leo-j said: I think its stupid, just dumb that the press would be so negative towards sony and microsoft, the best show was sony's end of the line, just cuz nintendo announced a balance board that can detect your movement doesnt mean OH DEAR GOD NINTENDO KILLED EVERYONE!! I think they are saying that to hype the wii more and just cuz wii has the hihgest sales.

First this is mainstream press, not dedicated to gaiming. What did they see? Nintendo showing off heavily new genres and then sony showed hardcore games. Yes Sony won in the hardcore arena, and for many here Sony press conf was much more intressting. The problem is that is that the mainstream press only saw another FPS, more killing and more violence. Meanwhile Nintendo focused on having fun meanwhile you are excersising (spelling?), what do you think the mainstream press liked the most?

FishyJoe said: QED

Indeed. I bet he expected the Post to rave about Killzone. Never mind that Wii Fit will outsell it 10:1.

FishyJoe said: leo-j said: I think its stupid, just dumb that the press would be so negative towards sony and microsoft, the best show was sony's end of the line, just cuz nintendo announced a balance board that can detect your movement doesnt mean OH DEAR GOD NINTENDO KILLED EVERYONE!! I think they are saying that to hype the wii more and just cuz wii has the hihgest sales. QED

Best short post ever.

Alright this is how I see it. The mainstream media are looking for a story. Right now Nintendo has the momentum so it's easy to write about them as long as they maintain their success. The media isn't going to lead with wow this next game Killzone 2 for the PS3 is gonna be great or Mass Effect looks amazing for the 360. Both of which probably will, I'm not arguing. New games coming out don't make good stories in the mainstream press. A new device is legitmate news.

Fitness is important to the common person. It is relevant to people already active and becomes even more important as you get older. Hence this is another huge untapped market, when it applies to video games anyways. Women who do yoga will take notice of this new item from Nintendo. And there are a lot of them. The media knows this.

Nintendo can reveal game releases whenever they want on sites like IGN or G4TV and the majority of hardcores will find out about it within a week. That gaming circle informs itself.

Avinash_Tyagi said: I tried to tell this to people yesterday, the nongamers will view Ninty as the winner

I know how you feel.  I have no idea how many "hard core" gamers I tried to explain this to yesterday on various sites.  Oh well, basic logic wins out again.

leo-j said: I think its stupid, just dumb that the press would be so negative towards sony and microsoft, the best show was sony's end of the line, just cuz nintendo announced a balance board that can detect your movement doesnt mean OH DEAR GOD NINTENDO KILLED EVERYONE!! I think they are saying that to hype the wii more and just cuz wii has the hihgest sales.

The original Guitar Hero received far more mainstream press than (pretty much) every other PS2 game when it was announced ...

Why did this happen when it was not the most hardcore or '1337' game of the show?

The reason it got so much press was because it was interesting to people who do not play a lot of videogames ... Do people who do not play FPS care about Killzone 2 or Unreal Tournament 3? No, these are games they don't play and have no interest in playing.

Co-Workers who don't play videogames were talking about Wii Fit this morning simply because it was interesting and unique; nothing Sony showed was really interesting or unique to non-gamers. This isn't about Sales or Bias it is about them having 30 seconds or 300 words to mention the conference in an interesting way to people who could care less about pixel shaders.

Being that E3 is a show for showing of their games to thousands of hardcore gamers. You would that Nintendo wouldn't have won with their bragging, annoucing dates for games, and showing a workout game.

I think the mainstream media is just playing into the new craze of casual gamers, I mean it wasn't Super Mario Galaxy or Super Smash Brothers Brawl or Halo 3 or Killzone 2 that is getting all the attention, it's Wii Fit. A game that makes a person ask (well it makes me ask anyways) what kinds of new gamers it's going to attract and what will keep them "gaming" when the novelty of Wii Fit and the WiiBoard is over and they grow bored of the game. Will those "gamers" (many likely females middle aged and otherwise that go after the latest fitness craze) stick with the system and buy other games that take advantage of the WiiBoard like a skateboarding or surfing title when the novelty of Wii Fit wears off? I really can't see it.

Something about this entire casual gamer crazy has been bothering me and I could never figure out what it was and it's finally come to me, history is actually repeating itself. When I was very young my parents bought an Atari 2600 and my entire family played it because it was a new experience. Eventually though my mother and stepfather grew bored of the system and that was the end of their gaming for awhile, my siblings and I though continued to get new games and use it.

Then years later my mom picked up a NES with the light gun and duck hunt / super mario brothers and my mom and stepfather were fascinated with the light gun and with duck hunt / super mario brothers and we'd all play it and have competitions. They eventually got bored of it, stopped gaming, and it was my siblings and I left yet again with the system and buying games for it.

Now it's the time of the Wii with it's motion sensing Wiimote that is fascinating the non-gaming moms, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, etc (and likely mine this Christmas when they get one) and the WiiBoard that is doing the same with a subset of those non-gamers. Now I have to ask, what is going to keep their attention (say my mother and stepfather) for the long haul this time around where the original Atari 2600 and NES light gun /super mario brothers/duckhunt failed?  I can't help but think eventually when the novelty of these things wear off they'll become bored yet again and the videogame system of the day will be abandoned just like the previous two times. Only this time it might be a lot worse because many videogame companies changing over to get in on the attention and noise being generated by the casual gamers will be left holding the bag with casual games and the audience for them gone.

Anyways sorry for the long post but that's just what I think is going to happen. Please understand that I'm not trying to bash the Wii or anything, if I was it would mean I was bashing the NES which was one of my favorite systems ever, I'm just letting out what I think is going to happen. The casual gamers will eventually abandon us yet again.

Astrodust said: Nintendo can reveal game releases whenever they want on sites like IGN or G4TV and the majority of hardcores will find out about it within a week. That gaming circle informs itself.

Exactly. The only reason to use E3 for something like that is to build hype, which was Sony's strategy. Nintendo used the conference to win the Post (and the Times, and etc). Both won at their own games.

Mainstream press are not trying to sell Wii's, PS3's or 360's. They don't care about your favorite system. Not in that way anyways. Hardcore gamers don't read CNN or The Washington Post on a regular basis. Yet the mainstream now has an impact on the public's perception of video games. Wii has become a cultural phenomenon. Deveolopers are scrambling. Now a lot of people that never use to play video games see the Wii as something they would like to have in the house.

Sony and Microsoft can still be successful just satisfying their core base. They know Nintendo is on to something but to openly admit it, like how Nintendo says they are reaching out, might alienate their core gamers. The Wii is not your fathers video game system. Still fans of Sony and Microsoft remain jelous of Nintendo's unending success.