Guinness World Records might be "the global authority on record-breaking achievements" - as it calls itself - but during E3 it looked to me like a lover stuck between three grumpy girls that he couldn't compliment one of them without angering the other. His solution? Simple: just praise and offer custom-tailored awards for each of them, even if you had to pull those award criterions from you behind.
The first award goes to the blond in the gorgeous silver dress, Microsoft. See, Microsoft has managed to break the record for "the Best-selling High-Definition Video Game Console" with its Xbox 360 which sold "an estimated of 40 million units as of March 31, 2010." But what about Nintendo with her nerdy smile and 70+ million Wiis sold? The magic word here is "high-definition." You see, we are not giving an award to the most beautiful girl in a bikini, we are giving an award to the most beautiful girl in a SILVER bikini.
And now that Microsoft has got its award, it is obvious that Sony has to get one as well. Walking elegantly in her black designer dress, Sony received an award for "Uncharted 2 as the Best Selling PS3 platform game and MAG for the Most Players in a Console FPS with 256." Yup, the award for the best musical performance while wearing a black dress, white shoes and scarf and a nametag starting with "S" went to Sony.
Sony also received an award for "LittleBigPlanet with the Most user-generated levels (2,463,073)". We know that the Sporepedia has catalogued 147,447,684 user creations to date and that some of them are user created adventures for Spore Galactic adventures. We don't have the exact number, but it is most likely that of those 147 million creations there are more than 3 million user created adventures/levels. It looks like Guinness forgot to custom-tailor this award properly by slapping "on a console" to it.
Third party game developers and publishers weren't forgotten. Electronic Arts gracefully accepted rewards for the Best Selling Soccer Video Game Franchise (FIFA with more than 68 million copies sold), Earliest Console Sports MMO (NHL 09) and the Longest Running Sports Game Franchise (Madden NFL). Once more notice how the awards were limited to "soccer games", "console MMOs" and "sports game franchises."
The other third party developer to join the fun was SEGA who "earned records for Most Critically Acclaimed Strategy RPG for the PS3 (Valkyria Chronicles) and First Fighter to Use 3D Polygon Graphics (Virtua Fighter)."