Today I stumbled upon my bag of E3 2005 crap. I hadn’t remembered it was under the bed right next to the box of Chick Tracts (kids love them!) A quick look through the pamphlets and goodies made me recall how much of a bloated orgy E3 was. Just how many more Sony key chains, FFVII Before Crisis monitor wipers, paper Sly Cooper 3D glasses, and Phoenix Wright branded cans of coffee did they expect to give out before the whole thing collapsed under the weight of hastily thrown together demos, rabid consumerism (yes, I fought someone for that can of coffee, and no, coffee should not be in cans), thudding bass and barely dressed women?
The answer was “one years worth.” E3 as we knew it is over and the industry is better off, but this is all irrelevant. I am blogging now to share with you a stunning revelation that will shake the foundations of the video game industry — an it had been under my bed all these years.
Let me present to you exhibit A:
This is the daily paper that was given out at E3. Notice that the article on Nintendo does not mention the Wii remote or motion sensing. INTERESTING!
And now, if you will, take a gander at exhibit 2:
This is a flyer for a company called SDW games. Notice that their game system is entirely based on motion sensing infra red. This is Wii Sports without a $250 price tag.
The rest should be self explanatory. The Nintendo of 2005 had no idea what to do with their Revolution console. Playing old games was regression, not revolution. They needed a gimmick and they needed one quickly. Then at that years E3, Shigeru Miyamoto made his rounds through the tiny developers cubes, possibly stumbling and slurring his words because of the all night vodka, cocaine and Russian sex slave binge he had just barely woken up from.
Miyamoto found SDW, saw the amazing technology, played the demo with a REAL TENNIS RACKET, the REAL BOXING GLOVES and realized Nintendo would need to crush this competitor immediately. So he took copious notes, outlined the systems 8 bit graphics processor and 16 bit sound processor capable of creating “very high quality music,” and then quietly went home.
I have good news and bad news for Wii fans. You are correct that the Wii is not a Gamecube 1.5. But now prepare yourself for the truth — The Wii is an SDW Games console with a Gamecube processor.
Hey! Coffee in cans was actually one of the cooler things to try in Japan. Sure, it wouldn’t be hot (obviously…) but putting it in cans makes it easier for vending machines (another Japanese obsession). Coffee in cans and melon-flavored soda are two products that we need more of in the United States… We can get to that right after we take care of all the consoles ripping off each other. That sound good?
Do you actually think Nintendo pulled an “all nighter” copying some two-bit company’s ideas a year before the launch of the Wii, or are you just trying to be provocative?
Sorry, this is kind of off-topic and all, but I noticed you mention “Chick Tracts” – which kids do, in fact, love – and figured you might like to check out what I call Chick Dissections, in which I mock Chick’s Tracts MST3K-style with humorous panel-by-panel commentary and logical arguments against whatever message each Tract is trying to promote.
You can find them by clicking this link. If you do check ’em out, let me know what you think. I’ve been trying to do them more regularly, so there should be relatively frequent updates. (About one every week or two.)