E3 Offers Some More of the Same

 My first impressions of this year’s E3 were that the show floor was as loud and busy as usual. Although the big news was supposed to be Nintendo’s new Wii U, the reality was that many of the new offerings seemed to be just more of the same—RPG, shooters, and dancing, have all been there before. The energy wasn’t as high as in previous years.

The “press” people here are doing a lot of video. Their equipment ranged from low-end camcorders to prosumer rigs. Sometimes the equipment seemed to overwhelm the subjects, and certainly caused a lot of traffic jams. People were using everything from phones to DSLRs for photos. At the low end, quality issues like no zoom for framing, while the top end is overkill for a website posting.

This year, Nvidia had live concerts with a trio playing music from various games. The trio was 2 violins and an electric pianos, or two pianos and a violin. The softer music was a nice break from the pounding on the show floor.

the nvidia trio played the theme songs from many games in their live concerts.

the nvidia trio played the theme songs from many games in their live concerts. 

This year, the halls were fairly empty of squads of people dressed to be characters in a game. A few guys were standing around like fundamentalist preachers to tout Redemption.

Some of the game developers are now producing action figures.
The big deal seems to be the Wii U, although the press conference seemed like a waste of time. You can check out the press conference on your own. The Nintendo people said very little about the games or the new console/controller, but focused on the social and interactive aspects of the new games and platform. From casual observations and some talks with developers, the learning curve on the new Wii seem to be a little steep.

The people trying new games needed a lot of handholding to perform relatively basic functions, and it seems that the developers figured that it was due to early release hardware. The UI seems a little non-intuitive and sometimes requires watching both screens to perform some sub-game function. For example, in Batman Arkhem City, you have to try to generate a decryption pattern on the controller while keeping track of a timer on the main screen.

Brief observations of other games showed similar patterns. Once people get use to the new controller, the UI might seem more comfortable to players and developers. The new systems require a rethinking of some standard interface tactics. When you have to do something on the small screen, you have to change your hand positions and let go of the triggers. The controller is not designed for single-handed operation, so a long sequence on the controller might cause people to have tired hands. The new system will play older games, but new games will not play on the older systems.

Xbox and Playstation are due for upgrades in ’13 or ’14. The Kinect games still use fairly large motions to generate on-screen motions. Some performers wore black and white gloves to get better responses with the higher contrast available from the gloves. The games still have problems with small and/or dark people.

I talked briefly with some Disney folks. Many of their games are now on iOS, but they are not sure of moving to the Android platforms. The strategy for multiplatform needs to start with basic game functions and navigation in the base code, then add on platform-specific controls through an API. They are considering moving to Android, especially since the Android platforms are growing faster than the iOS ones.