The rest of the Sony conference was unbelievable. In my 10 years covering this kind of stuff, this was BY FAR the most impressive conference I have ever attended. As a budding young game designer, I can honestly say that Sony had every angle covered. Just about everything they showed made me want to push my imagination farther than I ever have before, to rethink what was possible, because nearly everything they demonstrated had at the very least a practical application (interactive functionality, PSP Go, Home, etc.) or a big fat WOW factor (Uncharted 2, GT5, Kojima, Final Fantasy XIV, etc.). Then just to rub it in our faces, they drag out people like Evan Fucking Wells to scpiel about the PS3? Overkill, perhaps, but inch for inch the most incredible showcase I have yet seen, and the first time I got a lump in my throat since the Nintendo conference when they first unveiled Smash Brothers for GameCube. I seriously don't know how Nintendo or Microsoft can top this tomorrow. Nintendo could announce 5 Mario games, 5 new Zelda games, 15 new Metroid games tomorrow and it just couldn't compare. Microsoft could announce Halo 4, 5 and 6 til they're blue in the face and there's no way they match today's show.
It won't be enough to match this. New paradigms have been opened up, a comprehensive approach to the PSN service was on full display, and a shitload of exclusive or semi-exclusive games were revealed, of distinctive quality . Even without the surprise guests, Sony's showcase was pie chart-free and full of real, genuine content. To top this, Nintendo would have to show that they care about more than soccer moms and weight loss and do something to inspire the people that came before the Wii Fit craze, and Microsoft would have to drop some serious megatons for two straight hours to gain parity. In short, both Nintendo and Microsoft would have to surpass what was shown today, and to be honest, Miyamoto or no Miyamoto, Forza 3 or not, I don't think either of them can do it. No, I wasn't handed a fat check by Sony to say this. I was looking at today's conference through a developer's eyes and was thinking about the 3D motion controller games that make you go 'wow.' I thought about how each year I show up at E3 I don't expect much out of Sony because they must have blown their whole wad on Q4 of the previous year, and subsequently, about how wrong I was. The fact that this conference revealed not one, but two Final Fantasy games, a detailed look at The Last Guardian, and how they were just a handful of so many other delights (Jack, I love you, man!) was to me, as a gamer, simply inspiring. In my next career, which I'll hopefully be able to announce soon enough, I am being forced to think outside of the box along with my colleagues, about how to design things that are fresh and new, and the challenge is invigorating. The sky is the limit. Today's conference showed me the way.