Here comes E3 2012, like Slim Pickens strapped to the world'sfattest ballistic missile, carrying a bottomless Santa Claus totefull of goodies. Don't let the June 5-7 dates fool you: Theshow actually kicks off on Monday June 4, when Microsoft , Electronic Arts, Ubisoft and Sony stage their press shows from morning to dusk. In broad strokes, this year there's Nintendo primed to showmore of its already-announced Wii U ( we'll be liveblogging it here ), Microsoft training all its special effects lighting on MasterChief's new foil in Halo 4 , Sony with whatever Sony has planned for the Vita and then thestandard bazillion game sequels flanked by public relations all butwaving glittering pom-pons. We're also staring down a laundrylist of wild hypotheticals: Will we see a new Xbox? The nextPlayStation? A slimmer 3DS with a second thumb-stick? Gameplayfootage of Grand Theft Auto V ? Will Microsoft buy Sony and launch something called the PlayBox?Will Sega finally roll out the Dreamcast 2? I kid about the last two, but that's the speed of realityheading into an E3.
It's like Steve Jobs ‘ reality distortion field times the size of downtown LosAngeles. Bearing that in mind — call it our"prognostication may vary" disclaimer —here's a rundown of what we're expecting from thisyear's show, along with a few things we're not. ( MORE: The 10 Best New Skyrim Mods for May 2012 ) We won't see new consoles from Microsoft or Sony. Both companies have implied, repeatedly, that they won'tshow new hardware at E3 2012. And why should they? They'reneck-and-neck in global system sales, have large install bases,developers are nice and comfy with the systems'idiosyncrasies and design tricks, consumers aren't reallyclamoring for new tech (or to spend more money on it) and even thenewest kid on the block, Nintendo's Wii U, reportedly justbrings Nintendo up to par, power-wise, with the competition.
Sure,whatever's next is the elephant in the room this far into thecurrent gen's life cycle, and maybe – maybe — we'll get a tease. But I wouldn't count on it.And I certainly wouldn't count on nit-picky platformspecs or interface specifics, since we're at least a year outfrom a next-gen Microsoft/Sony launch. We won't get our first look at Grand Theft Auto V . It's Rockstar's elephant in the room, a game the company announced last year and has said nothing about since. With Max Payne 3 out the door, we'll finally see this thing go large at E32012, right? Wrong.
CVG says Rockstar's going to do what it usually does: make like AxlRose and shrug off the show. Which, frankly, would be fine by me— I'm with guys like Irrational Games' Ken Levine , when he suggests pre-hype and previewing can spoil a game'simpact and says "[preparing] for these events takes time awayfrom development." Amen. Sony will double down on the Vita. The Vita hit the ground running in March with better-than-decentoriginals like Uncharted: Golden Abyss , Wipeout 2048 and Escape Plan , as well as sterling ports of games like Disgaea 3 , Rayman Origins , Ninja Gaiden and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
Since then, it's been slow going . The next big thing is probably Gravity Rush , due out the week after E3, but Sony needs more than thisexclusives trickle to get the Vita moving. I could care less abouta Call of Duty or Battlefield game, say, but from a commercial standpoint, the system needssomething like that to pry open wallets. Expect Sony to lay out its "VitaStage 2″ plans, including the handheld's fall/holidaylaunch lineup, at the show. Nintendo might introduce a diet-sized 3DS with dual analogthumb-nubs.
No one iterates handhelds like Nintendo — thecompany's released how many versions of its DS (even before it slapped a '3′in front of the moniker)? Its latest — the 3DS — iskludgy-looking and battery-life-challenged, and with the secondarycontrol stick add-on tray, it's kind of a franken-mess. Whatare the odds the company could roll out a slimmer 3DS with twinthumb-sticks and improved battery life at this year's show?Long, but then so were the odds on a titanic and totally unexpected$80 price cut less than half a year after the 3DS launchedstateside in March 2011. Price cuts, price cuts, price cuts. Nintendo's Wii baselines for $140, the entry-level Xbox 360with just 4GB of storage costs $200 and the 160GB PlayStation 3runs $250.
Expect those numbers to come-on-down next week. With thenext-gen systems probably coming in 2013 (or technically this year,if we count the Wii U) and system sales slowing , price cuts — effective immediately or by the holidays— seem like a no-brainer. We'll witness plenty of The Elder Scrolls love . There's Dawnguard , the big who-wants-to-be-Van-Helsing Skyrim expansion , as well as The Elder Scrolls Online , the game every Elder Scrolls fan is chewing nails either for, or over.
Will Dawnguard be amazing? Probably, though I'm less intrigued by thevampires-with-a-side-of-vampires angle than the big gameplaychanges Bethesda may be hiding up its sleeves. Word is TESO won't be playable at the show, but that we'll see morerevealing canned footage of the game in action — the launch trailer was just a slow-pan symbol voice-over, though we've since had a peek at over a dozen in-game screens . ( MORE : Diablo III Review: Drop By for the Grind, Stay for the Achievements ) This year's show is mostly about the Wii U. To everyone who won't be walking E3′s conventionhalls in person (that is, 99.9% of gaming-dom), the show typicallyresembles its biggest reveals, usually rolled out at the pressshows on Monday and Tuesday. In recent years, that's beenstuff like Kinect and PlayStation Move.
Last year, it was the WiiU, and this year, it'll still be the Wii U with high-def reboots of series like Mario Bros. , Zelda and Metroid no doubt in the offing. Then there's the gamepad-tabletangle, which everyone's curious about. Will it catch on, orgo the way of missteps like the Virtual Boy? In any case, whateverNintendo's up to warrants close watch (without the Wii, noKinect or PlayStation Move). Will Nintendo change thesystem's clumsy-sounding name? Doubtful.
Remember wheneveryone thought the name "Wii" sounded ridiculous,too? There's this whole late-breaking Star Wars 1313 thing. Star Wars meets Assassin's Creed ? Maybe. LucasArts just dropped word that its latest in-house developed Star Wars game will let you "take control of a lethal bounty hunter ina never-before-seen dark and mature world." Recent Star Wars games have been more bad than good (oh, for the halcyon days of X-Wing and Tie Fighter ), but you never know, and the source material — "aruthless criminal underground deep below the surface of the planetof Coruscant" — would be a welcome shift from theseries' Manichean light-side/dark-side vibe. There's also this new Gears of War thing. Please say it's not for Kinect, but yes, Game Informer teased the next Gears of War installment on Thursday, meaning there's probably a 0.01%chance we won't see it at the show next week.
Of coursethere's this other rumor going around that it's actually forMicrosoft's next-gen system…but we already decidedthey're not showing that at E3 2012, right? The media's going to ignore mobile gaming, as usual. Master Chief and Mario may be more interesting to traditionaliststhan interstellar pig-pummeling birds or pocket-sized post-apocalyptic plague sims , but the latter market is huge on smartphones and tablets, partlybecause those smartphones and tablets are approaching the power ofgame consoles, and partly because the games cost a fraction as muchas console and PC fare. And mobile gaming is also the new locus for intrepid indie projects (see Plague Inc., linkedabove) that'd probably bounce off corporate gaming'scost-benefit force-field. Alas, don't look for (much)coverage of this increasingly huge part of the biz at E3 2012. And all the pretty games, of course.
Besides Halo 4 , The Elder Scrolls games and probably a few surprises, we're looking athands-on time with stuff like Borderlands 2 and XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2K Games), Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (Activision Blizzard), Lost Planet 3 and Resident Evil 6 (Capcom), Crysis 3 and Sim City (Electronic Arts), Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (Konami), God of War: Ascension and The Last of Us (Sony), Kingdom Hearts 3D and Heroes of Ruin (Square Enix), Company of Heroes 2 and Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online (THQ) and Assassin's Creed III and Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft). Ready, set, headsplosion? Don't worry, we'll help youcut through the hype next week. MORE: Follow Techland's coverage of E3 2012. I am an expert from Office & School Supplies, usually analyzes all kind of industries situation, such as adirondack plastic chair , ink refill machine.
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