The 5 Burning Questions E3 2013 had Better Answer.

So sad.

1. The Steam Box...what's going on here Valve?

What is it? We know it's not the piston because there's no way in console hell a $1000 anything is going to make a difference if your brand don't look like an apple. So is it a cheap PC attached to a TV attached to the Steam network? If so, that's one hell of a gamble. Valve has a hard core group of supporters, but they all have PCs. If what I've been told is the case, how then will they evangelize the console crowd? I have an idea, and that idea is almost as frustrating as my next question...

Flirt!

2. Beyond Good and Evil 2, AKA my achy breaky heart.

Grump.


3. Xbox One. Yes or No answers only.

The core crowd is fuming over just how evasive Microsoft has been about explaining to the public the shadier details of the product they're planing on purchasing. Details like, The publisher has the say in whether a game can be traded. And yet, Microsoft offers a one time, 30 day trial gift thing, to a friend on your list who has been a friend for longer than 30 days.

M'kay, that's certainly different. But here's the rub: "from time to time, Microsoft may change its policies, terms, products and services to reflect modifications and improvements to our services, feedback from customers and our business partners or changes in our business priorities and business models or for other reasons." Translation: we don't know how any of this is going to stick and reserve the right to make everything we've told you about this product irrelevant especially after you've so kindly filled our coffers.

Boo. And I mean ALL the boo's. It's crap like that, that kept me from buying a PS3 until 2010. I can personally vow to not touch either console until a year after launch, because the quote above is basically a platinum card of consumer oriented f**kery. I sir, will have none of it...for a year or two at least. Destiny might be fun.


4. The Last Guardian: So is it coming out or... you know what? I don't want to know.

You have know idea who or what it is...yet, you love this chicken-dog-duck.

The voraciously anticipated spiritual successor to what is literally the Citizen Kane of video games has been trapped in limbo for this entire console cycle. I see the writing on the wall. Either it's dead and buried, or it's a frankenstein-ian corpse of a creative mis-fire. Either way, it belongs forgotten. Would you want to see a long lost Orson Wells film in which Wells himself had walked off the production halfway through? That's what I thought.

Maybe in the last; Jesus, five years, they've managed to turn it around and it will be an earth shattering masterpiece/the perfect swan song to the PS3 as it comes sliding down a rainbow of world peace and then takes us all out for gelato. I'd love to be wrong. I'm also not holding my breath.


5. Hey, Hey, All the Guys! What's this gonna cost me?

That's the real question isn't it? Everyone remembers the infamous PS3 $600 downer from the last console cycle, and it was justifiably the reason the 360's install base had Sony swinging at air all this time. I say no one is going to sell a console at that price, or at least the point of entry won't $600. Industry analyst Michael Patcher says it will be less than $500. That's...generous. But this cycle literally cannot afford to loose, If they do end up costing under $400, expect to spend $200 somewhere else. There's no free lunch in this, or any other business, and I think I know how they're going to get that money back. You ready?

$70 games.

Soooooooo sad.