I shall be watching, and as a pre-teaser, here's my E3 prediction list:
Sony
As far as games go, I'm not really in my element for Sony, as I've kinda let them to it with their whole PS3 thing this Gen so far, however, it seems almost certain that we'll be seeing
LittleBigPlanet2 at the show, and I have a personal vested interest in news about games like
inFamous 2 and Rockstar's PS3 exclusive (and currently a huge mystery)
'The Agent'. inFamous almost certainly will be at the show, but we can but hope that The Agent will make an appearance. It's possible
Uncharted 3 will show up - but I wouldn't be terribly confident about it. Sony are the last of the Big 3 to have their conference next week, so one thing you can expect is a reel of non-exclusive games that Microsoft almost certainly will have covered at some point in their own conference on Monday - though there's always the possibility of the odd reveal here or there.
Key point for Sony and racing fans, though, is that
Gran Turismo 5 should be walking away from E3 with a release date - though whether it finally sticks to that one, I wouldn't put much money on.
Otherwise, Sony will almost certainly be making a big show of Playstation Move and revealing launch software for it. So much so, that I'd anticipate it taking up a good half of the show.
There's also a strong possibility that the second half will be dominated by the reveal of a successor to the PSP, in an attempt to steal Nintendo's 3DS reveal thunder, but I'm not personally sure this is the year for two pieces of expensive Playstation hardware to hit the shelves, so I'd more expect this announcement next year.
Nintendo
As always, Nintendo will be doing their own thang. It will be interesting to see if, in light of Sony and Microsoft seriously dialling down the business side of E3 in favour of spectacle and showmanship (Microsoft is opening their conference with a performance by Cirque Du Soleil...), Nintendo follows suit and abandons their usual half hour bar-chart discussion with Iwata. Certainly, without a large degree of change of form, compared to Microsoft and Sony's energetic conferences this year, Nintendo will stand out alone as a stiff, boring infodump.
Software-wise, Nintendo are hard to pin down. It's normally safe to assume that we'll have at least one major first-party game reveal at E3, and since we know that
Zelda's first proper Wii adventure is very much definitely debuting here, that's definitely safe one way or another - but hopefully we'll see something as shocking and impressive as
Metroid: Other M's reveal last year - which, incidentally, will almost certainly receive one final airing at this year's E3 ahead of it's September release.
One thing we could hope out for is a reveal of
Pokemon Black and White to the E3 audience. Pokemon.com have already revealed the games when Reshiram and Zekrom were initially revealed - and it could have been a deliberate move ahead of this conference. Could we expect much more than a few seconds of footage and maybe some English names? Not really - the chances of it being playable on the show floor are almost absolutely nil - but a reveal at E3, before the Japanese release, would be a new thing for the main series of Pokemon games, and quite fitting given the precedent established by HeartGold/SoulSilver's announcement on Pokemon.com before their Japanese release.
One can almost certainly expect the
Wii Vitality Sensor to return to the show this year, too - hopefully with something absolutely mind-blowing to be able to convince people it could even possibly be worth buying.
It would also be very nice to see
Golden Sun 3 again, given that we haven't seen or heard
anything at all about it since that brief glimpse at last year's show.
Of course, though, this year for Nintendo will almost certainly be dominated by the reveal of the
3DS. We should expect a worldwide release before the end of the year (kicking off from October), an analogue stick (not a nub like the PSP, but an actual little stick), at least one widescreen and presumably at least one title from the Mario, Sonic and Pokemon crews for launch. The real strength of this machine, though, wont just lie on its 3D laurels - but on whether Nintendo have the balls to officially stand it apart from the DS as a proper successor - and not just another incremental upgrade. To do this, they need to, at the very least, remove the DS from the name - but I'd argue that a huge jump in graphic capabilities (a very high possibility, actually), and software that demonstrates it well could be a decisive force here. A good media showing for it wouldn't hurt either - given that the mainstream press will undoubtedly take most note of Nintendo's actions here than the others.
Microsoft
It's pretty safe to say that Microsoft's show can be summed up in one word: '
Natal'. Although, that word will reportedly change to whatever Microsoft have decided to officially call it... but I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they just stuck with Natal.
As well as being a major hardware and software reveal in and of itself, it's also highly expected that Microsoft will be using Natal to re-brand and re-release the Xbox 360 itself. 360 cases have already started going out onto shelves slightly new designs that replace the original 360 swirls logotype with a more definitive and thick green pattern. It may not sound like much, but combine it with industry rumours that just wont go away and a pretty obvious opportunity, and it seems pretty likely that the 360 will relaunch alongside Natal with a
'Slim' form.
Obviously, whether this will merely be a new form factor, or an opportunity to include the long-fabled Blu-Ray player and a chance to combat years of reliability issues with a refresh and a clean slate, we'll have to wait and see - but the chance such a beast will exist is really quite likely.
Software wise, aside from Natal, we can expect Microsoft to make a song and dance about exclusives once more. We already have titles such as
Gears of War 3,
Painkiller and
Halo Reach nestled comfortably under MS's belt for the show - but new titles, or news on titles such as the exclusive Metal Gear game revealed last year are harder to pin down. I'd think it's safe to say, though, that Microsoft will be walking away from this conference with yet another shock reveal well and truly in the bag - but whether that reveal comes from its own stable, or from a studio or even game series that they're dramatically pinching from Sony's, will remain to be seen.
Microsoft's conference is also going to be the stage for a lot of multi-platform games to be aired for the first time, such as
Rock Band 3 and
Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock - and presumably
Arkham Asylum 2 (and hopefully with a more appropriate name),
Star Wars the Force Unleashed II and
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood among many others. One thing we do seem to know is that
Mass Effect and
DragonAge - two big Bioware titles - will be seeing new titles on the show floor, so they will likely be in the conference too - but
don't be expecting Mass Effect 3 already. Chances are, it will be like AC: Brotherhood and just be expanding the universe of the games while dragging their heels waiting for the trilogy's conclusion. Though, you never know, maybe I'll have to just hurry the hell up and finish ME2.
Overall, I predict a pretty tough E3 to pin down who 'won'. I expect Microsoft's show will be the most overall impressive - and I, personally, am really looking forward to seeing exactly what Natal can
really do - but it's tough to ignore the fact that although it's unlikely Nintendo will have a strong software showing, their 3DS reveal is likely to be the most important part of this entire week. Sony are kinda off to the side for me, really. The Playstation Move will be demonstrated at E3 with an overdue software sampling - but this was all meant to be out there on the shelves already, and GDC already covered the hardware itself pretty well. Without an impressive display of Move software, it's not hard to imagine Sony getting a bit swept away by their competitors this year. If they reveal the next PSP, it'll be a different story - if only because of the direct competition against Nintendo's 3DS reveal mere minutes before - but, like I said, I'm not buying it that we'll be seeing two Sony hardware releases this year.
