E3 2013: Microsoft Turns On Its Customers and Sony's PS4 May Crash the Industry

There's an electricity in the air.

Yes, once again, it's time for the Electronics Entertainment Expo, otherwise known as E3, the big annual video game industry trade show in Los Angeles which we always hear is becoming more irrelevant. And granted, we seem to be seeing less games there every year - what with the ever-increasing industry woes I've chronicled my thoughts on here for years - but still, everyone goes and makes it out to be a big deal. There's always awkward technical glitches and nonsense video game system customers don't care about, like attempts to push Sony and Microsoft branded alternatives to streaming services like Netflix and apparently now convince us that we need to manage fantasy football leagues right there on our console dashboards while also watching more commercials. Everyone still goes - except Nintendo at least had the foresight to do a series of their usually excellent prerecorded Nintendo Direct internet broadcast conferences instead of their usual awkward stage show, just showing up to show off the games directly to the press and to attendees on the show floor - and it's generally kind of terrible and embarrassing every year.

And I still write about it. But this year, it's different.

Two Words on Bullying

Oh hey, it's 2013 now, isn't it? And I haven't posted anything here for you guys since last November. Obama was rightly reelected, of course, but predictably, we've only seen the usual disappointment from the government since. That's a matter for another irate ramble, however. Normally, as I've meant to for the past year or two and still haven't gotten to, I'd start out the new year with some big rambling post summarizing things as of late - personal, boring nonsense. There's not much to report as of late, though I'll probably babble enough about it at some point, from my having been freelancing for over a year and a half now to tentative efforts to escape the south that I've been focusing on to present ongoing health problems threatening to derail more than I care to think about.

At any rate, just over three and a half months into the year, I'm starting out 2013 with a couple of things I felt compelled to post.

Election 2012: The Wealthy are Not Entitled to Their Delusions

Here we are at last, Election Day 2012. Four years ago today, we made history by electing Barack Obama to the office of president of the United States. It's been a bumpy four years since. After all, on inauguration day that following January, the Republican party - led by Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell - came together and swore to prevent this administration from enacting policy and prevent Obama's reelection. Right on day one. And they had the gall to spend this entire election season complaining that Obama wasn't 'bipartisan enough.'

Ghost Roast

November 1st.

It's too late for a Halloween story, you realize. It's the day after. It's too late.

That's never stopped me before, you realize. If it's one thing Spiral Reverie readers love, it's waiting forever for posts that may or may not be excruciatingly disappointing. The greatest thing about me is when I'm not there at all. All those spaces are left unfilled, overflowing with suffocating potential.

I'm my most intriguing when I'm a ghost. When the mystery thrives over whether or not the blog's finally dead. But it's never dead. It's one of the only things that'll outlast the end of civilization. Not even the end of the internet, the end of servers, or the end of language could destroy this blog.

No. The end is just the beginning. The beginning is never the end. Burgers are waffles. If those drums in your ears were timpani, you'd have headaches all the time.

And now in the spirit of whatever the hell that just was, another attempt at beginning to post content here again for a while. Starting with the nonsense from me you love most. ANOTHER RIDICULOUS STORY.

E3 2012: Nintendo for Wii and U

It's over. Go home.

Hey, you've reached the last of the big E3 blog posts for this year! And this one's the shortest of the bunch! Because I decided to turn a bunch of relevant content into a later blog post for sometime in the coming weeks! Because sometimes I feel like showcasing that I understand the value of brevity despite my routinely choosing to neglect it! It's time for me to stop these exclamations, E3 is an annoying, draining thing to cover - especially on a dead-end little blog like this - and it's profoundly sad that this week is such a big yearly event for so many nerds whose lives simply have nothing else of value within them!

That's enough.

At any rate, it's Nintendo time, after I gave up before even getting to them last year. So, after seeing the dire state of the industry and general corporate cluelessness thoroughly reflected in Sony and Microsoft's conferences, it was up to Nintendo to swoop in and save the day.

E3 2012: Microsoft and Sony Strangled

More important than things that actually matter.

So, I wrote earlier this week about how increasingly apparent it had become that Sony and Microsoft have no business being in the video game industry in the first place. They both went on to hold their respective E3 press conferences and ultimately only reinforced my statements, entirely as I expected. Even their intended 'big surprises' were the result of exceedingly poor planning and an utter lack of understanding of this industry, their place in it, or even their own small and rather rigid market demographics that their focusing on catering to all generation has only served to isolate themselves from the larger market.

Let's take a look at their trainwreck of a situation further.

Pre-E3 2012: Wii Need Nintendo

No! No no no! Haven't they stopped this nonsense yet?

Oh hey there, internet. Guess it's about time I showed up this year, isn't it? I've actually been working on an assortment of posts for your consideration and prompt disposal, but as usual, I've been so caught up in all sorts of writing - including the aforementioned posts - that E3 coverage ended up being my first 2012 posts this time. Yes, there's no excuse, but there's plenty of time for me to be charming and witty and horrifically grating about that later.

With E3 2012 beginning today and Nintendo having kicked things off early last night with an impressive second unveiling of the Wii U - their new console successor to the Wii, which they'd been forced to initially unveil last year at E3 2011 when they weren't quite ready due to leaks - it's time to talk video games. And if there's one thing you love to hear talked about, it's video games.

Video games.

Video games, video games, video games.