we are making what we believe will be the ultimate action game," said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. We didn't get any images or footage but nobody is going to complain about an exclusive game from Rockstar.
Sony dropped a bombshell during their E3 2009 keynote speech when they announced Final Fantasy XIV Online exclusively for the PS3 and PC. A small trailer was shown, although no gameplay was in the trailer. The response to the announcement was one of amazement, as the audience at the keynote didn't quite know how to react to it.
In keeping with the FF theme Sony revealed that Final Fantasy VII is going to be released on the PS Store for download.
The biggest shock of the morning came when Sony announced their new motion controller for the PS3. While the controller was still in the form of an early prototype it worked in a similar way to the Wii Remote. However, with the aid of a camera it appeared to detect movement better than the current Wii Remote. Dr. Richard Marx, creator of the EyeToy, demoed the controller on stage, showing off its real-time movement and how precise it is with the gamer’s swings. We'll post the video of the demonstration shortly.
Sony also announced Mod Nation Racers - a community and creative-focused title from developer United Front Games. The title will be a kart racing title, allowing you to generate your own characters and build your own karts.
Another PS3 exclusive, God of War III will be hitting shelves during March 2010. It just snuck in towards the end of the conference and we're glad it did with a trailer. The gameplay is just as we expect it to be - gory, violent and action-packed! The environments look stunning and the enemies just as massive and aggressive as we remember from the first two mind-blowing titles. And with that Sony Concluded their Keynote.
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Submitted by ICC_06
03/06/2009
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