The news of a new handheld from Nintendo was big. A new 3D enabled handheld with well over 20 developers pushing major titles for support of the platform put Nintendo well into the lead for most analysts. As the industry readies itself for a challenging second half of 2010, Ben Schachter at Gleacher & Company believes that Nintendo is in the best position.
“Nintendo was the clear winner of the show, as the 3DS delivered on high expectations,” he says. “The motion sensing devices from Sony and MSFT have received a somewhat mixed reaction, and while we believe they will help to extend the cycle (a clear theme at E3), they are more evolutionary than revolutionary (building on the Wii’s innovation).”
Schachter also highlighted the E3 showings of some key third party publishers. “We remain convinced that ATVI will continue to execute against its highly targeted strategy for CoD and Blizzard titles, but the company’s insistence that Guitar Hero can deliver increased operating profit [year over year] is less than certain,” Schachter says. He does note that Take Two Interactive is enjoying incredible success from Red Dead Redemption, and “a few of its titles also looked solid."
Also of note, Ubisoft and THQ were both “relatively disappointing.” He adds, “THQI’s slate was ok, but disappointing UFC sales cast a shadow on the company heading into the show.”
Ubisoft could also be in trouble, “with Prince of Persia and Splinter Cell under performing expectations and significant development costs being amortized, the company will likely face an uphill battle for 2010.”
4 Comments
June 18, 2010
Well that's nice for the analyst but Nintendo didn't show one game that even one interested me. As a matter of fact all of the big 3 conferences bored me. But gears 3 looks good and so does Metal Gear Rising. ESPN sounds nice but we'll see how that works out. They only mentioned NBA 2K11 but some gameplay showing Jordan would've been nice. Sadly Ubisoft is putting out the Michael Jackson game. That's going to equal as for me for now. Sony didn't talk once about The Last Guardian and still not one peep about a new Syphon Filter. Mostly a disappointing borefest with most of the focus being at the casuals.
June 19, 2010
I was very impressed with both Nintendo and Sony's E3 conferences, but sadly was disappointed by Microsoft's. Gears 3 and Halo: Reach looked cool, but they were hardly unexpected, and the entire Kinect presentation was uninteresting and a real letdown. If they had shown even one impressive core focused title for it than I would not be saying this, but everything they showed was just a better looking version of a game I probably already own for the Wii. The lack of a price announcement was also a cause for concern, but in the end I think they're smart enough to price it reasonably. They do have the resources to take a hit on it if they deem it necessary.
Nintendo's show was the most exciting in my opinion (although Sony wasn't far behind) simply because of all the unannounced software that was revealed for the first time, much of which is releasing this fall. Kirby may be for kids but the art style is amazing and I'd love to play it. DKC looks great and I have faith in it because of Retro's pedigree. I'm also pleased as a longtime gamer that Nintendo hasn't forgotten that we still enjoy 2D games, and that they still have room to grow and evolve as a part of the industry which has been dominated by 3D gameplay since the N64 era. Speaking of 3D, the 3DS has met or exceeded all my expectations as far as performance and design are concerned, and the unprecedented early support from every major player with many of their biggest franchises (some of which have not been on Nintendo systems in several years, if ever) was a more than pleasant surprise. I worried that Nintendo would not be getting enough devkits out in the early going as they had in the past, but it seems they have learned from those mistakes. Kid Icarus Uprising was simply the icing on the cake of a very content rich presentation, and it's graphics really put the 3DS's power on display. The only potential downside to this system will be initial price, because it has so much tech that it can't be cheap. My guess is a launch price of $199-249, possibly with some pre-installed software to soften the sticker shock. I'm still buying it on day one regardless.
Sony's show was impressive as far as their big name games like Killzone 3 (I said Wow!), Infamous 2, LBP2, even the Move presentation was pretty decent. Sorcery looked like a well designed game that implemented motion controls for a full-fledged gaming experience (not a minigame-athon). I especially am impressed with their ability and dedication to patch preexisting games with Move support if it makes sense to do so. Pricing for the peripheral(s) was decent, but of course can add up when considering multiple players, but I believe that most consumers would start with just one or two sets and add more over time. Kevin Butler was entertaining as always, and Twisted Metal was a nice unveiling to cap off the show. Still, I can't help but agree that the general sentiment of the industry is that Nintendo won this show as far as mindshare, although there is much room for debate on the level of personal opinions. Nintendo focused very hard on the feedback they've gotten from previous E3's and disaffected core gamers who felt neglected and answered those criticisms head-on. It finally seems that under Iwata's leadership, Nintendo is as responsive to consumer feedback as Microsoft was in the early days of the Xbox, making it a point to rectify problems identified by the gaming community. This year and next year already have an amazing slate of games on the way, and I can't wait to see how things play out over the next several months.
June 20, 2010
I disagree with the last comment on MS..... Being a fan of all three consoles I think they all did a nice job. The only thing I'd change is Sony stopping with the boring "this is how much sales we did, blah blah" They wasted over an hour of our lives there. They also did not show anything we did not already see in earlier announcements, and gave no big suprises either ... Killzone was *yawn* and looked to be more of the same (see we can do that for both company's cant we?)
Actually that's not true, i said that as a point of disagreement in the above posters comments about MS (please keep the fanboi stuff off this page). Killzone, Halo reach, LB planet 2, Gears of War 3 and other games for both companies looked very impressive. Kinect and move both have great potential and showed me things that were exciting and innovative!
Nintendo did what Nintendo-DO. They always have a great showing of games that we all want to play! 3ds cannot come out fast enough!
June 20, 2010
I agree. E3 was tame this year. Nintendo had something for everyone that was genuinely excited. the only thing I don't like about 3DS is the form factor. I'm just waiting for all three companies to take it to the next level.