From what I saw at E3 I think that what we're beginning to really see from game developers, manufacturers, and the wider fanbase is an overall embracing of past, present, and future. We saw remakes of age old IPs like centipede, Galaga, Frogger, and more. We saw our current technology making shiny new hardcore games. We saw simple 8 or 16 bit games like that 8 bit GTA game. (Retro City Wars... was that what it was called?) And then we also saw the Wii U tapping into the whole "tablet" rage and promising to bring us graphics that not only compete with 360 and PS3 but even suprass it. I think, finally, we also saw that PC gaming is not at all dead.

Well, thank you again Commodore for the mention. Always appreciate that. Umm... I have to say I generally avoid video game news unless there's some specific morsel I want or have an expendable cash flow which I mentioned is currently pretty abysmal. At the time I wrote the last post I didn't have a PS3 or XBox 360, so I tend to glaze over when talk of new games comes for those consoles.

However, I do have a wii so Skyward Sword is my deep dish apple pie, but also Sonic Generations as a friend of mine just let me "indefinitely borrow" his PS3. My current delight doesn't answer the question, but I will say this...

Classic or JRPGs of the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest variety are a dying breed and that makes me sad. I really do want to care about the games I play, and in that sense, the gaming market hasn't been kind to me for years. If the PSP and DS have been good for anything it seems to be where the games I like have migrated to.  I could have said the same for platforming games but for the resurgence of games like Mega Man ZX, MM9-10, Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank etc. and that's not even mentioning the very beautiful Mario Galaxy titles.

I don't think the gaming market is as strong as it could be, excuse the economics again, but entertainment tends to get hit harder in times of poor economy than essentials like food. In terms of the games themselves, from what I've seen they are doing their best to impress, so perhaps that economic pinch will force them to up the level of spit and polish on their games which can only be a good thing. :)

Well as an industry expert ... or rather a guy who plays a lot of video games, I must say that I think this might be the last horahh for the polygon race. There's already games this generation that are beyond stunning and this is 5 year old hardware, so I feel that perhaps Microsoft and Sony might see that they too can cut cost on their consoles by going with a less bleeding edge graphics card. Rather than trying to go for super sooped up/tricked out graphics they can put that money in processing power or a bigger hard drive (hopefully Sony and MS don't go 100% cloud saving)

Software wise I think this may be the end of the triple A paradigm, for broad gamers atleast, I mean the COD market isn't going anywhere for a while... sadly. What I mean is is that since smaller development companies and indie studios are getting more and more affordable tools to push out games, we may see cheaper alternatives in the genre or a return to form in the idea of neo-retro games. What I would personally like to see is less patching on a newly released game, and this isn't the dev-teams fault but more often than not the publishers who determined well before beta and gold release when their product was hitting shelves. That said established franchises probably won't die I mean how many times did we hear "this is the last Metal Gear or this is the definitive final Halo," ?  They're here to stay and there's nothing really wrong with that either, they got popular for a reason... usually.

Personally I'd really like to see more self published games, EA and Activision (to name a few) are just market behemoths and it would be nice to show them that the consumer is more or less their boss or that the consumer isn't going to take their BS.

I think there were many things that you could extract from was E3 taught us this year about video games and the state they're in. The one that hit me the most though was that we're currently stuck in the familiar. While we may love all the titles we see unveiled, there's a rut of no truly new ideas. It seems that game developers find familiar franchises are the best way to go to obtain success. It makes sense in a way, but it's sad to see less and less new chances being taken in revealing brand new IP's we've never heard of before.

Look at the list of games shown, even if we just look at #3's in a franchise: Uncharted 3, Nina Gaiden 3, Battlefield 3, Resistance 3, Mass Effect 3, and Gears of War 3. Then we have other, non '3' games shown - Mario, Zelda, Star Fox, Kid Icarus, Halo, Sly Cooper, Batman, Spider-Man, Assassin's Creed, Elder Scrolls, Prey, Prototype, ... the list goes on. All the big hyped games are based on franchises we've seen before.

I love a sequel as much as the next guy, but the movement of trying new ideas seems to have fallen to the handheld iPhone market instead of the console title.  I know most of these "3's" I've listed are from fairly new series, but it also shows that 6 or 7 years ago developers were willing to take a chance on a new idea.  Now they're just finding it safer to make a sequel that has more potential to sell.

Perhaps this is because new, good titles like Enslaved are now available for as low as $20 to even $10 brand new? Spending millions upon millions of dollars to try a new franchise to have it in a discount bin before it's been out for a year isn't a good thing.

I suppose my sadness in this video game state comes from being there for the first days of the NES, and not knowing what any of the games were.  Yes, we still had games based on the familiar, like the Batman movie game for instance, but the amount of new franchises starting were astounding.  Some worked well and warranted their own sequels, others didn't do so well, but at least an attempt to try something new was made. 

It really is a matter of numbers and business though.  It's not anything truly new of this particular E3, but I just find it sad that the industry is slowly moving in a direction that it's safer to make a sequel than to try something 100% new.  And unfortunately, when we do get somethign new, it's quickly labelled as "A God of War clone" or "in the style of Gears of War".  They truly aren't unique ideas anymore.

Yeah I found the lack of new IP's rather worrysome, I mean E3 is more or less a press only event it's almost like free marketing for a new game so think of how much money would be saved on advertising. That said there has been some new games displayed at TGS and the such, like Asura's Wrath; which looks awesome. I dunno everybody steps from E3 and goes "this was the worst year ever!" ever single year so...

Not sure since the only E3 videos I watched were on Retrowaretv when they were Roo and Pat's videos and one on Gametrailers (which I can not find), but what little I seen Nintendo is trying to get people back while Microsoft is trying to get their console family friendly, as for Sony ???.

Gaming has been evolving for the last 60 years. Big advances are noticable even to those who do not play games, and smaller ones can be seen with every new release. When gaming was fresh with only 2 games. A game with 2 sticks and a ball being hit back and forth, and a game with two shapes shooting at each other. I do not specify names because because while the original 2 versions were, original, they were followed by the exact same thing with new names. The first few years of gaming were the same thing over and over. Nothing notable, hardly a new industry. for most just a machine installed at their bar that gave your hands something to do while you wait for your drink or something. With Atari and cartridges came the chance for new ideas made for very little money. Everyone was throwing ideas at the board, however most of the ones that stuck were arcade ports and rip offs of the arcade port. Gaming was again in a rut. Then we got Nintendo and the concept of finishing a game (Besides Adventure on the 2600, but that didn't start a revolution) After Nintendo gaming kept making evolutions based on graphics and Computer power. It might be an extra 8 bits, or even the leap into 3D gaming. While even back then gaming had a lot of sequels and rip offs, but there wer eenough new ideas to test the new technology. Then at the Xbox/GCN/PS2 era Some games came across a new style of gaming, competetive gaming, mostly First Person Shooters. These were then milked to all hell until... what? The majority of gaming is about online competition. Unfortunatly most of these are FPS. Hell I like FPS games, one of my top 5 genra's, really! But I mostly prefer original games (TF2) or games with a community that I can become friends with (CS) however the overdose of FPS games are just annoying. I think there were about 12 FPS games at e3? Most of which are very similar. Sure we got Rage or Bioshock with fun single player adventures, but it is mostly CoD or Bf3 or Halo (I actually enjoy Halo and I think the Bf games look fun, but it is still irritating) Nintendo is a shining pillar in this swarm of online competetive gritty games. Now they are trying to reach in with the same games Sony and Microsoft are trying to market. These games are known to suceed so we will never get out of this until sales drop due to people sick of it. This will not be for many years. Until then most of the games will be gritty shooters with an online mode. As for Nintendo sequels? Yeah they arn't going to change anything. These series are well known so many people they arn't going to be too eager to make new series. The last new series was Pikmin (2001) and it was amazing! I can only hope the next IP is as great.

Wait, what the hell was I just saying? I've spent the last weekend at my dad's and now I am tired as all hell. I just got home 4 hours ago and plan to go to bed after this. I did not read all of the comments on the old video so you lost me at like the parts about 16 bit gem or something. I am tired, and trying to just relax. Maybe Weekly Wringer and more e3 wasn't the best way? I am so tired of this e3 talk because I have so much to say and no real way to say it that anyone will even read. Hell I only remembered what the question was about 3/4 of the way into that last paragraph and I said fuck it, I spent this long typing it, I am sure as all hell not stopping now. So I am just sitting here, ready to go to bed, naked, *HUG* Anyway I do think we will be getting plenty of sequels for a long time. In a few years one big company will take a step down from the well known franchises and start a new one causing a revolution forcing everyone to make a new idea or two. Many will be bad, many will be great, maybe even a new genra will come of it. And we'll still have a Halo game every now and then or something. I hope this company is EA or Activision, but I don't expect it, and I have no idea who it will come from. Definatly not Nintendo, any new IPs are welcomed but I do not expect anything revolutionary. Anyway, I better go to bed, maybe I'll be on later when my thoughts are together. I just want e3 to be over. It is a stressful time for me. All this stuff goes on that makes me start thinking and having noone to tell without it coming at as an unreadable rant like my first paragraph and probably this one as well. I also see all these games that I want but have no money for, and since this year was a bunch of sequels I either know I am going to have to fork over $60 to feed my appetite for (Uncharted 3) or series I really want to go play the first few but have no money for that either (Gears of War, and currently playing Mass Effect) Infact I am glad I have stopped hyping over Nintendo. I mean, new Mario 3DS, new Luigi's Mansion, more NSMB, the WiiU in general, Zelda Skyward Sword, Ugh!  Hell right now I am listening to Nyan Cat to calm down. Not a joke. (BEST FUCKING SONG EVER) So I might be on some other time to compose my thoughts better and respond to other posters, or maybe I'll just try to forget about e3 for a few days until the next Wringer.

P.S. On the 'Nyan Cat [original]' video on youtube where it shows how long the vid haz been instead of the circle going on a red line it nyaw cat flyin and behid him her it is rainbow yay1

To me, A Hardcore gamer isn't nessicaraly a person who is good at games, but instead, has a pasion about gameing as a whole much like a fan of a sport would have a passion about there sport. 

As far as the Wii U goes...well I dont think the consoles themselves are hardcore.  It all depends on the games nowadays.  I do think nintendo is looking into the hardcore Audiance.  I love Nintendo, and when I saw the Wii u I reallyfelt nintendo new what they were doing (wich, ets face it isn't a surprise) but then I saw some of the development teams on board. (Or at least ther games)  Infinity games (The people who made bioshock), Ubisoft (Assassians Creed), a few others Im trying to think of.  Either way, considering I feel inlove with botgh those game series I'm excited to see some of that on a Nintendo System. 

As for the state of Video games from here on out.  I think it'll only get better.  If I were judging solely on E3....then maybe Only nintendo would seem to have been technelogically Impressive.  Alot of other games I saw looked fantastic and I was really excited to see a lot of them. Every thing from Microsoft just made me laugh at them, but everyone else made me feel that games are becoming more main stream and to me, thats a good thing. This means that whenever something bad happens, Video games wont nessicaraly be the first thing to get blamed, or if it is, no one would be dumb enough to take that news company seriously.  It means that a lot fewer people are gonna cal pokemon Pokemans, or call Link Zelda simply on the fact that they now are going to know what these games and characters are.   I dont know, maybe im just rambling, but this is what I see for the future of gaming, more Inovation in how games are played, better looking games, and more acceptance that games are legit and not some silly fad or something only nerds play. 

Each of the platform developers had something to make their fans happy: wii u, vita, and halo 4. while third party developers showed games to keep Duty Calls jokes relevant: modern warfare 3 and battlefield 3. developers are just trying to hold their ground till the next big idea comes out.

this is also shown by the games that were missing: Rockstar was too busy with LA noire and left the doors open for saints row 3, didnt they say a saints row game was coming to 3ds last year? Respawn studios could have stolen the spotlight from call of duty with their next game.

I just hope new ideas are on the way to help give new life too the gaming industy.

p.s. thanks for talking about my post commodoreCommodore128  

Nintendo was realizing it had lost the hardcore crowd and was trying to bring it back with a new console.  It was also realizing that they needed more software support for the 3DS.  Sad to see no new ip.

Sony was trying to push the Vita and some of its ips.

Microsoft was showing off its ips (HALO 4), and pushing more on XBox Live.

Ubisoft was showing off its THREE IPs.

It feels like gaming is going the way of the cinema scene: big-budget producers focusing on "safe and profitable" games, making badass, yet ripped-off stuff, while all the creativity stays with 3rd party and indie studios.

Perhaps im getting too pesimistic.  The new hardware looks amazing, and like you said, the whole retro-graphics movement is giving us some mind-blowing games as developers realize that u dont need eye-bleeding graphics to make good games.

Most of my thoughts have already been said, so i really dont have much to say.  This generation is at its peak, and hopefully the next one will be even better.  Lets just sit back, and enjoy.

Gaming seems to be healthy for the most part.

I am wondering if Sony and Microsoft are going to announce their next consoles before the WiiU is released.

I really don't know where to go with this topic as I didn't experience E3 first hand.

However . . . . .

There will come a point where graphics will have advanced to a point where the gaming experience itself once again becomes the most important thing and I think that Nintendo is best positioned to dominate on that front.

Nintendo has family gaming down, and they don't have to develop any other games.  That is where the third party developers that Nintendo is bringing in are there for.

Personally, I think they need to make the system a little more open to development.  Mainly, more use of the new controller (i.e. able to use more than one per console), DVD/BluRay compatibility, and develop a controllerless option for motion intensive games (dancing, fitness).

They need to listen to the gamers and give them as close to what they want as possible or this possible move forward could be lateral instead.

This year in gaming has just blown me away, I except next year to be just as good if not better.

Look at the number of awesome games we've had push the boundries this year... 

The Witcher 2, MK 9, LA Noire, Dragon Age 2, etc.  A-List after A-List title is coming out with each one trying to out top the other.

The Witcher 2 (No Kiddie Wheels RPG and its amazing)

MK 9 (Complete reboot for the franchise, set the standard for fighters)

LA Noire (Mo-cap brought to a whole new level)

Dragon Age 2 (Fast paced, beautiful, and a decent amount of strategy involved)

Infamous 2 (Take a great sandbox game, make the gameplay better, and bon appetite)

And coming down the pipe this Holiday season soooo many more... with Deus Ex 3 kicking it off this August... whooo!

But yeah, enough fangasming.  I think we are finally at the crest of the graphic capabilities of the PS3, 360, and short of a couple grand PC,   the PC for this generation, while obviously we still have a few years before the 720 or PS4 is released, or are known to be more than rumors and napkin sketches, we have definitely hit the stride of this generation.

Much like you mentioned this week, talking about the golden age of the SNES, when the focus was not so much on the graphics, but on the actual gameplay elements.  This is when the games really start to shine, and by default, when gamers start getting the pick of the litter, instead of being excited about 1 game coming down the line, you now have several choices of what you want to play and how you want to play.  

Sandbox games are being spearheaded by Saint's Row, RPGs by Skyrim, FPS's by MW3 and Battlefield 3, adventure games with Uncharted 3, and heck even racing games are being given a face-lift by the new NFS.  Granted the sequels are getting as bad as their box-office counterparts, but then again as long as games are quality who cares.  

Even with Indie games and original IPs, you are still going to see genres perfected by the A-listers bringing their (for lack of a better term) A-game.  

I'm certain that the major common demoninator between all gamers, casual and hardcore alike, is to be entertained, it might not be the best years for innovation, but as long as you enjoy the title who cares.  It's kinda like watching a movie you know is bad, but generally enjoy, because its entertaining.  My personal choice on that is Major Payne.    

Okay, no more rambling.   Final Thoughts:  Not a great year for innovation, but a damn good year for gaming enthusiasts, and in the end... thats all that matters.  

I'm not too sure how I feel about the Wii U.  Overall I'm quite happy that there's a new Nintendo console that is HD and has a cool new controller.  But I was a bit dissapointed that the games shown were the type of games already available for other consoles.  Which I know everyone has been saying that it's what Nintendo has been missing.  But for some reason I don't feel excited about it.  Maybe if I had seen a Starfox, Zelda, Metroid, Donkey Kong so on for it I would have been ecstatic.  The Wii fills a niche, the other consoles another niche.  I'm wondering what's going to happen when all consoles offer the same.  Besides the controller what other thing can Nintendo offer with this console?  BTW sorry if my english is not very good.

This E3 felt like the top of the roller coaster, if you will.  I have no doubt developers and hardware manufacterers can continue what they're doing for another half a decade and remain profitable, however I doubt the viability of their business model going into the next generation.

It does come down to economics: what defines a worthy $60 dollar experience? A lot of the games which have been coming to market, indeed many of the games which were shown this year, are 4-5 hour long scripted shooters with a heavy emphasis on multiplayer. Obviously gamers have been willing to finance them up to this point but how many years in a row can Activision repackage COD and sell it to their audience?

Keep in mind I'm not anti-COD, but I think annual installments of any franchise will grind it into the dirt.  This has me concerned as while I understand publisher's risk aversion this industry thrives on novelty, and while gamers are just as risk averse with their money they've made it clear with franchises like Rock Band that there's only so many times they will buy the same thing. 

That does not bode well for Halo 4.

On the flipside, you have sequels that are truly innovating and showing us what the medium is capable of in the modern age, ie Skyrim. It's a demonstration that sequels do not have to be rehashes and that games with ridiculously high production values are capable of surprising us when they come from the hands of a capable developer. In fact it's one of the few major games slated for this year that doesn't feel last-gen in its execution.

I've been awfully hard on the industry as a whole ever since the shift to HD because it's clear Sony and Microsoft focused on the graphical leap over actual gameplay innovation. It's hard to blame them as that's how it worked every generation prior, the difference this time is that we didn't see something as drastic as 8 to 16-bit, or 32/64 to PS2 and Gamecube. Gameplay expansion and innovation came by virtue of the power upgrade because the hardware was always so vastly different that you couldn't get away with doing the same things you did last generation, on the same scale, and consider it satisfactory.  This time around not only did developers do that, games became more claustrophobic and linear, one to compensate for cost (lord knows hi-def games ain't cheap) and two to become more cinematic, thus downplaying the strength of our medium (interactivity) in favor of adopting another's.

For all the good that came from the last five years of the industry, I can't help but feel that we should be a lot farther along than we are, and the kinds of games on display show me exactly why we aren't. The fact that something like Assassin's Creed is so highly praised for its story (which don't get me wrong-it has an excellent premise but it's terribly executed and it's much more complicated than it needs to be) provides little impetus for developers to craft the deep, intricate, internally-consistent and compelling narratives games are capable of. Not only are the stories and gameplay of AAA titles still drawing heavily from formulas established a decade ago, they are content to be interactive only inasmuch as the player decides when to press play-and sometimes they don't get to do that.

It's kind of funny, then, that a lot of what I'm looking forward to are the retro revivals or neo-retro games as The Commodore put it. I think I take to those a lot more easily because they're supposed to be old school, they're supposed to function according to antiquated models with some minor updates and improvements to keep them fresh. There's a reason Mega Man 9 is one of my favorite games of this generation. Yes I've played it a thousand times before but the minor tweaks they made make it far more enjoyable than most of the other titles in the series.

To summarize all the different points I'm making, I think what this E3 shows me more than anything else is that the old business model isn't working and for gaming to truly come into its own it's going to have to determine its pricing model by the type of game as opposed to slapping a $60 price tag on everything they release. Right now there is only your AAA titles and your cheap, sort of retro-ish indie games. Everything else tends to get lost in the shuffle with the exception of a few sleeper hits like Demon's Souls.

Why doesn't COD go free to play, or charge $30 for a yearly multi-player upgrade and periodically release single-player campaigns as DLC? Why is a game like Duke Nukem Forever, which is a mess but still a rather entertaining one, released for full price when it would be far more appealing as a $30-$40 dollar title? Why don't niche titles adopt some old-school conventions such as dialog boxes and less cinematic presentation for the sake of pushing innovation in other ways? (IE, why haven't we seen a turn-based jRPG with a battle system that makes environmental manipulation a key part of strategy?)

Nintendo is absolutely nuts but I think they're on to something. The fact is it's not going to be realistic to produce a slew of games at max graphical fidelity as demonstrated by top-of-the-line PC hardware, and I think we really are at a point where the average consumer would look at the PS3 or 360 and say, "that's good enough." This will absolutely force developers to innovate because if the only novelty the big guys can come up with in the coming decade is motion control then I think we'll be headed for another crash. It wouldn't be anything near 1985 but it would irrevocably alter the gaming landscape.

So yeah, lots of mixed impressions this year, but all in all I'm actually excited to see what's coming even though most of the current big titles don't really catch my interest.

I'd never consider an FPS-only gamer as you described to be a hardcore gamer. They're just a machismo casual. Someone whose most least-FPSy game they play as Bioshock has no idea what hardcore gaming means.

What do I think the state of video gaming is?

I think it is very healthy in general. Healthier in most ways than it has ever been. Nobody can deny how much more money video games make now than before. The video game industry is huge, but unlike the film industry and to a lesser extent the print industry, you can still be very successful even starting out. As long as you work hard and are creative, there's room in the industry for you.

However, there's FAR too much emphasis on first person shooters right now. Again, not as much as say 3 years ago, but still too many people who limit themselves to FPS games or even just violent games in general. But I see more people giving a wider variety of games a shot for the first time ever, or kids who come into my store knowledgeable about games twice or more their age. And it's heartening, especially given the demographics of my particular GameStop would normally trend toward the opposite. Still, I think that trend needs to keep continuing. And I also think that more intelligent games should be better respected. Complicated or mentally-challenging gameplay doesn't MEAN fun, but it can certainly help depending on the game. I'd also say that JRPGs have suffered lately, but I think they were too popular 10 years ago.

One thing to keep in mind is the cost of developing games. Arists still have to completely hand-craft most assets, but now they are expected to do so in a very detailed manner. This also makes it more obvious when assets are reused; your imagination doesn't fill in nearly as much as before, so it looks repetitive more quickly. Both together push toward the trend of shorter video games.

Difficulty in games is also underappreciated. Completing a game SHOULD be a triumph, a show of your skill, not the end result of putting in a few hours of play. YOU should grow with your game, not simply the weapons available to you. People whine like little babies if a game is hard, but for me, a game is often not even worth my time if it's not hard.

Oh, also, some companies are real penny-pinchers nowadays. They make $20-$30 for each game they sell, but they can't print a $1 manual? Some can't even be troubled to print a $0.15 manual! And there are still lots of games wasting opportunities: different game modes or options that could easily be implemented and vastly increase gameplay. Some people are starting to lose less of these opportunities, but it's still not where it should be. On the same line, companies feel they have to completely control their online experience, meaning they foot the bill for server costs. But private servers are not only more fun by allowing variations of the game, they also also allow the server bill to be cut up and shared with those who WANT to make servers. IMO an official server should be up while the game is making money, and shortly after private servers can carry the "burden" entirely. Overall, though, some lost opportunities and penny-pinching.

But overall, very healthy, and we should be glad for that.

EDIT: Sorry guys. I must have been looking at the wrong tab. Nontheless, I'll still take a crack at this even though it's old.

I think the state of gaming is mediocre. Reasons being primarily lack of new IP. Further, lack of (to me anyway) innovation also hasn't helped. It seems we're sticking with the same old, same old with nothing really tremendously new.

While I'm sure I'll get a lot of flak for this, at least going from Zelda to Zelda II or Super Mario Bros 1 to Super Mario 2 USA (and to a degree even the Japanese "Lost Levels" showed innovation and that the creators were not content to stay within the mold.

From the economic side, I think that games are a solid investment. From an artistic side, I'm a bit more skeptical.