not really. I remember the numerous threads that suprises and great announcements are what win e3. A new Zelda everyone is anticipating. We know its coming either this year or next year. Its not something new. However NO ONE really anticipated FF 13 on the 360.

Also MS had a decent show, netflix is huge, rest was pretty bad, danm avatars....

the reason FFXIII Is such a big announcement is now XBOX360 fans have the right to stick it to PS3 fans!!! That's gonna be funny in the future.

I can see it now... Some Sony fan is bagging out the 360, then the 360 fan retaliates with 'we got FFXIII'.

Appart from that, FFXIII Announcement was the best thing.

Nintendo have already topped the FFXIII announcement with the MotionPlus. I Mean C'mon... One Big Game going multiplat - Which I could have, and still can play on the PS3 (And now 360), or an even better and all improved motion gaming? - Motion Gaming over 1 big multiplat announcement anyday.

The big deal with FFXIII is like a said, XBOX fans vs PS3 fans... that's it. Nothing more... either way we already knew about this game.

Nothing in the past 3-4 years beats the WiiMote's unveiling. FF13 costs Sony some gamers. The WiiMote changed the entire market.

As for the FF13 announcement, it seems to me to be more bragging rights than anything else. It isn't going to make it to the US/PAL regions until late 2009 or - much more likely, 2010. It's impact at that point is likely to be minimal, especially if Sony has caught up with MS sales by then. The one place it *really* could have helped was in Japan, which, supposedly, won't be getting the 360 version. It would have been a much bigger deal if MS had gotten exlusivity (even timed) to FF13, or was able to completey castrate Sony's exclusives by announcing MGS4 for the 360 too. But as it is there is no reason today for those planning on buying a PS3 to change their mind.

It seems the people making the biggest deal about FF13 are just fanboys that want to shove it in the PS3 fanboys face.

It was a nice announcement for 360 owners yes, but there is still the fact it is a game that has been known about for 2 years and won't be out for another 2 years.

What could nintendo do to win, well for me a lot less than for someone else. As you can see by these boards, no matter what gets announced everyone will still be talking about FF13, while i don't care.

I'm not gonna try and think hard about it right now, and just wait till show tomorrow and be pleasantly surprised by it all, vs being let down because I got my hopes super high on basically thinking every nintendo game in histroy is gonna be announced.

Nintendo can't win E3 by announcing first party titles. People expect those. What happened today with FF XIII has never happened in 12 other iterations of Final Fantasy and the series has been on Sony platforms for 11 years. Having FF XIII on 360 is blasphemy to many and is the equivalent to sticking your wang in the holy water at church. A Zelda game would be a surprise, but expected, because Nintendo owns the franchise. That goes for anything else Nintendo can cook up themsevles. If Nintendo is going to have a bigger bomb drop than FF XIII, it needs to come from a third party, and be monstrous. I honeslty don't think it could happen.

On second thought, if Nintendo themselves announced the DS's successor and had info and a prototype to show, I think that might do it. It depends on whether the news crashes our site or not. If none of Nintendo's announcements end up crashing the gaming net, consider them to be less amazing.

I think you are underestimating the affection people have for those Nintendo franchises. It certainly can't win E3 with one or two such announcements, but announce a bunch of them, especially if one or more are new IPs, and one is BIG - ala Zelda using the 1:1 controller? Not saying it'd be easy, but doable, if the list was long enough and, more importantly, they showed truly impressive gameplay footage (ie a new Zelda couldn't look like Ocarina, part 3).

I think many people are overlooking just how workmanlike the MS conference was prior to the FF Megaton. No question at all the FF Megaton will be next to impossible to top as the single biggest moment of the conference, but that's one game, maybe 2 years away.  MS did a decent job - it secured its areas of strength (shooters, online), made a clumsy but not completely embarassing attempt to reach the Wii audience, and had one massive surprise. All in all, I'd give them good but beatable B or B-, but without FF13, it would have been a full letter grade lower.

It won't be very hard for Nintendo or Sony to whip out a presentation able to out *wow* the first 95% of the MS conference (or were you really moved by avatars and Lips?).  I think, in the end, the company that will be declared victor will be the one that leaves the most people excited for what's coming in the next year. If Sony or Nintendo can put together a presentation that is more solid and entertaing from beginning to end, they can beat MS, no question.  

That said, someone usually flops each year. It doesn't appear to be Microsoft. That means either Sony or Nintend fans are going to be very disappointed, or gamers will be looking at one of the better E3s in a long while (at least in terms of presentation).

Oh, for Pete's sake.

An exclusive of similar or greater size should obviously top a non-exclusive. That goes for Nintendo AND Sony.

If the 1:1 peripheral comes with Star Fox, or if Animal Crossing Wii is heavily online, or if Wii Music hits like Wii Fit did last year, that's bigger than 360 getting a new non-exclusive, especially if those games are coming this year and FF13 is coming late next year at the earliest.

Probably nothing will top FF13 in terms of being unexpected. But in terms of showing off the highest sales potential, most hardware driving overall lineup? Or in terms of garnering the most and most positive mainstream press coverage? FF13 alone will not win those battles.

We just differ in our views of how to win E3 is all. I think winning E3 comes down to dopping these megatons like FF XIII, because E3 has always been about the giant shock value of seeing something unexpected. As the years pass, what would you take from this year's E3? Thinking back five years to 2004, there's only one thing I remember even happening, and that's the Twilight Princess trailer. This FF XIII announcement is like that but magnified, because not only did nobody predict this could be on a Microsoft console, but to boot it was a direct strike at Sony, and totally diminished their entire conference in one fell swoop. Just look at this site and see all of the crushed PS3 owners, the retractors that are now going 360 and the way almost every site couldn't hold the traffic and crashed. Five years from now we will still remember this happening, and I think by then we won't quite remember any expected game that got announced or shown, for instance God of War III and Pikmin 3, no matter how good they look.

If we judge just by how big an increase in sales E3's announcements bring, we may as well just give the winning crown to Sony now as Nintendo can't see an increase unless production gets increased, and Microsoft isn't really expanding at all with their conference.

Yes I see your point in first parties are no surprise besides just point of being shown, cause htey can only be on nintendo.

But now see my point why the FFXIII isn't such a big deal for me.

I love FF games, but here is the kicker. the game won't be released for another 2 years in the states. All the footage was old, and some of it even footage seen 2 years ago when PS3 was first unveiled.

So we have a game shown that is been seen for 2 years and not gonna be out for another 2. Somehow I don't see the huge excitement in that.

I am guessing Nintendo will win in the eyes of the mainstream media and average gamer. They will get the most positive mainstream press, because their games appeal to the largest market. Just like last E3, WiiFit took all the mainstream press over fancy HD demos and exclusive hardcore games.

"Hardcore" gamers will argue for weeks on end if 360 or PS3 "won" E3. Both sides will claim that there was nothing at the Nintendo event that even slightly interested them.