Scott Stein/CNET The
E3 show is done, and, like many of these events, there's a lot more
that was shown than anyone could ever take in on their own. And a lot of
it, honestly, felt the same. Big action games, big shooters,
jaw-dropping graphics in room-filling trailers, big explosions...from
booth to booth to booth.
But in the corners, amid the big consoles, there were some interesting lessons I learned at my first E3 in two years.
PlayStation TV, one of many platforms showing off indie games. Scott Stein/CNET
Indies are the future -- and present -- of gaming, and the glue of the whole industry.
I got bored with the endless sword, gun, and car games shown off at E3. Every poster was full of grizzled warriors, blood-zombies, or epic space soldiers. And then there were the indie games:
bright colors, wild designs, unpredictable abstract experimentation.
Indie games stole the show at both Microsoft and Sony's press
conferences via titles in the ID@Xbox
program, and curated games on Sony's consoles like Entwined or No Man's
Sky; both companies have created whole pipelines for indies to publish
games on their systems. Indie games huddled at the show in a gathering
of tables representing Indiecade, but were also scattered among bigger
booths, like Sony's. The indie games might not have had the booming
thunder-cannon trailers of Call of Duty or Destiny, but they were
running on the PlayStation TV, on the Vita, on PS4,
on the Xbox One, on Oculus Rift, on PCs, and on countless iPhones and
iPads. The indies were the most cross-platform games at E3. And their
presence at the show represented a surge of the next wave of gaming, one
that didn't feel marginal at all.
Josh Miller/CNET
VR is on its way sooner than most people think.
I played both Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus,
and they both feel ready to go. Would I prefer higher-res displays? Of
course. Would I like to not have cables running out of the VR helmets?
Yes, that, too. But these VR rigs really work -- they're playing
interesting games, and they're amazing to experience. It also seems like
game developers are having a fine time developing for them, based on
the surge in VR games seen around the show floor if you kept your eyes
open.
Josh Miller/CNET
Nintendo isn't going away, and that's a great thing.
In
the middle of zombies, superheroes, and epic space warfare, Nintendo's
booth was once again a candy-hued festival of cuteness. And it worked.
Nintendo clearly understands its strengths and has created a lineup of games
at this year's show that take advantage of its best qualities. And the
crowds around Super Smash Bros. told a clear tale: Nintendo can be cool.
And what I loved about Nintendo at this year's show was how its games
seemed so much more colored, bright, and downright kid-friendly than
anyone else's. Can it take advantage and go the next step to reclaim
some momentum in the console hardware race? I don't know, but Nintendo
offers balance to the gaming world that's sorely needed.
Scott Stein/CNET
Apple is extremely well positioned to enter and dominate the "console" gaming world.
Why bring Apple into this discussion? Well, I didn't do it; Apple did. By announcing new game development tools
the week before at its developer conference, Apple ended up showing how
much better mobile gaming can get. There were also tons of developers
showing iPad and iPhone games, or games that had additional
iPhone-friendly modes or even control schemes. Most major and minor
third-party developers at E3 are working on games that live on the App
Store. Apple's gaming presence is not an experiment: it's a dominating
force in the landscape. The mobile landscape. But all it would take is a
small box and connected controllers, and Apple would have a viable
console. Sony's little PlayStation TV
proves there's a growing interest in smaller, cheaper platforms. But,
despite Sony's dominance, the rest of the gaming industry doesn't seem
to have a runaway platform leader: games matter more than the system
they're being played on. This fall would be an excellent time to enter the race.
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق