So another E3 has come and gone, and naturally there's a lot to talk about. E3 has come a long way in the past few years. A few years ago we'd be arguing which company had the least cringe-worthy moments or technical hiccups. Now we actually argue on who had the better conference. Anyway, here's what I thought of each company's performance.
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Microsoft: Phil Spencer has been frequently boasting that this year will be their best in history, and he wasn't wrong at all. We're finally seeing an interesting new IP from Microsoft (coming out in Spring, no less!), and also something worthwhile from Rare. The conference also demonstrated a bunch of interesting indie titles coming to the platform. Cuphead is probably my most anticipated indie thus far on any platform.
The Xbox 360 backwards compatibility was also an unexpected twist and a huge win for the Xbox One. As a PS4 owner, I'm forced to either keep my PS3 hooked up all the time to play its games, or drop a bunch of money for "HD remasters". The third option is signing up for PS Now, which also doesn't have much appeal. Needless to say, this is a pretty big deal for Microsoft.
There were definitely some Microsoft moments... like lowering a sports car on to the stage or showing too many CGI (or real-time, whatever) trailers. I think Microsoft had a great show, and they could've improved it by showing gameplay of ReCore and some explanation for what exactly Sea of Thieves is. The Xbox One is looking more and more appealing to me, and the line-up leading into Spring of next year is looking fantastic if nothing gets delayed.
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Sony: Last year, I was in the minority that thought Microsoft won over Sony. This year, I think Sony edged them out slightly. They surprisingly kicked it off with a game people have been waiting 10 years for: The Last Guardian. To be honest I wasn't totally convinced by the demo, but I'm confident the game will be good. They also showed off the long awaited FF7 remake and announced a Shenmue III kickstarter... but neither of these games appear to be exclusives, so it's hard to give Sony tons of points for either until we get more information. They also showed Media Molecule's new game, which is literally nightmare fuel. Seriously though, the way that camera panned over to the polar bear eerily playing piano? I pissed myself. I also can't wait to jump into the dreams of people screwing celebrities or murdering their family. No but really, it looks like an interesting game that I can't wait to see more of.
The real winner at Sony's conference, I thought, was Horizon, Guerrilla's new game. Unlike ReCore, we actually saw some amazing gameplay for this one. I hope the protagonist isn't constantly talking throughout gameplay like she was in the demo, but the game looks amazing and has a really unique aesthetic. If Horizon was another CGI trailer, I really don't think they would've won over Microsoft. I don't think Sony made the best conference of all time, but they made a pretty darn great one.
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Nintendo: For me, Nintendo won hard last year. They brought a shorter, more concise, and less serious take on E3 that fit them perfectly. They weren't afraid to laugh at themselves, and never bothered with any real-time trailers and tech demos or blatant bullshots that have corrupted the industry as of late. They also showed a lot of gameplay from upcoming titles in subsequent live streams. This year, they went with the same format, albeit with much less success.
They kicked it off with a bang with Star Fox, which looks amazing. Transforming the Arwing in real time is an awesome mechanic, and it feels like they finally made good use of the GamePad. The Holiday 2015 release is also much welcomed. Then... things kind of slow down. They show a Skylanders collaboration which most of us could care less about. Then they show a new co-op Zelda title which I was initially yawning through... then they announced something that at least brought me hope for the future: ONLINE PLAY! This is something Nintendo has been skimping on for a while now. After that, they show a 3DS port of Hyrule Warriors we already knew about, a Fire Emblem If trailer, and a trailer for SMT x FE which it appears they forgot to subtitle. We also finally get a release date for Xenoblade Chronicles X. At this point, almost 30 minutes in, we have gotten nothing new at all from Nintendo.
Around halfway through the new announcements finally start rolling out. And they're not pretty. First we get an absolute middle finger in the form of some low budget co-op game on 3DS with Metroid Prime pinned to the title. Then there's an Animal Crossing amiibo spin-off that no one really cares about. Then we get a Paper Mario and M&L cross-over on 3DS which looks pretty good, and a new Mario Tennis for Wii U which looks like a ton of fun. But... that's really it. The Wii U and 3DS both have really solid line-ups for this year, but not a whole lot we didn't know about. Although I think Nintendo had the best format, they lost hard for the sheer lack of content they showed.
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Overall, the third parties won E3, and the first parties took credit. Bethesda, Square Enix, and Ubisoft all had excellent games to show. This year was hit harder than ever with pre-E3 leaks, and I feel that if all these games were revealed at the actual conferences that this year could've truly been the best. That's all there really is for me to say about E3 2015. I'm curious as to what the rest of N4G thinks about E3, feel free to discuss.
With Microsoft closing studios, fewer new exclusive releases are expected for Xbox.
Not sure it ever was. It's upside was day 1 releases from 1st party. Few and far between plus it is just a rental service where you don't pick. It is fairly cheap for now that's a bonus. I think the beat deal in gaming is gamesale on reddit , and watching amazon
Nexon has released its financial statement for 2024's first quarter, and it looks like FPS The Finals isn't proving the hit the studio was hoping for.
Supergiant Games' Studio Director, Amir Rao, has said that he's worried about some unbalanced boons in-game, with nerfs coming soon.
I don't get the big deal with lowering a car onto a stage. Why are people so entranced by that stuff? David Copperfield does it 2 or 3 times a day in Vegas.
MS: Liked Recore concept, thought Sea of Thieves looked pretty much like a ton of F2P games out on mobile, just console version. Horizon was another Horizon -- it's kind of turning into the Madden of driving games. BC was a good call, though digital only is a bit weird (no BC w/o Internet?). HaloLens I'm iffy on. It seems too good to be true. Also, looking through the lens on your head is not at all the same as a camera that is a lens, you're going to have that peripheral blockage, not a full screen. Not a fan of Halo or Gears, but looks like they're giving people what they want.
Sony: TLG is good, not great. Horizon is great, but wondering how GG will mess it up. Bleh third-parties galore. Activision just needs to do its own press conference and leave CoD out of the others. Dreams is cool, but not for me to create, only for me to leech off of the creation of others. The one game that really only has value if others buy and create with it. Don't care for FFVII remake. Shenmue is alright, but cool to see it for nostalgia. No Man's Sky must have some really smart people developing it, but not my thing. Might try if it drops real low in price, but seems to lack any direction, and I like some sort of direction in my games. Uncharted looked like Uncharted, which is kinda good, kinda bad. Still looks like a play once and done game so far. Someone please give the Disney Infinity guy some sedatives.
EA: Bleh, sports. Eh, SW Battlefront. Eh PvZ2. Mass Effect got mentioned, but really nothing to get up about yet. Eh, Unravel. Yay, Mirror's Edge.
Ubisoft: SOUTH PARK! Division... maybe? Wildlands...? Meh everything else.
Square Enix: Just Cause 3... maybe? RotTR, yes please. KH3... stop teasing us. Hitman, could be another Destiny (good and bad). Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, HELL YES! Meh to the rest.
Nintendo: Let's just not bring them up, okay?
edit: woops
What I liked most from each conference
MS: Recore, BC, Halo game play even though it didn't excite me that much. Fallout mods on console. Couple of the indie games looked really good(I agree on cuphead).
Sony: TLG finally being confirmed and apparently well into development. FF7 remake finally coming to fruition. Shenmue 3 finally coming to fruition. Horizon was definately my personal game of show....very impressive. Sony announcing an a la carte way to purchase TV channels...even if limited in availability right now. I know it's media stuff, but it was short, and it actually will be great to be able to get the few channels I want to watch without spending a ton on cable. Not spending an inordinate amount of time on sales numbers or self congratulatory statistics. Dreams I am waiting to see what more is offered. If it's just a create a dream sequence I probably won't be interested, but if it has the ability to create game play scenarios like LBP then I'm all in.
Can't speak on Nintendo as I didnt watch.
What I didn't like
MS: Lowering the car...it's a waste of time. Is MS advertising for the car companies now with a car most people can't afford? GeOW really wasnt that exciting to me. To much time spent on Halolens, which isn't likely to be priced anywhere near cheap enough to make a difference to the average or even hardcore gamer for it to see any meaningful support. Trying to undercut Sony on VR by talking about it's Occulus partnership when it won't directly be usable on the X1...not even the vague promise that it might be one day. Showing off an awesome controller that is going to be priced out of range of the average consumer.
Overall, I felt some of MS conference was meant to push the Xbox brand onto our fellow PC gamers, which is fine since the conferences aren't specifically about consoles to begin with, and MS does have an interest there, but I found MS to be a bit shady in associating some things with the console itself.
Sony: Bit too much time spent on Disney Infinity and Star Wars in general. Too much emphasis was given to Star Wars IMO. SW:BF game play was good and all, and understandable why it's there, but taken all together, it just seemed too much focus was given to SW. IMO, Disney has enough money, and enough game studios to give their own conference if they want that much exposure. Let Sony have their time to shine.
COD timed exclusive DLC being annouced. I appreciate the significance, but who watching the conference really cares? It's the gamer tuning in.
Not showing off more of what their 1st party devs are doing...even if it were only a couple of teasers. Still so many that we have no clue what they're working on, and many of them have to be pretty close to being ready to release a game.
Hardly showing anything of Morpheus. I didn't want them to spend a lot of time on it due to the nature of VR not always translating well to 2D, but showing more than one game would have been nice.
Lack of anything Vita related. A sizzle reel would have at least been nice instead of 5 seconds of a game which I can't even remember now.
Anyhow, I think this has been a great E3. Pretty much no matter what your preference in platform, I think you could easily find games worth playing, and things to get excited about across the board if you care more about games than the consoles they run on.
I thought it was a good E3 overall. Announcements like FFVII Remake and Shenmue III were unexpected projects that fans have been wanting for ages. NeiR 2 co-developed by Platinum was something I could hardly believe. Unfortunate that there were so many leaks and most of them were true, because that spoiled some of the surprises. Ah, well.
Not much in terms of original IPs, but Horizon: Zero Dawn really caught my eye. The premise looks pretty fresh and the TPS gameplay looked really good. I'm finding it difficult to get excited about The Last Guardian even though I still think it looks interesting, it's just been so long and development hell never helps my confidence.
I'd say Sony had the best Big 3 presentation overall. It kind of dropped the momentum around the 2nd half, but I'd say it was easily better than Nintendo's and overall had more stuff I was interested in than Microsoft's. Microsoft's conference was pretty good too, and I was especially happy to see them developing a way for backwards compatibility support.
Bethesda had the best publisher conference easily I'd argue, just for Dishonored 2 and especially Fallout 4. Fallout 4 had many great feature reveals and I'm a fan of the original Dishonored so I'm glad to see it exists. EA had far too much focus on sports and had a poor conference as usual, despite a few relatively small bright spots. Ubisoft was okay-ish, and I'm happy to see South Park 2 announced. Square Enix was alright, too.
But yeah, solid E3.
While I worry about going over the moon for a set of conferences that was packed with sequel upon sequel, I've gotta say I did enjoy a lot of what I saw. For a glorified Powerpoint presentation filled with suits trying to push product, there was a lot of enthusiasm to just present fun stuff and excite the crowd. Even Nintendo's lacking direct feed still felt like a fun diversion. Wooly World + Star Fox Zero look like a ton of fun.
I know last year, people seemed more divided on the Xbox v. Sony conference. I thought Sony did a bit better then and the gap marginally widened in their favor this year. I didn't grow up with Shenmue or FF but I understand the cultural significance those announcements had. What stole the show for me was Horizon: Zero Dawn. Not just for its interesting mash-up of other games but the fact that it's a Guerilla Games-developed title (a little bit with TLG too but not as much). It felt like a pinch-me moment that a GG title could get me so hyped from just 100% gameplay. Did the next Harmonic Convergence come early or something?
I still don't align with the reactionaries who thought it blew MS' out of the water though. MS didn't rely on the third-party exclusive stuff as much as before (which is what I thought people wanted from them), they balanced '15 and '16 releases quite well, showed some interesting new IP's (granted not a straight gameplay viewing), and stuff like quasi-BC and 'Game Previews' that supplement Xbone's value a lot. Early Access is a great opportunity for devs on Xbox and the tiered Rent/Buy system is a great way to ward off leeches. The only things I'd like to see would be a refund system similar to steam's new concept and dropping the Gold requirement for f2p games (which is still ridiculous). I'm excited to play Rare Replay. My first opportunity to try Conker's Bad Fur Day and some older titles.
"Overall, the third parties won E3, and the first parties took credit."
I remember someone (maybe Razorfist?) mentioning that on twitter and I have to agree with that sentiment to a certain extent. Still, a fun time to have participated in that live.