Three E's

This one isn't going to be super long, but I thought I’d give my predictions for this year’s E3.
Announcements are already starting to roll in. Harmonix announced that they are making a new music
game in Disney’s Fantasia universe. That could be really awesome, but it’s strange that they are insisting
that it is not a dance game, but the music shown so far has all been dance/club remixes of top 40 songs.
It’s also Xbox exclusive, but will be on both the 360 and the One. That whole project just confuses me,
but let’s move on to some predictions.


Nintendo:


Nintendo has already leaked a lot of what they are going to be announcing. We’re going to see Smash
Bros 4, new Zelda, new Mario Kart, a new 3D Mario, and more info on the Wind Waker HD remake
at least. There will probably be more information about titles that are coming out sooner as well, like
Pikmin 3, Bayonetta 2, and Pokemon X & Y. In lieu of a full presentation, Nintendo is doing an hour long
Nintendo Direct video that they will air on Tuesday morning. This has the benefit of being prerecorded,
so we won’t have to deal with any embarrassing stage-flailing that we tend to find at E3. I’m predicting
that Nintendo will have at least one out-of-left-field announcement, probably whatever Retro Studios
(the team that made Metroid: Prime) is working on. The thing that Nintendo needs to do however, is
give us concrete info on their new unified account system for the 3DS and WiiU. The WiiU’s biggest
weakness is its incomplete online system, and lack of account tracking.


Microsoft:


Microsoft is easily investing the most money into the event, and stand to lose the most after their
laughable Xbox One announcement. Their reps have been talking to the media, and calling the current
information about the Xbox One “Incorrect and Incomplete”. This seems to imply that their policies
may be changing, in lieu of the public outcry, but I doubt we’ll see too many of the “features” removed,
rather they’ll be rebranded. Microsoft is claiming that they won’t be talking about TV features in their
90 minute presentation, but let’s face it, they don’t have 90 minutes of games available to show without
some serious padding. I’m willing to bet that most of their exclusive game announcements are going to
be Kinect minigames and uninspired sequels, but I guarantee that they will use the hype wave caused
by the announcement of Halo 5 or whatever to slowly sneak in details about their awful DRM and
advertising plans.


Sony:


Sony has been a tough nut to crack this year. We haven’t really heard much from them since their
console announcement conference back in February. We know about a bunch of new features of the
console, and several exclusive games, but most of the details are missing. At E3 we’re definitely going
to get a full reveal of the console and its features. It’s possible that Sony is planning to implement DRM,
security, or worse in line with what Microsoft is doing, but has been keeping quiet about it. Sony’s
presentation is a whopping 2 hours long, and they’ll need something to fill that time, so new information
is going to be plentiful. A new, slim version of the Vita maybe?