Also, am I the only one that feels the Sony press conference has the most pressure on it as they need the biggest payday at this point. None of the big franchises have hit the way they should have. Killzone 2 fell flat after a solid 45 days, and Resistance 2 was considered average at best. Little Big Planet is lots of fun, but did not have legs like I thought it would. And I feel that inFamous wil be a let down as well.

And now with God of War 3 confirmed for next year, and Heavy Rain looking like it will go to at least Summer 2010, what do they have for Holiday 2009. And no, MAG will not make a Holiday 2009 shipping date. Not if it is in the state that people have said it is in at this time in development.

They might have the most pressure, but I they will have the best show. Uncharted 2 is already looking amazing. They also have the new Ratchet & Clank game. Let's not forget that Sony will also benefit from this years heavy-hitting third-party games, like BioShock 2, Assassin's Creed 2, and Modern Warfare 2. It's Microsoft and Nintendo I'm worried about. There are hardly any known games for those systems, so they better show off a lot at E3.

Fourhman! Why is the term hardcore so hard(core) for you to comprehend? I am a hardcore gamer. You are a hardcore gamer. We are the kind of people who have been there since the beginning and devote much of our time to gaming. When I say I want hardcore games from Nintendo, I mean I want the caliber of game that Nintendo used to make. Now that so many casual gamers (people who have just recently picked up gaming and don't game that often), Nintendo has shifted a lot of their focus on developing games specifically geared towards the casual audience. That said, when referring to third-party games, I tend to just mean good games when I say hardcore :P.

By the way, I'm not looking for another heated argument. :P ILY

Except for the legions of gamers who vow that Mario is not hardcore because he's cartoony.

Nintendo delivered a ton of major franchises and key titles within the first two years of the Wii, and you're turning on them because of one lame Christmas? For shame. What do you know about their in-house dev team schedules? Did the release of Wii Music mean that we didn't get a Starfox? Or that a new console Zelda was delayed?

Using "hardcore" as a euphemism for "good" doesn't really help things. All it does it provide a mask for your true feelings about Nintendo: that they no longer make good games. But try saying that in as many words and you will rightly get your head bit off.

I think a Wii Zelda game has to be announced at the Nintendo E3 conference. And while I am no Zelda know-it-all, I know enough to say that Twilight Princess does not count as a dedicated Zelda title as it was a port from the Gamecube with motion control added in. Again, not a fan of the series, but I think it needs to be there. Unfortunately I don't think it wil be.

Same thing with Mario. I think he has to make an appearance this year, and in a meaniful way, not in a Mario Party 9000 way. Again, I am the guy that only has 10 stars in Galaxy, but even I can figure out that Mario is a staple that has to be brought to the forefront for the Core Nintendo gamer.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling I might have a hatred for Microsoft or Sony after this E3, if all this talk about motion controls is correct. Right now (and remember, this is coming straight from Jordan Snyder's opinion box), for a gamer that owns every system, there is not much incentive to buy games for the Wii that are shorter, have less production values, and are possibly less fun than games available for the other console. I mean Deadly Creatures and MadWorld might be fun, but they are both short and get blown out of the water (once again, Jordan's opinion box) compared to the games from PS3 or 360.

Since I've got all that out on the table, I'll just say my Wii gaming comes straight from first-party titles. Twilight Princess was a GameCube game, Metroid Prime series is good, not great (opinion box), Mario Galaxy was awesome, Super Smash Bros. Brawl has been the same game since it originated on N64, and ditto for Mario Kart except the new one was dumbed down. I don't hate Nintendo, I hate what Nintendo is doing. If Microsoft and Sony cop out this year at E3 and start catering to the casual crowd, I will start bitching at them for two reasons. A) They would be trying to steal the Wii's success, which was smartly executed by Nintendo but I lost respect for them, and B) They would be leaving their ENTIRE audience in the dust.

There from the beginning? When was the beginning? Your first console was probably the N64. My first console was the Atari VCS. Am I more hardcore than you? Maybe not, you might game more than me. If my mother-in-law plays Bejeweled every day and has been playing games like Tetris since it launched on NES, is she hardcore? Has Nintendo really shifted their focus, or have they diversified? Look at the numbers on the NES. Break down the games Nintendo published by casual and hardcore, then get back to me. Most of the games you'd call hardcore on NES were made by Capcom and Konami, not Nintendo.

First of all, my first console was the NES sucka! Also, by "been there from the beginning" I mean that one of their main hobbies is gaming. Hardcore gamers keep up with gaming news, they go to gaming websites, and they love to game, simple as that. Can you really not tell the different between people who are die-hard Mario/Halo/God of War fans and moms who buy Wii Fit? The hardcore audience kept the video game industry from dying and the casual audience runs after any game with "Wii," "Party," or "Game" in the title. While there can be the occasional gray area, there is a pretty clear line between the two. The majority of Nintendo's most recent first-party titles have been aimed towards the casual audience, shafting the gamers that kept them in business.

I just had a "chuckle-to-myself" moment. When Koss was talking about the leaked new Metal Gear game, he said "Famicom," when I think he meant to say "Famitsu." It's no biggie, it just made me giggle. Koss! I LOVE YOU!

That doesn't look like it belongs on his mouth...

im 3 minutes in and i can say my butt hurts already now i know how Jeremy feels. :P

how did we do that just three minutes in. I need to know so I can cause more pain next week.

Sorry, the podcast will be available in six minutes. Forgot to upload it before posting the story.