Now that the E3 dust has settled (except in the System Wars forum), it is safe to say that pretty much everything there was overhyped. Pause a moment to reflect on this, and then most will quickly realize: every E3 is overhyped. This is the whole point of E3, hype the press into a frenzy to get mindshare months before your product even hits the streets. We definitely saw this with the new generation of consoles this year. I think the next three lines sum up the overhype from this year... kudo points to those who can correctly guess which ones can be attributed to which company (shouldn't be too hard).

- We used hardware which is not going to be like our system to run our demos.
- We pandered to the public, showing them what they wanted to see, not what we could show them.
- See this gadget? Isn't it nifty? Even we can't seem to figure out what it will do yet, exactly!

Ready for the answer? All three apply to Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. They /all/ overhyped their systems using all three of these methods above, to varying degrees. In the end, they will all be in the same ballpark, and will appeal to different groups. I think it is safe to say that these are things that will be true for the next gen... and not specifically about the consoles themselves...

- Don't expect Microsoft to make huge inroads into Japan with this one, as they trust a suit and tie to sell them a good product than they do a khaki or jeans wearing dancing man shouting "Developers!" over and over again. MS needs to get over their casual culture (which I am a part of, ironically) and realize that they have to act professional in order to get respect in the Japanese market, which they haven't done. Still, we get a good laugh out of a CEO dancing around on stage acting like a rock-star... don't we?
- Don't expect Sony to stop milking on accessories, although do expect them to sell more bizarre ones, including the Playstation 3 Kitchen Sink(tm)... after all, they didn't include it built-in. Also, make sure you tuck your new PS3 in at night with the dust cover, and always remember to buy lots of expensive flash memory... otherwise you won't have enough room for your pr0n.... err, game saves.
- Expect Nintendo to do ground-breaking things, but only once, and involving hardware you have to buy each time. They play the milking game better than Sony, and they do it with a legion of kids at their disposal, getting the money-holding parents to buckle under "But moooooooooom, I waaaaaaant it!" Who else can sell you a barcode scanner and packs of collectible cards seperately and tell you that this is a good thing for gaming?

Another thing about hype that I have noticed is that it makes people collectively stupid. Claims start being made with zero evidence, because they want their hyped product to be true. Take Coded Arms, for example... an FPS coming out for the PSP rather soon (heh, was 2 weeks, now 1 month, 2 weeks). The rumor got started, like every other game on the hyped PSP since Twisted Metal, that it would be online. Now people hold Konami to this claim, even though it was started by someone on the GS/GF forums! And no matter how many threads on the front page have 'Online' in the title, people will create more saying "gee, I hope it has online, if it doesn't, then I will boycott it since I was promised online by person X". Sorry guys, I hate to burst your bubble, but you have been 'pwnd' by the hype machine.

Next E3... I am gonna build a BS detector and go there.... it will just be a box marked 'BS Detector, rapid beeping means companies are overhyping their products", and it will rapidly beep as long as it is turned on.