Capcom

Not a big Capcom game fan because of the monolithic simplistic artwork, but my Pitzer College intern and cameraman Sallam Said was geeked about Capcom so we crashed the booth. They do make some cute games and the Marvel vs Street Fighter series is always a winner for me because I am a huge comic book fan. And both Marvel and DC are not shy about licensing their top brand super heroes to developers and publishers. Marvel will put their brand of superheroes almost anywhere or with any publisher and DC Comics is always be loyal to deals with Warner Brother Interactive Entertainment.

Myself and Sallam, who is a budding indie rapper, were stopped by Raheem Jarbo who goes by the name as Random aka Mega Ran. Randon chatted us up about how he sold his original music and Hip-Hop tracks to Capcom. Randon told us how he is a big Capcom fan and just kept submitting his Mega Ran tribute songs until the company decided to back him as an indie artist. I actually wonder sometimes why there is no real reporting in the music Industry or Hollywood about the sales of music for the gaming biz. I mean every top platform game has original scores and a possibly a soundtrack. And with the level of Next Gen games being so film like and detailed that I would think there should be more of a concerted effort to highlight in the public what artists are breaking songs in games. Or at least a weekly chart about what games are selling the most tunes. Anyway it was cool meeting and talking with Random at the Capcom E3 Exhibit. And Randon’s Web site link is www.megaran.com, so buy his tracks or book him.

Sony

Playstation is in kinda of a weird place at this E3. At the 2006 one Playstation though the launch of PS3 was gonna dominate the Expo, but it was actually Nintendo’s Wii that stole all the media thunder and gamer glory. The lines to test out the Wii were long and folks did not mind waiting 2 hours to play the demo. And now 3 years later Wii is the winner hands down in the gaming world. Xbox 360 has been a solid seller because they dropped the price twice since 2006, got past the “Red Death” scare and PR nightmare and the humongous launch of Halo 2 and GTA w4 with bonus Xbox levels, But for Playstation these past three years have been quite a setback. PS3 sales are flat, but they have great games being launched soon like God of War III and Dante’s Inferno. And Sony is also behind the monster PC and gaming experience DC Universe Online.

This console has been labeled by Time as one of the worst Tech failures in the past ten years. If PS3 could have been launched a year or two before Wii, than yes it would have gotten a whole legion of gamers who might not have bought Xbox 360 as their new Next Gen console. But Nintendo was on a whole another gaming level with the launch of Wii. And its $200 price point meant triple the amount of buyers. Furthermore, the nationwide and worldwide panic in the Christmas of 2006 when no one could guarantee they could even buy a Wii made the Wii the hottest gift. Sadly to say PS3 has never really recovered from their initial marketing launch blunder.

Also PSP now no longer uses the UMD developer format that it was introducing and highly touting at the 2006 E3. Sony at E3 has switched over to a lighter UMD-less format to run games on their newest PSPs. And to further add insult to injury at Playstation Activision’s CEO Robert “Bobby” Kotick threatened to stop making PS3 titles for its games unless Sony lowered the price of PS3 . Sony tried to down play Kotick’s ominous and highly public boycott threat, but even the suggestion was making for a lot of chatter among the gamers who were in West Hall. Why would anyone seriously consider buying or keeping a PS3 if Call of Duty 2 might not be released as a PS3. Sony should not have even let the story get to the point of being an issue with Activision. Even if it is not true there was far more damage done to their overall brand and titles by even being a possibility of being dropped by a top game publisher.