Eurogamer's Best of E3 2011
Game of the Show, Best Tech, Best Publisher and more.
Best Technology: Wii U
Confusing? At the time, perhaps, but now the dust has settled we know exactly what Wii U is: it's a new console which Nintendo believes has the muscle to match PS3 and Xbox 360, with a new controller that is part tablet, part control pad.
What it has to almost embarrassing excess, however, is potential, and while potential alone is never enough to guarantee success - just look at last year's winner in this category, the 3DS - it is an increasingly scarce commodity among the homogenised video game platforms, where last year's innovation is this year's sinkhole for mini-game compilations.
There's a mountain for Nintendo still to climb (actually two mountains to climb - let's call the other one "online"), but once again we exit an E3 wishing Miyamoto and friends the best of luck along the way.
Honourable Mentions
PlayStation Vita: Perhaps more so than its big brother the PlayStation 3, this one only does everything. Everything Sony could think of, by the sound of it - offering so many means of interaction that it's in danger of collapsing under the weight of its own technological diversity. Wii U offers choice but it is still channelled into a particular focus; we wait to see whether Vita can find its own. We hope it can though - it's lovely to use, and the games industry could do with a successful, specialised gaming handheld rather than ceding the space to a half-interested Apple.
OnLive: Whisper it, but it's getting better. It's still not HD gaming piped over the internet in the way that its owners would like us to think and proclaim, but it is making strides all the time, and OnLive had a solid E3. The universal controller is a clever idea and along with tablet support lowers the barrier to entry for the kind of excellent, specialised content that the traditional games industry really needs to sell to a broader audience.
Best Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
A few glitches and Need for Speed regressions aside, none of the bigger publishers had a notably bad E3, so this is a tougher category than ever to call. The focus on quality and pedigree was in evidence everywhere you looked, especially among the platform holders - Nintendo's stand was so rammed with software and demo units, for instance, that it was virtually unadorned.
Bethesda's stand was hardly unadorned, with every corner expensively sculpted to frame its contents, but it had a right to show off. Things may not have gone entirely to plan with Brink (and the PSN outage was rotten timing), but Skyrim will be epic enough to justify its headline billing - which included a custom-painted advert on the side of the Figueroa Hotel near the LACC, easily six figures' worth of hype - while Rage is quietly looking like the best thing id's done since Quake 3 Arena, and Prey 2 is so much of an overhaul that it barely qualifies as a sequel.
Few companies have made as much noise as Bethesda since it expanded its publishing operations in 2009, and with unannounced projects still to come from Arkane, Shinji Mikami's Tango Gameworks and ZeniMax Online Studios - that we know of - the next 12 months could confirm its ascent to the top table of video game publishing. And looking to the next generation of consoles, well, they employ John Carmack. They should be alright.
Honourable Mentions
Nintendo: Sequels, yes, but even the most sneering 3DS sceptics probably gulped down some enthusiasm at the sight of Super Mario, Mario Kart, Luigi's Mansion 2, Kid Icarus and Star Fox dancing around the screen. Wii U won most of the other headlines, and let's not forget little old Skyward Sword. When the most ambitious Zelda game ever is the support act at your press conference, you must be doing something worth caring about.
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment: Arkham City is the sequel Batman deserves, although perhaps not the one it needs right now (we'll see), but Warner's Sesame Street game looks like it's channelling the best children's TV show ever made responsibly, and we were pleased to arrive on its stand and find ourselves directed toward the charming Bastion, a small game but one that the publisher rightly wants to champion. Refreshing.