This week’s comic is in celebration of one of my favourite game series: Forza. What is most amazing to me about Forza 3 is just how accessible they’ve made it. Everyone I’ve sat down to play the game who isn’t a fan of simulation racers has had a great time thanks to options like auto-braking and on-demand rewind. Make no mistake, it’s developers like Turn 10 who will attract non-core gamers to our beloved pastime and they’re doing with without useless waggle and gimmicky party games. Yes, that was a shot at the Wii.

When the Wii was first introduced we all assumed that it would bring the casual market into gaming, widening our audience and giving us more people to play with. If I had a nickle for every time I’ve heard, “They’ll buy a Wii and then upgrade to a 360 or PS3″ then I’d be a millionaire by now. The reality of the situation is that this just isn’t happening in any quantifiable degree.  The Wii hasn’t created new “gamers”, they’ve created a new breed of… something else.

Turn 10 Studios, on the other hand, has taken a game which was originally aimed squarely at the hardest of hardcore gamers and opened it up to everyone.  Instead of making casual party games accessible, they’ve made accessible hardcore games. Do you see the difference? It’s an important one and I hope every other developer out there is paying attention.

So the presser is now over, and I’m a little stunned and in no position to make any thoughtful comments yet. Instead, let’s go over those wild predictions I made and see how we fared…

• “The next dashboard update will be revealed and will include expanded avatar customization options”

Well, we there is a dashboard update coming and it’s going to include some crazy stuff.  And, as if on cue, a bunch of stuff that won’t be coming to Canada.  There were no more announced avatar customization changes, but we did get Twitter and Facebook so I guess it’s an even exchange. (1/1)

• “The motion controller will be shown”

Well… “motion control” was shown, sans actual controller, but I’m going to take this as a win regardless. You know, we all knew that the motion camera thing was coming, what surprised me is that no one really guessed how much it would change everything. (2/2)

• “You’ll be able to use a Zune HD as a controller for your Xbox 360 for specially made games (Maranda wants the world to know that this is her prediction, not mine, and if it comes true then she was right)”
  

Sorry Maranda, but not only did they not bring motion controlling zunes.. but they didn’t even MENTION the damn thing. Better luck next time! (2/3)

• Primetime Channel release date announce along with additional games.

Okay, Primetime was completely absent which, I have to be honest here, completely surprised me. I thought this was a shoe in! Not only did they not mention Primetime, but they also didn’t mention that 1vs100 is going live in the States TONIGHT in beta. (2/4)

• Game announcements, appearances:
  • Crackdown 2
  • Lord of the Rings Online
  • PGR5 or Forza 2 or Both, with a new high-end racing wheel incl. six speed shifter
  • Bungie’s new IP will NOT be shown
  • This is obvious, since it’s shipping in six months, but we’re finally going to see ODST gameplay
  • Mass Effect 2 will be shown and will time timed exclusive for Xbox 360

Okay, let’s make another list to cover this one…

• Crackdown 2 win!
• LotR Online fail!
• Forza 2 or PGR5 win!
• New racing wheel fail! (I *know* there is one coming)
• New Bungie Game NOT appearing fail!
• Halo ODST win!
• Mass Effect 2 fail! (where the hell was it??!)

Which brings us to… 5 of 11 predictions true or, essentially, a fail. Damn, I’m not very good at this!

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, then you’re already well aware that I hold in my hand an invite to both the Microsoft media brief presentation and to E3 itself… both of which I had to turn down.  I’m well aware the extents that many people would go through in order to obtain that which I have tossed aside but believe me, the decision was not easy.

About a month ago I began to loosely form a set of theories, or predictions, about what Microsoft would unveil at this year’s media brief.  One of them, a new piece of hardware to compete with Apple’s iPhone as a grass-roots gaming platform, has mostly come true. We’ve seen the hardware, but we’ve yet to see the software and I do believe, from the rumblings I’ve heard, that it will have a significant gaming component to it and that it will be shown at the media brief.

Okay, that one is obvious, let’s keep it going.

• The next dashboard update will be revealed and will include expanded avatar customization options
• The motion controller will be shown
• You’ll be able to use a Zune HD as a controller for your Xbox 360 for specially made games (Maranda wants the world to know that this is her prediction, not mine, and if it comes true then she was right)
• Primetime Channel release date announce along with additional games.
• Game announcements, appearances:
  • Crackdown 2
  • Lord of the Rings Online
  • PGR5 or Forza 2 or Both, with a new high-end racing wheel incl. six speed shifter
  • Bungie’s new IP will NOT be shown
  • This is obvious, since it’s shipping in six months, but we’re finally going to see ODST gameplay
  • Mass Effect 2 will be shown and will time timed exclusive for Xbox 360

So those are mine, but what are yours? Do you think I’m crazy? Let me know in the comments.

~ Jeff

Disclaimer
While I have regular interaction with the community and product teams, I don’t know any more (most likely less) than everyone else. They’re all very careful never to let us know anything that we’re not supposed to know and only ever tell us anything after it’s been announced (we typically just get additional information on it).