An open letter to Yahoo! Games.

Dear Yahoo! Games:

How are you? I hope you are well. Me? Well, I can’t complain.  Actually, that’s a lie. I can complain. In fact, I can complain about you. I read your recent article entitled “E3 2010: Top showstoppers and disappointments.” (As seen here.) It was poorly written and riddled with bias and outright contradictions. Now, when I say it was poorly written, I’m not talking grammatically; the grammar was spot-on, to be honest. The content itself was, well, not good, and I’d like to have a little sit-down with you and explain why I feel this way.

Chad and I watched the entirety of the E3 coverage. We laughed, we raged, we tweeted mercilessly (usually to the chagrin of our followers), but overall, we didn’t miss a minute. I mention this because I’m not entirely sure you and I saw the same E3. Chad and I are die-hard gamers, which is why we felt we were qualified to formulate the opinions we did on our respective twitter accounts, as well as here on Otakuz with a Z. Something tells me that the journalists you employed to cover the event, Ben Silverman and Mike Smith, are less than well-versed when it comes to hardcore gaming. Allow me to expound…

“Nintendo does 3D”

Okay, as unsatisfied as I was with your article, I will still give credit where credit is due. The first section elaborating on Nintendo’s newest handheld, the 3DS, was right on the money. Your information was accurate and well-written, albeit a little fanboy-ish. However, after the initial good part, the rest of the article seems incredibly sub-par, like a woman with a beautiful smile who turns out to have halitosis.

“Rock Band gets real”

Rock Band 3 keyboard. Hell yes.

In this area, you briefly mention that the music game genre has been lagging as of late. This is only true if you look at the sales figures. I’d like to bring up two points to you: Downloadable Content (henceforth referred to as “DLC”) and over-saturation. People love DLC because it makes a good game into a great game. I’ve, at the very least, doubled the song library in my copy of Rock Band 2. And with the varying tastes between my friends and myself, it allows for unique gameplay when playing someone else’s copy of the game; I may own songs they do not, and vice versa. As for over-saturation, well, all you need to do is look in your local GameStop and you’ll see it. Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Karaoke Revolution, and even Dance Dance Revolution produce relentless amounts of spinoffs, variations, and the like. It’s the same reason people don’t have seven-course meals three times a day; it’s just too damn much! Too much of a good thing naturally causes people to shy away from it, so to call the music game genre “once mighty” is a bit of a misguided statement.

However, Rock Band 3 does up the ante with it’s new controller designs. What bothers me is that you only elaborated on the guitar controller. Sure, it’s great and can be used as a real guitar, but you completely neglected the new fully-functional MIDI keyboard peripheral, a piece of hardware for which gamers have been clamoring for years. In addition to that, Rock Band 3’s tracklist includes songs like “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen and “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourne. Hell, for many gamers, just having “Bohemian Rhapsody” was a selling point. If someone were to have missed Rock Band 3’s E3 coverage and based their opinion of the game solely on your article, they’d chalk it up as more of the same.

“Talk to your Xbox”

I was pretty flabbergasted by your statements about the Kinect. You stated that its most interesting feature was the voice recognition system for movie playback. This got an audible “What?!” out of me, to be brutally honest. The Kinect is able to play some of the best motion-controlled games seen at E3 this year (despite many of them looking like carbon copies of Wii Sports and Wii Fit), further erasing the boundaries between gamer and game, and you were blown away by the voice command system? That’s like being allowed to test-drive an ultra-futuristic sports car and then saying that the clincher was the volume knob on the dashboard. And then you go on to say that THAT was “exactly the kind of ‘Jetsons’ feature [you] were hoping to see at E3.” Seriously? We’ve got 3D cinematics out the wazoo, motion controlled games left and right, and hardware that improves on a constant and exponential basis. Yahoo, look around. We ARE in a ‘Jetsons’-style future! To quote one of my favorite webcomics, Three Panel Soul, “It is unquestionably the future, and you would’ve crashed your stupid flying car anyway.” (Comic can be seen here.)

“Nintendo’s burly brands”

Nintendo blew everyone away with new games featuring Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong, Goldeneye, and the one you forgot, Metroid . You portrayed this as a good thing, and I concur.  This is another well-written section, but later in the very same article, you treat this like a bad thing, despite labeling it as a “showstopper” here.  More on that later.

This is the reason I'm no longer a fatass.

“Gaming on two feet”

You claim that Nintendo’s Wii Fit started the active game craze. I’m not sure if you know this, but I recently traveled back in time to 1998, and they have this game called Dance Dance Revolution. Your body is the controller and you step on arrows that correspond to those seen on the screen to the beat of catchy dance music. And since 1998 (also known as one of the greatest years in gaming history, perhaps to be discussed in a later article), the list of DDR games has become quite extensive. With DDR having close to a decade long lead on Wii Fit, basic addition will show you that DDR (just barely) got here first and started the “get off your ass and play” game craze, one that has caused this blogger to drop some serious extra weight. As for the E3 coverage of the motion commotion, it was a pretty even three-way tie. Each of the big competitors brought something new and unique to the table. The Kinect, while appearing to be riding the coattails of the Wii in just about every way, brought a lot of titles to the table, all of which look promising. Nintendo barely even had to rely on its motion-inducing titles to get people active. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword alone eliminated the cohesion of mainstream gaming and a sedentary experience. Sony’s incredibly imaginatively titled Playstation Move made further advancements in motion-fueled gaming by adding depth to motion controls. Sure, the Wii can tell where the controller is on X and Y axes, but the Playstation Move adds a Z axis with its oddly familiar-looking controller (perhaps known as the PS Three-mote?)

When writing a paper for school, and a teachers wanted me to explain a topic with more depth, they’d write the exact same word I’m about to write for you: EXPAND!!!

Okay, Yahoo, I feel like I’ve been a little harsh, and I have, but in all fairness, you’ve done it to yourself. Let’s take a look at the things that left a bad taste in your mouths…

“No Wii Vitality Sensor”

Really? This was one of your top disappointments? Sure, it was a bummer that it was a no-show, but it wasn’t much of a hit in the first place. Its use is limited from the get-go. One thing I’ve learned when making a presentation of any kind is to always bring your A-game. If something isn’t perfected, people will focus more on the fact that it’s incomplete and less on the wow factor. This is just common sense. Whether the Wii Vitality Sensor comes out at all is still up in the air, but if it doesn’t, I don’t foresee many people to be too heartbroken. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill, Yahoo.

“No price for Kinect”

Kinect: Probably $149.99

I find it funny how you seem to be completely in the dark about Kinect’s price, yet say it’s rumored by GameStop and Amazon to be $149.99. You’ve got your price right there! Even if the price does vary by the time November 4th rolls around, so what? The price difference wouldn’t be too astronomical. Again, this isn’t any sort of deal breaker, so quit whining.

“No new PSP”

Yahoo, do you follow the news at all? Why in the hell would there be a new PSP happening any time soon? The PSP Go was released less than nine months ago! Another new PSP would oversaturate the market and be too much of a financial risk on Sony’s part. As for the already lagging sales of the PSP, Sony employed a hip youth by the name of Marcus to do for the PSP what Kevin Butler did for the PS3’s “It Only Does Everything” campaign, known as the PSP’s “Step Your Game Up” campaign. Sure, leaked photos of a new PSP motherboard have been leaked, but that doesn’t mean you need a new PSP in your hands just yet; the PSP Go is still the new kid on the block. Finish the candy bar you have before clamoring for the next one.

“No Last Guardian”

Sure, it didn’t show up at their booth, but it was mentioned at Sony’s press conference; it’s the whole reason there was a unanimous “Oh yeah, when’s that coming out again?” feeling in the crowd. Again, keep in mind what I said earlier about bringing only your A game. A game that’s better late than never is substantially better than a game that’s here now, but incomplete. This is exactly why I wasn’t too disappointed last year when Bioshock 2 was delayed. However, I’ll give credit where credit is due and admit that this is a legitimate disappointment, as Last Guardian looks like another amazing hit from Team ICO.

“Too many sequels”

Okay, this is where you guys really made asses of yourselves. Earlier, you said you were pumped for new Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong, Kirby, and Goldeneye, yet here, you call these “endless rehashes from Nintendo.” Are you excited for these games or not? Make up your mind! You then go on to say that you’re going to “play the heck out of Portal 2, Infamous 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood” and then you call sequels “new versions of old stuff.” That’s not what a sequel is, Yahoo. A sequel is a continuation, not a retelling. Sure, some sequels give the player more of the same, but a lot of them don’t. Learn the difference.

Overall, Yahoo, your article seems rushed and a bit amateurish. If you’re going to report on something people care about so deeply, especially when you’re permitted to get your hands on it before anyone else, I suggest you treat the subject with more dignity and research more thoroughly.

But hey, it’s just a suggestion.

Love and kisses,

Quazo