Lately I have found myself becoming more of a cynical asshole (Cynicalus Assholium for those of you who speak Latin). With gamings big showcase now over for a few days I’ve been wrestling with this feeling of meh that has swept over me. I talked about it briefly on this weeks show but I felt that I needed to write it down. To let my brain think for once instead of my usual speak first and think later approach.

I read this article on Cracked the other day. It’s all about what the author sees as ominous trends in gaming, a lot of doom and gloom type stuff. Stuff I don’t necessarily disagree with but it’s on Cracked so it’s meant to make outlandish declarative statements claiming them as gospel. Having said that. it’s a pretty good read and includes such great graphics as this -

However, the article got me thinking. This is the time of year I should be most excited for gaming and yet, I’m not. I’m not saying there aren’t some good looking games coming out this year but they are all sequels. Bigger and better versions of games I already played and loved. And that’s coming from a Nintendo fanboy. A company who seemingly only does a new IP once a decade. So my lack of enthuasim for sequels is especially odd for me.

E3 is that one time where we get solid information on where the ‘Big 3′ are heading. What they have planned. This year two of them seemed more focused on everything but gaming. Even though Sony announced a brand new handheld I’m just not into handhelds anymore. Why pay 300 bucks to play something not on my 2000 dollar TV? The only time I would seriously game on them is on a plane or if I had a commute. So Sony spending a majority of their time showing off a device that I have no interest in playing doesn’t blow my skirt up. Besides it may end up dumbing down gaming even more.

Skill in gaming now optional.

Both Microsoft and Sony seem more intent on the nickel and diming of gamers lately. They get a small cut of every DLC sold through their stores so it makes sense. They lost so much money for so long they need to recoup their costs somehow. It makes sense.

But DLC has turned from easily expanding your gaming experience and prolonging it to a cash grab. It irks me to no end that in the last 3 weeks alone two new subscription models popped up in the form of Call of Duty Elite and the Rockstar Pass. No one forces you to buy them of course and in the case of Call of Duty Elite I wont pay for it. But I liked LA Noire a lot. I looked forward to getting more cases. But I was annoyed at the hard sell of it. That if I didn’t plunk down 10 bucks now it’ll cost me more later. So I ended up paying for the right to download something later if it comes out.

I had no problem with the ‘Cerebus’ network used game tax because I have no problem buying games new. But this subscription model on top of other subscription models (Live and PSN) isn’t’ about battling the “evil” after market but more about getting even more money out of your biggest fans. It seems it’s more about trying to achieve a model similar to the “Personal Seal License” model in building sports stadiums.

We are 5 years into this generation (6 really) and this is the time all consoles really start showing their age. Not necessarily graphically as I think both the PS3 and 360 have another year or two left but in something I think of as generation fatigue. When a new console comes out developers get new tools to try something they couldn’t before. Since those new tools are built into every console they can try new stuff knowing that every owner can play it. This leads to new games and gaming experiences. I’m not just thinking new graphics either. This generation every console came with internet capabilities out of the box. No network adapters needed. They came with the box. Is it any surprise then that we’ve seen an explosion in online gaming then? That Call of Duty has made more money in each of it’s last 3 games than Avatar made in it’s US domestic run? Not combined, each game made more.

This is why I have always felt that this idea of attempting to prolong this generation with add-ons like the Kinect or the Move made little sense. If only 20% owners owns this new add-on and you can really only 20% of those owners to buy your game that game isn’t going to take risks. Doesn’t make financial sense. If MIcrosoft really believed in the Kinect they would’ve lowered the price at this E3 to encourage more of us on the fence to adapt it. They would drop the Kinect bundles and non-Kinect bundles and make every XBox sold from now on have a Kinect. Instead we got an hour long presentation of games for the Kinect where I am supposed to be the controller except I can’t move my character on screen. As much as it seems cool that I can shout at my computer controlled teammates to do something I question how this will work in practice. Just last night I used the Google Speak to Text thing on my Droid. This works simply, it records my voice sends it to Googles servers who do the heavy lifting and send it back. Process takes 20 seconds maybe. It rarely works well. It kind of works so I still use it. But in reality it works meh. I was trying to say “I am going to meat my boss” and it translated to “Gonna make balls”. The first time the Kinect doesn’t hear you say “Cover!” and your teammates don’t take cover and die forcing you to play that boss again will be the last time you use that Kinect feature.

So as much as we don’t want to buy a new $500 console I wonder if that is what is needed to get me excited about the state of gaming. A new console brings new gaming possibilities. Brings excitement. So imagine my surprise when we got a new console last week and that didn’t happen. I wasn’t really excited about the Wii U then and I am not much more excited now. Nintendo needs to earn that from me. Tech Demos don’t do it. Promises from developers don’t do it either. I need to see developers committed to making games. Not games that sell DLC. That’s how I feel and I think a lot of gamers feel the same way.

This right here though maybe our biggest mistake. The fact that we want our consoles to be so homogeneous that they are almost identical. Nintendo is the only company that always changes their controller. Always. It’s the biggest difference you can make in a new console. The fundmental way you interact with the game. Will the PS4 or Xbox Pandora do that? Will they change the design of their controllers radically or just make ‘enhancements’ or ‘refinements’? Sony hasn’t changed the way we interact with their consoles in 13 years why start now? So our flack against the Wii U’s controller is misguided at best. We should at the very least be happy that Nintendo Zigs when the rest are happy Zagging.

No the problem we should have is that you can only use one at a time. That the WiiMotes from the Wii will still be the primary controller for system. So how you interacted with your Wii today is how Nintendo expects you to interact with the Wii U. It took me a while to figure out why I was so meh towards it and that’s why. Though the reports saying that the console is capable of doing four Wii U controllers at the same time makes me think that there might be some internal discussions going on at NIntendo whether or not to sell the new controller separately. Whether they would take a loss to sell it at 80 bucks or more. Whether they will have to put in a better chip in the machine that would raise the price from 250 to 275 to achieve it. Who knows. Personally I think Nintendo shouldn’t be afraid of a 300 dollar console. They should be more afraid of being too cheap and too early.

So if you are still reading this long winded idiotic diatribe from a scattered brain man-child (sorry!) hopefully you can see why I have come down with a case of Cynicalus Assholium. The future of gaming right now is boring me at a time where I want to be excited so badly.