DC's Daily Discourse 4: E3 2011 Predictions, 12 Hours to Go

E3 kicks off tomorrow morning with Microsoft's press conference at 11:30, Sony's is at 7 PM and Nintendo's is at 11 AM on Tuesday along with a bunch of coverage of all the other things floating about. It's always an exiting week and I'm going to talk about my predictions from the Big Three and in general.

Microsoft:

• Gears of War 3 (probably multiplayer) and Forza 4 gameplay demos with both having Kinect support at launch. However, to play Forza 4 with Kinect you need to pass a sobriety test. 
• Every year Xbox gets a substantial software upgrade and this year will probably add a few more media services to Xbox Live, at the very least Skype and maybe Kinect functions they showed off the last 2 years and haven't launched yet.
• They'll announce a bunch of brand new Kinect games for retail and XBLA. The software is not substantial enough to carry its $50 price tag alongside bigger and better titles of comparable prices and thus will be reduced to $20 downloads. The idea of jumping up and down next to an Xbox reading a DVD is a risk I'm not willing to take.
• DanceDanceRevolution will make an appearance, whether or not it's as impressive as or remotely similar to Dance Central is anyone's guess. If Rock Revolution is Konami's attempt to get a piece of the US rhythm game sales pie, a style of game they practically invented in Japan, then it'll be laughed off the stage.
• A remake of Halo: CE is coming. It's bigger, badder, and better. Completely redone with the Halo: Reach engine, it features co-op campaign, online multiplayer and all the old maps completely remade with Reach's added abilities and weapons. Also, after years of successful Mountain Dew endorsements, Master Chief gets promoted to limited edition Pepsi.
• In addition to the Halo remake there's a new Halo game announced but it could be any genre, really, it'll sell...unless it's crappy and marketed poorly, you can have one but not both.
• Microsoft shows a bunch of charts and numbers and talks about them in a way that tries to convince us they don't suck and they're not a bunch of failures.

Sony:

• Sony's going to walk out and just talk about all the games we know they're publishing this year, that alone will fill a few hours.
• The Steam store opens its doors to the PS3 community with ports of Valve's games including Team Fortress 2 (the good version), Left 4 Dead, Half-Life 2, and Portal. Also Valve will host tools for developers to release their games on the PS3 through Steam, unless they're already on the PSN store.
• Sony announces Move support for every Sony published game going forward and announces more Move downloadable and retail titles, this time more titles built specifically for Move and not shoehorned Move controls patched into traditional games.
• Sony announces mostly pointless new features for the PS3 via software update but they'll all be exclusive to PS+ owners. The features will probably include: cross game chat, dynamic avatars, a virtual trophy case and Move support for the XMB.
• The PSN store will get a major overhaul and suck significantly less. New features will include the ability to find things in a simple, intuitive manner and title updates that download faster than the speed of smell.
• Square Enix shows off the completely remade Final Fantasy VII, exclusively for the PS3, to be completed and launched as soon as: they fix Final Fantasy XIV and release a PS3 version, release Kingdom Hearts 3 after releasing a remastered Kingdom Hearts 1&2 for PS3, Final Fantasy XII-2, Final Fantasy Vs. XIII, a sequel to Parasite Eve on PS3, the newly announced Final Fantasy XV and after they finish their ultimate goal of remaking or porting every Final Fantasy, except VI & VII, for every portable console and cell phone on the market. Chances are they'll go bankrupt well before then and release VII on a last ditch effort and sky rocket themselves back to fortune. Also, they'll hand out Final Fantasy branded condoms and years from now we'll still be laughing about it.
• Sony will try to acknowledge the PSN hack with playful humor by inviting GWAR on stage to play a song and crucify 'the' hacker. Or they'll have some skit with Kevin Butler making a comeback not unlike Ron Burgundy. In any case, whatever they do will leave us with tons of meme worthy moments that we'll finally forget that the cake is a lie...DAMN IT!

Nintendo:

• Nintendo's new executive vice president of sales and marketing, Scott Moffitt, will take the stage first. In a rather ironic metaphor for the 3DS's success up to this point, Moffitt will run towards center stage, amped up on Code Red, and slip on a banana peel. He'll plop onto his bottom and spend the first 5 minutes crying.
• Nintendo jumps right in with details of their new console. It'll be able to put the Xbox to shame, slightly outclass the PS3, and it'll be easy to program. They'll demonstrate this by showing gameplay of Grand Theft Auto V, which is set in Vice City. The game will impress, as we'd all expect, but with that announcement comes the realization that all multiplatform games going forward won't utilize the superior hardware of the new console and instead will be hampered by the capabilities of the other consoles. This makes everyone question the notion of spending extra money to build a stronger system than your competitor if all your clients need to use both equally. Also, the console is powered by hamsters on steroids and fairy dust. Suicides triggered by constant fairy sounds will be a PR nightmare for Nintendo but an excellent opportunity to drop the kid-friendly attitude.
• Nintendo's new console comes with no formal game announcements but a couple of groovy, impractical tech demos are shown off just for laughs. Also, a large library of ports will be ported over from PS3 and 360 libraries but those who haven't already played games like GTA4, Fallout 3, and Bioshock most likely aren't going to buy Nintendo's versions.
• For the Legend of Zelda's 25th anniversary we get a mostly disappointing upgraded Legend of Zelda collection. It's $50 and includes Zelda 1, 2, A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, and Majora's Mask but no Wind Waker...thankfully Gamecube games will be for sale on Nintendo's new online store on their next console!
• Nintendo unleashes a fleet of girls, not unlike the 3DS girls from last year, to give everyone a complimentary hand job. The cheers and squeals of delight for Skyward Sword, a new Kirby Wii game (that actually looks like a Kirby game) and Pikmin 3 are much louder than anticipated as a result.
• Nintendo's new console will have a network like PSN & XBL but will, unfortunately, carry an overcomplicated friend system like its preprocessors. Reggie notably quips, "who needs friends anyway!" This will spawn the most popular internet meme since the cake is a lie...GOD DAMN IT!

Other:

• Insomniac will reveal a bold new IP and no one will know how to respond or even how to describe it.
• EA reveals a sequel to Mirror's Edge and they've ironed out the kinks and turned it into Gears of War clone...only faster!
• A true class act, EA reveals a new banner ad for Battlefield 3. It's a Battlefield soldier teabagging a Modern Warfare soldier. As a result of early television advertising they're unable to continue advertising Battlefield 3 until Modern Warfare 3 has already sold 20 million copies.
• Beyond Good & Evil 2 gets a release date but due to the poor marketability of a strong female lead that isn't overly sexualized...Ubisoft gets desperate and puts Jade in a skin tight, Zero Suit Samus-like suit and bumps her breast and butt sizes to maximum capacity. Team Ninja is contracted to get the jiggle physics just right.
• Mega Man comes back in a big way and completely destroys all other 2D and 3D shooters on display at E3. No one saw it coming.
• Sega announces they've sold Nintendo the IP rights to Sonic the Hedgehog. Everyone is dumbfounded but Nintendo delivers the best Sonic game ever made exclusively for their new console and it only gets better from there.
• Bungie will tease their new project to cool reactions. They soon realize they've made a terrible mistake.
• Ken Levine shows off more Bioshock Infinite gameplay and everyone who sees it shits their pants.
• Diablo 3 gets a release date and Blizzard faces financial trouble as World of Warcraft subscriptions plummet. They have to decide between making WoW more awesome or sabotaging Diablo 3.

Well, that's it! Hope you enjoyed it. Am I saying every one of these things will come true with 100% accuracy? Absolutely! Otherwise this week would have all been a complete waste of time.