The dust has settled. So who won E3?

[tm96]

As the title suggests E3 is over so as is with every year we have to pick a winner for E3 2015.

Nintendo: They really don't care about E3 anymore since they now use Nintendo Directs to announce some of their stuff. On the news side of things it was disappointing but it was entertaining to watch. Hopefully other companies will follow suit and make their conferences more entertaining. But that Metroid Prime thing. Do you like breaking my hope for a proper Metroid Nintendo? D:

Sony: Horizon Zero Dawn is probably the only reason I would want a PS4. Everything else like The Last Guardian or the FF7 remake I couldn't muster any sort of interest for since I haven't played FF7 or anything by Team Ico.

Microsoft: Are you going to drop an expensive car from the rafters every year? The backwards compatibility was sort of expecting since I heard about months back but I didn't expect it so soon. Sony you better be worried. Recore has my interest and I'll be keeping my eye short sighted eye on. Rare. That took you a long time. Hololens if you price it right and give it a killer app i.e. Minecraft will fly off shelves.

Betheseda: I haven't played anything by Betheseda but I will gladly throw money for Dishonoured 2, Doom and Fallout 4.

EA: Why did you have to ruin that ending to the Unravel segment for Planets vs Zombies? You had something good there. Also new NFS better have Liberty Walk and more obscure classic cars like that Nissan Hakosuka in that trailer you put out.

Ubisoft: I think you made quite a lot of people mad at you because you're leaving them hanging on anything about Beyond Good & Evil.

PC Gaming thing: From what I heard it was too long and boring.

So who won? ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

Can I be glib? I'm going to be glib...

Gamers won E3.

 

[linwolf]

Advertisement, gamers are again hyped for games that have little to no game play or story to show if they worth buying.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Said this in the other topic: it was Sony. I'm not a massive fan of FF7 myself (its good, but not as good as the hype) but I honestly think that anyone who says that anyone other than Sony won E3 severely underestimates the impact of the FF7 remake announcement. Nobody saw it coming and tons of people have been yelling for it for years.

I almost feel that they could have walked on stage, announced ONLY THAT, dropped the mic and walked off and still "won" E3. But coupled with The Last Guardian and Shenmue 3...suffice to say a lot of people's dreams came true that day.


That being said Microsoft had an immense showing this year considering where they were two years ago. Kudos to them, they had a great press conference and blew away a lot of people. I almost feel sorry for them because they had such a good conference and then Sony dropped an FF7 remake on them. Nintendo's was a little limp overall, for whatever reason it just didn't seem that exciting. Good showing from Bethseda which I feel overshadowed most of the other publishers' offerings.

 

[w23eer]

E3 is a marketing conference first and foremost. So really what we're asking here is not who had the best games (that is absolutely impossible to determine), but who had the best set of advertisements.

And really, I think it was Sony. It really doesn't matter about your personal opinion of Team Ico, their contribution to niche gaming has been massive. The Last Guardian has been affectionately anticipated since... '06 was it? But I think for many people it had gone the way of Half Life 3, ie. no-one but the most stubborn had any doubt it was dead. It was yet another story of an interesting game that would never see the light of day.

And look, I'm not even one of those people that are rabid for Team Ico. I've never played Ico and I didn't finish Shadow of the Colossus, but not only getting the announcement that The Last Guardian was alive, but also getting actual gameplay footage was absolutely amazing.

That was a bombshell all on its own, but then they followed with the remake of FFVII. Final Fantasy fucking VII. Square Enix said that was impossible, but here it is. A lot of people, rightfully, claim that FFVII is overrated and/or terribly aged but that doesn't change the fact that it's one of the most loved and cherished games in the entire industry. For better or for worse, it was the gateway for many to the world of JRPGs and a legend of the genre; to see it coming again was beautiful.

And then Shenmue 3. I seriously considered the fact that I fell asleep and was dreaming at this point. The fact that it had to be funded through kickstarter soured the announcement somewhat but... Shenmue for Christ's sake.

Anyway, it's important to note that, again, these are all just ads. The finished products could be crap, and I have no doubt a lot of people will be disappointed in some way when they are finally released (I mean, there's no way any of these games can live up to their expectations). But if we look at it for what it is, the fact is Sony managed to drop my jaw three times in one conference. None of the other conferences managed that even once.

So yeah, for me Sony is the winner by a country mile.

 

[TilMorrow]

You can win at E3? That is the first I've heard of this.

 

[tm96]

What was that little Yarn-thing game? That's the winner of E3 right there, adorable ************ he is.

The name of the game was Unravel. I hope we get to see more of the character Yarnie and that guy they had on stage to talk about the game.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Everything else like The Last Guardian I couldn't muster any sort of interest for since I haven't played anything by Team Ico.

What!!! Stop whatever you're doing and play ICO and Shadow of the Colossus right now.

I almost feel that they could have walked on stage, announced ONLY THAT [FF7], dropped the mic and walked off and still "won" E3. But coupled with The Last Guardian and Shenmue 3...suffice to say a lot of people's dreams came true that day.

I feel the same way about The Last Guardian, some guy could've just walked on stage, hit play (on The Last Guardian video), and walked off. Sony would've won the conference just on that IMO.

I just don't get why old JRPGs are so beloved like FF7, random battles were archaic and obsolete back on SNES. And turn-based battle systems where it's just your guys on one side and the enemy on the other trading blows is a horrible battle system as there's not enough strategy to merit the turn-based element. I didn't have the patience for those kinda of shitty battle systems when I was a freaking kid, it was so repetitive and time wasting as well. With that said, I hope the FF7 remake has a good battle system.

 

[loa]

If they live up to their promise, Microsoft managed to make me interested in actually getting an xbone by making the thing backwards compatible and that's a pretty big achievement.
With this announcement, I know exactly what I would get too while everything else was mostly just this unclear wishful thinking cgi commercial wankfest of games that may or may not be.

Everyone was flipping tables over ff7 but we don't know how much square can and will screw up with that (do you realize how much fuck up potential the addition of voice acting alone has?).

Another big one was the last guardian which looks exactly the same as it did when announced 8 years ago and the gameplay looks... non-existent really.
Apparently you run around, press x to yell a lot which seems to have no visible effect whatsoever and then there are lots of cinematics in "puzzles" that make little sense.
That doesn't look like a good game at all so all the hype about that is completely due to team icos previous games.

The only game trailer that truly made me a bit interested was cuphead because of the unique graphical style but let's remember that we don't actually know if it's going to be a good game and it's impossible to tell if the longest coherent gameplay amounts to 5 seconds because there needs to be a cut to something else all the bloody time.

So I think microsoft was doing best overall even though they were kind of bullshitting the hololens presentation with stuff the actual thing won't be able to do [https://youtu.be/rGLe_fR4AJE?t=1m40s] kinect-milo-style.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

Nintendo was a bit sad and underwhelming. Sony had good games, but presented them in a fairly boring and crummy manner that made them seem like bland out of touch executives. Microsoft was the same, but the backwards compatibility option turned the Xbox One from a system I'd never buy to a system I might buy. I didn't watch Ubi Soft or EA, but Bethesda seemed genuinely excited about their products and the energy in the room was palpable. I'd say Bethesda "won," but if Sony was the best of the big three this year, then I honestly don't know if I care about E3 at all anymore. Much like movies, as I get older the blockbusters become less and less impressive to me. The lack of announcements of release dates and games that won't come out until next year (or later) kept me from getting that old feeling of excitement about anything. The only exception was Fallout 4 and I'm not even going to bother starting that until about three patches into next year. I probably don't even need to think about buying anything else for the rest of 2016.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

the last guardian looks exactly the same when announced 8 years ago and the gameplay looks terrible, all the hype is completely due to team icos previous games.

What? The Last Guardian is a puzzle game like ICO and how good it will be will be dependent on the puzzle quality. The gameplay is just moving around, jumping, and interacting with the creature and environment. It's basically ICO but with Yorda being a giant bird-cat that you can climb on, a great blend of ICO and SotC IMO. I totally don't understand how the gameplay could be called bad from watching the video. And, I'm totally not declaring The Last Guardian as the BEST GAME EVER as I have some reservations about it like has the director, Fumito Ueda, been on the project the entire time or did someone else take over as director to finish the game? I have faith that if Fumito Ueda was able to make the game he wanted to, The Last Guardian will be as good as I hope it will be. I'm guessing the graphics won't be on par with a good looking PS4 game due to it being a PS3 game, but I don't really care about graphics.

 

[loa]

What?
The Last Guardian is a puzzle game like ICO and how good it will be will be dependent on the puzzle quality.
The gameplay is just moving around, jumping, and interacting with the creature and environment.
It's basically ICO but with Yorda being a giant bird-cat that you can climb on, a great blend of ICO and SotC IMO.

I totally don't understand how the gameplay could be called bad from watching the video.

I didn't see a good puzzle in that trailer.

Roll log towards ledge with struggling hyenagriffin so it can grab onto the log to pull itself up was the only one shown and how does that make any sense?
The rest was running around, press x to yell which may or may not do something (that's kind of hard to tell because whoever played in that trailer just mashed the yell button constantly) and then there's cinematics of jumps which we are meant to find exciting or something.

Seriously, why doesn't the boy just ride on the griffin thing all the time instead of making stupid leaps of faith and how exactly does the griffin barking at the boy from the other side of a giant hole help him with the jump?
This isn't some tender little girl, it's a big creature with strong jumpy legs to which the weight of the boy is nothing.
The horse in shadow of the colossus doesn't snort encouragingly at the other side of a hole for you to make the unlikely jump, you ride on it whenever possible and if you don't, there's a good explanation for why you don't.

I realize this says nothing about the final game but what I saw in that trailer didn't look like a fun game at all, in fact it barely looked like a game because of how poorly it showed the game mechanics off and what it showed didn't make much sense.

All the hype hinges upon the "from the makers of ico and shadow of the colossus" label.

 

[teqrevisited]

Well Bethesda dropped a nuke. That wins it for me.

I watched parts of the PC conference but they tried their best to make that the most boring thing I've ever tried to sit through. All Square wanted to talk about was Kingdom Hearts and I absolutely loathe crossovers. Didn't watch the Sony show but I wont say that I'm not looking forward to the actual remake of Final Fantasy 7. Whether it's good or bad I will have to play it. As for Xbox: I couldn't care less. The controller looks alright but it's not worth the price they're putting on it.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I didn't see a good puzzle in that trailer.

Roll log towards ledge with struggling hyenagriffin so it can grab onto the log to pull itself up was the only one shown and how does that make any sense?
The rest was running around, press x to yell which may or may not do something (that's kind of hard to tell because whoever played in that trailer just mashed the yell button constantly) and then there's cinematics of jumps which we are meant to find exciting or something.

Seriously, why doesn't the boy just ride on the griffin thing all the time instead of making stupid leaps of faith and how exactly does the griffin barking at the boy from the other side of a giant hole help him with the jump?
This isn't some tender little girl, it's a big creature with strong jumpy legs to which the weight of the boy is nothing.
The horse in shadow of the colossus doesn't snort encouragingly at the other side of a hole for you to make the unlikely jump, you ride on it whenever possible and if you don't, there's a good explanation for why you don't.

I realize this says nothing about the final game but what I saw in that trailer didn't look like a fun game at all, in fact it barely looked like a game because of how poorly it showed the game mechanics off and what it showed didn't make much sense.

All the hype hinges upon the "from the makers of ico and shadow of the colossus" label.

ICO/SotC's puzzles aren't very game-y in nature, they have a very organic feel to them. The times I got stuck in both ICO/SotC was when I was in the mindset of "what the fuck does this game want me to do" and I always solved it by just thinking along the lines of what I would do in that situation in real life looking for the more simplistic solution. For example, in the video, the log that you complained about makes sense as birds can grip something like a log extremely well (their feet are designed for that). The game is not going to have Portal levels of puzzle complexity much like ICO didn't either. The video was shown due to it have those "wow" moments and it showed off that you can grab/climb the creature like SotC.

The footage shown was very similar to ICO so it's not like it looked like shit and people are just expecting it to be good because it's from the makers of ICO/SotC. There's good developers in gaming that consistently make good games, there's movie directors that consistently make good movies; I don't see the issue with expecting the game to at least be good from a developer that has made 2 very great games already. You yell to Yorda a lot in ICO too. On the first jump the boy probably could've grabbed on as the creature jumped, but I think the creature wasn't sure about making the jump. Also, the game isn't going to be constantly have creature jump across, you jump to creature.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I didn't see a good puzzle in that trailer.

Roll log towards ledge with struggling hyenagriffin so it can grab onto the log to pull itself up was the only one shown and how does that make any sense?
The rest was running around, press x to yell which may or may not do something (that's kind of hard to tell because whoever played in that trailer just mashed the yell button constantly) and then there's cinematics of jumps which we are meant to find exciting or something.

Seriously, why doesn't the boy just ride on the griffin thing all the time instead of making stupid leaps of faith and how exactly does the griffin barking at the boy from the other side of a giant hole help him with the jump?
This isn't some tender little girl, it's a big creature with strong jumpy legs to which the weight of the boy is nothing.
The horse in shadow of the colossus doesn't snort encouragingly at the other side of a hole for you to make the unlikely jump, you ride on it whenever possible and if you don't, there's a good explanation for why you don't.

I realize this says nothing about the final game but what I saw in that trailer didn't look like a fun game at all, in fact it barely looked like a game because of how poorly it showed the game mechanics off and what it showed didn't make much sense.

All the hype hinges upon the "from the makers of ico and shadow of the colossus" label.

That is pretty much how I feel about the Last Guardian showing too. I get people are pumped to see it again, but it looks like it could be one big escort mission. I know that ICO was basically the same thing, but I feel like few people will be able to overlook that no matter how emotional the story gets. The developed bond between the boy and the creature may be nice to see, but it may not be nice to play.

OT: I guess Sony would have won, but it's a shame that a few far-flung announcements automatically won just because they were things people have been demanding for a long time. I'm happy that Shenmue 3 is being made, if only for Micheal Huber's sake. He's the one going the most bonkers over the announcement.

 

[Grimh]

Todd Howard won.

Guy was on point.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Honestly, gamers, which makes quite a nice change compared to previous E3s.

But if you want me to rank the conferences...

Microsoft = Sony (Great stuff soon vs MEGATONS coming much later) > Bethesda (Dishonored and Fallout) > Square Enix (lots of good stuff, but by god, the presentation was extremely dry and boring for the most part - Emil mask aside) > EA (the two MEs) > Nintendo (PLATINUM STAR FOX! and Muppets) > Ubisoft (not bad, but nothing that captured my interest, except the Viking badass guy with the cane) > PC Gamer (didn't watch it, and from what I heard, it was the right decision)

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

As the title suggests E3 is over so as is with every year we have to pick a winner for E3 2015.

Nintendo: They really don't care about E3 anymore since they now use Nintendo Directs to announce some of their stuff. On the news side of things it was disappointing but it was entertaining to watch. Hopefully other companies will follow suit and make their conferences more entertaining. But that Metroid Prime thing. Do you like breaking my hope for a proper Metroid Nintendo? D:

The thing about Nintendo is that I can't judge them solely on their Digital Event; it's become quite clear that Nintendo is going to do E3 radically different from everyone else from now on. And because of that we also need to judge them on their other stuff like the Nintendo World Championships (which were fun as hell, especially the Super Mario Maker finale), the Smash Bros. presentation (which had announcements leaked, but was still great), and Treehouse Live (which showcased TONS of their games of all shapes and sizes). That and there's another bit of context: all the titles they showed will be arriving within the next year. We'll be able to PLAY these games instead of WISHING we were playing them years down the line. All in all, they did fine, mostly because they cut the BS and got down to business.

Sony: Horizon Zero Dawn is probably the only reason I would want a PS4. Everything else like The Last Guardian or the FF7 remake I couldn't muster any sort of interest for since I haven't played FF7 or anything by Team Ico.

God, Sony does the WORST E3 pressers by far. I don't think I have seen a single Sony E3 that was actually good; they're badly paced, the content is never that good, most of the time they let 3rd parties do the work for them, and their speakers are TERRIBLE. Furthermore, their big announcements have way too many caveats. First of all, The Last Guardian should have been out YEARS ago. Second, Shenmue III wasn't even a game announcement, but an announcement for a KICKSTARTER and won't be in playable form for YEARS (not counting delays which Kickstarters are always subject to). And thirdly, the FFVII remake will not be out for ages and is being made by 2015 Square-Enix, not the same guys who created the phenomenon that took over a generation (as well as basically admitting they've given up on ever surpassing or even matching FFVII). When you get down to it, Sony's E3 looks good on paper, but when you remember context suddenly it's revealed for what it really is: a paper tiger.

Microsoft: Are you going to drop an expensive car from the rafters every year? The backwards compatibility was sort of expecting since I heard about months back but I didn't expect it so soon. Sony you better be worried. Recore has my interest and I'll be keeping my eye short sighted eye on. Rare. That took you a long time. Hololens if you price it right and give it a killer app i.e. Minecraft will fly off shelves.

I can't give points to MS for BC; it should have been in the XB1 right from the outset as they had zero excuses to NOT have it. Furthermore, their games have the same issues as Sony's presser. Average at best

Betheseda: I haven't played anything by Betheseda but I will gladly throw money for Dishonoured 2, Doom and Fallout 4.

What kills me about Bethesda is how NONE of their games could be touched by the press. Why? Why even bother coming if they're going to be left untouched? Trade shows should be for people getting their hands on things, otherwise leave it at home.

EA: Why did you have to ruin that ending to the Unravel segment for Planets vs Zombies? You had something good there. Also new NFS better have Liberty Walk and more obscure classic cars like that Nissan Hakosuka in that trailer you put out.

EA seriously needs to step up because they are just so boring to watch

Ubisoft: I think you made quite a lot of people mad at you because you're leaving them hanging on anything about Beyond Good & Evil.

When they make Aisha Tyler not funny that takes EFFORT. Not even getting into how their lineup is lackluster.

PC Gaming thing: From what I heard it was too long and boring.

I take it back, THIS was the worst of the E3 pressers. Nothing unique to show and clearly just a rambling void of which everyone was just bored. This is why pressers do not talk about hardware specs: because you might as well be talking about lawnmower repair.

So who won? ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

I would say Nintendo by default when we bring in context. Everyone else was just boring, had nothing of their own, or refused to let the press touch it even if they bothered to have anything in playable form. Pretty lukewarm E3 when you get down to actual analysis.

 

[FPLOON]

Meh... I'm still going to say that Nintendo won for basically doing their own thing on top of showing more gameplay and solid release dates... (and that's not including the Muppet presentation...) I can only see Sony winning if you're fine with announcement to games that people craved [for so long] even if there's no [solid] gameplay footage to solidify said craving... Still don't care about Microsoft to consider them either winners or losers of this year's E3, even if they "found" a way to emulate certain 360 games and call it "backwards compatibility"... Square-Enix threw one-half of their egg supply at Sony and the rest was spent either Kingdom Hearts-teasing or showcasing stuff featured in other conferences [again], I didn't really watch the EA, Ubisoft, or Bethesda conferences, let alone even know that PC Gaming got their own separate conference again(?), so I can't comment on that even less than I can about Microsoft...

Overall, Nintendo's was short, sweet, and to the point while Sony took turns passing the joint of their announcements around...

 

[Asclepion]

PC Gaming thing: From what I heard it was too long and boring.

I take it back, THIS was the worst of the E3 pressers. Nothing unique to show and clearly just a rambling void of which everyone was just bored. This is why pressers do not talk about hardware specs: because you might as well be talking about lawnmower repair.

Do you expect the people who build their own computers to be swayed by just a flashy trailer? Benchmarks or GTFO.