rafichamp said: Guys this is from CNET.com so its totally unbiased.   What's new: Fresh Super Mario Brothers title, Wii Fit Plus, Wii Motion Plus, Wii Vitality sensor. Big tease: Nada (sorry, that isn't a code name for a new technology). Biggest letdown: No big tease. Overall message: We've expanded the gaming audience--and we're going to continue to expand it by doing just we've been doing, improving our revolutionary motion controller, and adding the word "Plus" to some accessories and games.

So they don't even mention SMG2 or Metroid and write an overall message like that and they are not biased?

First place Sony. Second place Nintendo. Third place Microsoft.

Sony's conference wasn't perfect but it was the best one this year. Mag looked better than expected. Uncharted 2 looked like it was just as good or better (which would be a tough thing to accomplish) than the first one. Using the PS3's motion controllers looked like it would be much better than the no controller Microsoft option. Like the presenters said, you need buttons for certain things and firing a gun without a trigger on it is no fun. So, I would say the Sony option is at least as good as the Wiimote and the colored knobs on the wands are a cool touch. Also, it seems that they designed theirs more with hardcore gaming in mind and as they said, "Sports is a no brainer." I can really see how those could be used in the next God of War.

All of the PSP stuff was simply awesome and amazing. Especially the price of the PSP Go

(especially when you consider Nintendo has a $169.99 DSi on the market which for gaming purposes probably isn't any more powerful than the older DSs while keeping the DS Lite at $129.99 which makes it tough for those on a budget to decide between these two systems.)

 
at launch and the fact that they will be continuing to support the PSP as well. Also, its awesome that like the Wii you can use sd cards to increase the PSP GO's storage. And the games announced for PSP Go! simply amazing. Plus, the fact that Kojima said the PSP Metal Gear version was the real sequel and the that fact that they made it a point to say he would actually be doing considerable work on PeaceWalker makes it seem as if he might be taking a smaller role in the development of Rising. And they had three of the four games of the show in Gran Turismo PSP, Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker and The Last Guardian.

I give Sony's conference a 9.5.

Nintendo's conference started off as a continuation of their 2008 conference. I wasn't feeling Four Swords Mario at all. And Dunaway's comment on Wii Fit about "Now you can feel what it feels like to be Mario." almost totally did in their show for me. I push the buttons, Mario gets to experience whatever it feels like to go through all that other physical activity. That's the way it has always been and I'm quite comfortable keeping it that way thank you very much Ms. Dunaway.

However, things quickly improved when Reggie started talking about RPGs. For a spinoff lacking the graphical quality and most likely overall quality of the main series FF games on PS3 and the one on 360, Crystal Bearers looked pretty good. Also, by announcing Golden Sun DS, they are showing that they haven't forgotten about their true fans this year. Its true that whenever Nintendo talks about rpgs, I always hope we'll hear something about Mother 3 coming to the US this year(or Mother 4) or of an Earthbound Collection for DS, but once again their were no announcements of that this year.

I think Nintendo did show they are interested in attracting all gamers this year. I think Iwata must be a nice man. It seems like he is making one of his main interests taking something that many people would consider at best aesthetic or at worst ephemeral and transforming it into something practical that can really be used to help people with his Wii Vitality Meter, so it became easier to understand what Nintendo is really about this year.

The three hardcore games Reggie showed seemed to be good enough games. They don't make my ultimate games of the show list though. Still 8.5 to early 9 games I would think. Both RE and Dead Space seemed to have more going for them than being mere rail shooters and it was great to see Claire again.

I believe there was a little Mario overkill this year. Galaxy 2 looks good certainly a 9+ game, but not one of my personal games of the show. Metroid Other G does make my best games of the show list. If they get an exclusive KH3, I will begrudgingly have to give them another one.

I give Nintendo a 9.1. KH3 would get them up to 9.3-9.5 range even though it isn't the console I would prefer it to be on.  Nintendo get the price of DS Lite down to $99.99, and we'll definitely talk about me picking up my next Nintendo system.

Microsoft for the first time this gen, they failed to have an exclusive that would not be on any games of the show list. I think burn out has set into the Halo series and comparing Alan Wake to what has been seen of God of War III, Uncharted 2, or Heavy Rain, Alan Wake just looks disappointing.

Two xbox exclusives that did seem to have a bit more to them were Shadow Complex on xbla (although in my opinion if you're best game is downloadable content, that is a fail right there) and Splinter Cell: Conviction.   Shadow Complex does look to be the best game of its type in a long while, but again its dlc. And Splinter Cell: Conviction though I'm sure it will be a good game isn't game of the show material imo at least and it isn't at the level of top xbox game of years past like Gears of War, or Halo 3, Bioshock, and Mass Effect, or Fallout 3 and Gears 2. I hated Natal.

I can only give Microsoft an 8 this year.

Games of Show:

The Last Guardian  -- PS3

Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker -- PSP

Gran Turismo PSP -- PSP

Metroid:  Other M -- Wii

Modern Warfare 2 -- Multi

Honorable Mention:

Uncharted 2 -- PS3

God of War III -- PS3

Assassin's Creed 2 -- multi

Mario Galaxy 2 -- Wii

Golden Sun DS -- DS

Shadow Complex -- 360

Splinter Cell Conviction -- 360

Resident Evil -- PSP

Resident Evil:  Dark Chronicles -- Wii

Fragile -- Wii

Muramasa -- Wii

This is a great example of "different tastes" argument in effect...  Reading your post at first, I thought you were a blind Sony fanboy, shoehorning some Ninty love in to justify putting 360 as far from Sony's product as possible, but then you gave a little love to the most derided and least well received product in 360's presentation.  You just have comepletely different tastes.

Good run down of the show, even if I don't agree.