Opinion: At E3 2015, The Big Three Are All Winners

[Sarah LeBoeuf]

Opinion: At E3 2015, The Big Three Are All Winners

Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all had exciting media briefings before the show floor opened, getting E3 started on the right foot.

Read Full Article

 

[Veldel]

Honestly Sony won with games for me.
I'm glad Microsoft didn't fuck up for once tho that jab at Sony was kinda weak but the announcement of BC wad awesome.


So excited for The Last Guardian and Horizon

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

You can tell years of abuse have made me too cynical when I wasn't impressed with anything at E3 this year. Although I did like some of what I saw of Street Fighter V.

 

[Fappy]

Good point about females in games, Sarah. I also noticed a higher than average presence of female PCs on-show. Looks like progress

As for who won among the three? I was impressed by all of them (Microsoft included, not because of exclusives but because of backwards comparability), but I will have to give the show to Sony. Even if the game ends up sucking, no one saw FFVII remake coming. That's a fucking trump card if I've ever seen one. Nobody was going to top that.

 

[Fox12]

I agree with this, the big three brought the hammer down. I was personally happiest with Sony, but I don't think there was a single weak presentation. I was very impressed, one of the strongest E3 showings ever. It's almost enough to make me believe again.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Opinion: MS atoned with backwards compatibility. Nintendo was one big meh. Sony most definitely won E3 2015.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I'm glad Microsoft didn't fuck up for once tho that jab at Sony was kinda weak but the announcement of BC wad awesome.

What's BC?

 

[Micah Weil]

Honestly? We, the gamers, kinda won big on this one.
No matter what you own, no matter what your taste in games is, you have something to look forward to.
Couldn't ask for anything more.

 

[Quirkymeister]

I'm glad Microsoft didn't fuck up for once tho that jab at Sony was kinda weak but the announcement of BC wad awesome.

What's BC?

BC stands for Backwards Compatibility.

 

[LysanderNemoinis]

I have to not so humbly disagree. Sony definitely won E3 between new IPs like Horizon: Zero Dawn, the next Uncharted, the FF7 remake, the Shenmue 3 announcement (even if I've never played the games, yay for the fans!), and THE LAST GUARDIAN! Huzzah! The only thing that could have been better if they also announced Resident Evil 7 (and it was scary this time) and The Last Of Us 2.

Microsoft would take a close second. They came out with a lot of cool games, and honestly, that backwards compatability is so impressive and something Sony doesn't have. I hope Sony steps their game up and does the same, because competition breeds innovation.

And Nintendo... Well, it was kind of same games, different year. I mean, it's probably going to be another decade plus until the Big N has another new IP, so lock in everyone and sing along, "Mario, Zelda, Metroid, whee. Donkey Kong, Star Fox, Smash Bros, hehe."

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

So far outside of Nintendo and SE's E3, everything has been pretty middling. Then again, that's been the problem with E3 in the information age; with the net allowing news to spread at the drop of a hat one wonders why people keep trying to put such reverence for E3 except out of habit and fuzzy feelings of how before the net it was the big time of years for game companies to show off their products. That hasn't really been the norm for years now. The pressers can be summed up as such:

Bethesda: We are desperately trying to turn Fallout into Mass Effect, now let's make you feel uncomfortable with Doom, and remind you that Dishonored was a thing.

MS: We're doing what we were supposed to do in the first place and giving half-baked backwards compatibility when in fact that should have been available before!

EA: Our mission is to bore you to sleep

Ubi: We have somehow made Aisha Tyler not funny.

Sony: Our big reveals are a game that should have been out years ago, a Kickstarter for the world's oddest tech demo, and a remake of an 18-year-old game that is going to lack the people who made it memorable and is being made by an over-the-hill company who has clearly given up trying to surpass it. Hopefully that distracts you from our presser being a slog and our speakers for it always sounding like people who get severe anxiety attacks on stage.

SE: Here's a few games coming out next year.

Nintendo: We're showing you exactly what we said we'd show. And we also have actual gameplay going on for the rest of the trade show, so tune in and we hope you like the NWC.

All in all, it's been a run-of-the-mill E3.

 

[Lightspeaker]

I can't quite agree with the article. I have to give it to Sony.

Nintendo's was a much lower-key affair than the others. They gave it a good shot and it was nice and happy and positive but for sheer wow factor it didn't have as much impact as the others.

Microsoft had probably their best press conference in years. It was full of really nice stuff and good reveals, some of which people really weren't expecting and were nice and consumer friendly. Plus a bunch of nice games. It was a gigantic improvement to the disaster of a couple of years ago; I'm really quite glad and for the first time ever I'm slightly interested in an XBOne (though I should really finish some of these 360 games first).

But Sony played the greatest trump card they have. The card that they've been holding onto for years and years. Much as I think the general fetishisation of FF7 is overblown its pretty hard to deny its effect on consumers. A reasonable chunk of the fanbase have been absolutely crying out for years for a remake and Sony playing that card absolutely floored everyone. They could probably have announced JUST THAT and then walked off stage and still won the show. As it was they piled on at least as much extra as Microsoft did in their own conference. After all that it almost seems foolish to not plan to buy a PS4 at some point, even if I'm still not totally convinced I need one right this moment.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

I don't understand how people are saying Sony won this. Their biggest "victories" were showing off games that had been announced long ago. If I kept you in a cage and didn't feed you for 6 years, would you cheer me on when I finally did? It just seems odd.

As for the FF7 reveal, that was awesome, and i'm stoked for it, but it's not an exclusive. They're getting it first, but not exclusively. that game with the girl hunting the robot dinos, now THAT i could give to sony as being a point in their favor, that game looks fun as hell, and if and when i pick up a PS4, that will be one of the reasons, but overall, I just wasn't as blown away as I'm seeing many others being.

MS: We're doing what we were supposed to do in the first place and giving half-baked backwards compatibility when in fact that should have been available before!

how on earth can you claim it should have been available already? that is outright stupid. BC existed for one generation each in Sony and Microsoft, and nobody expected it or saw it coming. You're just looking for something to hate, because it's cool to be jaded these days. ugh.

 

[xaszatm]

I'm gonna be a Nintendo-heretic and say that, if we compare conferences alone, Sony won. The one-two-three combo of FFVII, The Last Guardian, and Shenmue III probably created so much buzz that, despite us getting nothing, will be considered one of the best E3 conferences ever...at least until the dust settles and the multiple reasons why all three games were never done come to light. Again.

The big problem was this event on Sunday. An event that made me not care about E3 as much as I did. This one

[img=http://fat.gfycat.com/FatImmaculateHoatzin.gif]http://fat.gfycat.com/FatImmaculateHoatzin.gif[/img]

The Nintendo World Championships were so incredible that I no longer cared about any E3 announcements. Even with the Sony bombshell it didn't really matter because of how much FUN the NWC was. So Nintendo won hands down despite not having a lot to show for it. We wanted spectacle? We got spectacle in droves.

 

[meiam]

Everyone is a winner, some are just more winner than others.

(Sony won, heck #2 is probably Bethesda tbh).

 

[Sarah LeBoeuf]

I have to not so humbly disagree. Sony definitely won E3 between new IPs like Horizon: Zero Dawn, the next Uncharted, the FF7 remake, the Shenmue 3 announcement (even if I've never played the games, yay for the fans!), and THE LAST GUARDIAN! Huzzah! The only thing that could have been better if they also announced Resident Evil 7 (and it was scary this time) and The Last Of Us 2.

Microsoft would take a close second. They came out with a lot of cool games, and honestly, that backwards compatability is so impressive and something Sony doesn't have. I hope Sony steps their game up and does the same, because competition breeds innovation.

And Nintendo... Well, it was kind of same games, different year. I mean, it's probably going to be another decade plus until the Big N has another new IP, so lock in everyone and sing along, "Mario, Zelda, Metroid, whee. Donkey Kong, Star Fox, Smash Bros, hehe."

Fair points. Your opinion of Nintendo definitely depends on how much you like their first-party franchises. Personally, I love them, but it's a very narrow listing of games.

 

[omega 616]

As somewhat of a Sony fan boy, Microsoft won. Nothing ever interesting happens at Nintendo, so I never watched it (and by reading this, I was right). Microsoft had at least BC announced, though again no games stood out. Sony just had a bunch of games that never tickled me ... couldn't give a fuck about vr headsets.

Last guardian looked fucking weird with that dog, dragon, bird thing .... also, the thing was dangling off a ledge and which starts to break away and you help it by pushing a log at it? The fuck?

For me, it was the devs that stole the show. I'm no fallout fan, wouldn't say I hate them but just not a fan but shit that was a good showing.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

The Big Three all won?
No, at best, it was Sony and Microsoft having a nice but questionable tie, and Nintendo falling behind.

Being honest, it was Sony first, Microsoft second, and then a collection of ubisoft, EA, bethesda and square enix, and then Nintendo. Because Nintendo's E3 offered nothing, but Sony and Microsoft had some actual announcements to throw out.

At any rate, E3 wasn't that bad. I was enjoying a lot of the titles and things showed, asides from Nintendo.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Did Nintendo even have any new Wii-U announcements besides that crummy looking Star Fox game? I still have a Wii-U sitting under my TV having an existential crisis.

Sony didn't really have to wow us with anything new since they had those two fucking unicorns. What I liked most about that Last Guardian presentation was Sony fully acknowledging Fumito Ueda. That was pretty cool. That Horizon game looked kinda interesting, but that character really needs to shut up and not talk every two seconds. And I can't say Guerilla has ever made a proper game, but atleast maybe they're free from the Killzone franchise now.

And whatever Microsoft has I won't be playing anyway since I never intend on buying an Xbone. Kudos on the backward compatability though.