Just as a heads-up, here are the times of the major E3 media briefings in CST. Since as we mentioned before we won’t be attending E3 in person this year, we’ll instead be supplying links to the official streams of the conferences as well as any liveblogs from other websites that may be particularly well maintained.
Monday, June 10
Microsoft:
10:00 AM CST
Electronic Arts:
2:00 PM CST
Ubisoft:
4:00 PM CST
Sony:
7:00 PM CST
Tuesday, June 11
Nintendo Direct:
8:00 AM CST
It’s no secret among the non-mainstream media that Microsoft’s unveiling of the Xbox One yesterday was an unmitigated disaster. Aside from a promising controller, the greatest result of the media event has been the numerous excellent parodies that put into perspective just how much of a misstep for Microsoft it really was. In addition to the amazingly apt clip from Fresh Prince put forth by Kotaku user FizzyWomack, check after the jump for three more great videos (and loads of potential Game Usagi points!).
Microsoft laid down a similar number of cards to those laid out by Sony with their PS4 reveal earlier this February, but whose cards are better? Honestly, from what has been shown at this point Sony has the more gamer- and game-centric console with specs more likely to result in games of a graphic fidelity completely unachievable on current gen consoles. With that said, here’s the news that was released today along with an image gallery of the highest resolution images of the Xbox One that we could get a hold of (remember to right-click the images and choose “Open Link in New Tab” to see the images at their maximal resolution):
Microsoft announced the first few details of the Xbox One today and to be honest it’s not looking amazing as far as gamers are concerned. The controller has been slimmed down a bit (and features rumble in its triggers of all places), but almost all Microsoft talked about today was watching TV, movies, and sports programs. We’ll have some more info itemized for you tonight on everything we learned about the Xbox One today, but until then enjoy these pictures and check out a replay of the media briefing here if you missed it.
When the Dunphy’s take a trip in an RV in this week’s episode of Modern Family called “Games People Play”, eagle-eyed viewers can spot that Luke has traded in his often-featured Aqua Blue Nintendo 3DS for Nvidia’s upcoming SHIELD. He’s probably not streaming PC games to it in an RV on the road, unfortunately, but it’s an interesting piece of product placement none-the-less. Those of us who aren’t in sitcoms still have to wait until June to get our hands on a SHIELD and find out if Nvidia really does have a winner on its hands or not, but it seems that Luke has made his choice in the portable console war, even if it was probably only due to a corporate deal with Nvidia to promote the system’s portability.
Nvidia released some important details about their upcoming “portable” Android-based console today. With a retail price of $350 and a launch some time in June, Nvidia is positioning SHIELD to compete directly with the less portable OUYA that sports the lower price of $99 but offers quite a bit less raw power. Once their launches hit it will be up to the gaming market to decide which product is more useful, if any. Our team is split between people thinking that OUYA’s portability and hacker-friendly nature will win the day and people that think SHIELD’s ability to stream PC games Wii U Off-TV play-style is its ace in the hole. At $350, though, Nvidia may well be overstepping the price ceiling for portable systems in today’s economic climate. We’ll keep you posted as more details surrounding the launch of these two home-centric Android devices emerge.
E3 media briefing invitations are rolling out making it a bit bittersweet for us as we have to reject them this year due to scheduling conflicts in our press team. We had a blast last year (with a couple of exceptions and the fact that LA is largely horrific) and we do plan to bring you the best coverage we can from home base, but I thought I’d share the unfortunate feeling of having access to these awesome events without the ability to attend. Rest assured that next year we are already planning to bring you the utmost first-hand game conference coverage, but we’ll have to miss out on playing all of the lovely new systems before they hit store shelves this time.
