Some thoughts on the Big 3 Conferences

The Big 3 didn't exactly wow me, but they all came out with some solid stuff. Microsoft and Sony seem to be trading personas and Nintendo is off doing their own Nintendo thing. I had a good time, but I think next year will be a bigger year for the event.

Microsoft as usual is the first of the Big 3 to strut their stuff. The backwards compatibility announcement seems like it was the most crazy thing they announced, but really there weren't that many great exclusive 360 games in the first place, and it sounds like its support they have to roll out gradually. They showed some solid footage of Halo 5 and Gears 4. The Rare collection is a pretty thorough collection of their catalog, and wouldn't you know it, they're making an actual game, with Pirates! Sea of Thieves is looking rather nice, but it appears to have that Ubisoft style connectivity going on with it that I'm not so sure about. ReCore has promise as one of the other few new IPs of the show. With what they showed, Microsoft seems to be finally turning over a new leaf with their games division. They are showing more Windows support instead of taking it for granted, working with more indie developers, VR and even Valve again. Hololens is also pretty mindblowing. Kinect was pretty impressive too though, and we know how it turned out, so take that as you will. It's not a crazy good lineup, but I came away pleased with the direction Microsoft seems to be heading.

Grade: B

Sony's conference was crazy. The Last Guardian is back, and I'm happy to see it in playable form. Final Fantasy VII Remake is something a lot of people have been pining for, and it's pretty amazing to see Shenmue back. BUT, but... these things don't seem to serve Sony other than them associating themselves with these things to give people the illusion that they are the good guys. Really, it seems like Sony has turned into Microsoft of yesteryear. They're bringing back all the stuff you wanted like 8 years ago. They got all the exclusive content for all these multiplatform games that I'm just going to play on PC anyway. Meanwhile, they lack actual games as exclusives. While Microsoft seems to be evolving, Sony seems to be devolving. Uncharted 4 looks great, but it's nothing we haven't seen before. No Man's Sky still seems like the technical marvel it has looked like in the past, but as expected the gameplay part beyond the exploration that they showed isn't the game's strength or draw. It's basically the biggest game they have going for them this year, and I'm still going to play it on PC. As for the new stuff, Dreams was a rather intriguing thing, but it's tough to see how it'll translate. Horizon: Zero Dawn looks really cool, with its unique uber-retro future setting and robot dinosaurs. Besides those two things, their conference didn't seem to carry much weight. I did however, enjoy it while it was happening, but when I sit down to think about it, Sony doesn't actually have much going for them at all. Solid show for gamers as a whole, but not for PS4 owners or Sony fans. I guess this means next year is going to be jam packed full of great stuff, right?

Grade: C

Nintendo's conference had charm and little of note. Mario Maker is looking more rad than ever. Star Fox looks good, and a new one is a bit overdue. And... that's pretty much it as far as exciting stuff goes. We got a weird Metroid spin-off, a party Animal Crossing game. Granted there is some interesting 3DS stuff on the way like Fire Emblem: Fates, and Mario and Luigi Paper Jam, a cooperative Zelda, and a more proper Animal Crossing. None of this stuff looks mind-blowing the way A Link Between Worlds was a couple of years ago. They said going in that the Zelda game wasn't going to be there, but their showing lacked the punch it might have provided. I'm struggling to find a reason to support Nintendo, and at this point I hope that they're just saving the good stuff for the NX they will unveil next year at this point, and maybe that will include the next Zelda game similar to the Twilight Princess situation.

Grade: C

I'm fairly satisfied with the Big 3's showing. This year goes to Microsoft who didn't appear to be holding anything back. I'm not sure they can rest easy though, because I think Sony and Nintendo were. Sony has plenty of studios that didn't make it and Naughty Dog presumably has another team working on something not Uncharted related. Nintendo is going to straight up unveil some new hardware next year, so who knows what that means. Hopefully it means some high quality F-Zero. If nothing else, at least E3 succeeded in getting me riled for the next E3.

From my perspective:

Microsoft: C+

Sony: B+

Nintendo: A-

In the end, it comes down to personal tastes. The only thing Microsoft had going for it that piqued my interest was more video of Cuphead, but that's still coming to Steam. Sony had more games I was interested in. Nintendo, for the second straight year in a row, had me interested in more of their exclusives than the other two.

My scores are based on more than what games they had.

Ranking in terms of production quality:

Sony >>> Nintendo >>> Bethesda >>> Microsoft >>> Ubisoft >>> Square Enix >>> EA

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Ranking in terms of showing stuff I care about

Square Enix >>> Sony >>> Nintendo >>> Bethesda >>> Microsoft/Ubisoft >>> EA

I really think that Microsoft probably had the best conference. The one thing that was the "Wow" moment was the backwards compatability thing. I think they should have saved that for the end, though. It seemed like the biggest news. They didn't go out with a bang, when they showed off gears 4. They did announce some interesting games and they definitely have more exclusives than Sony. Forza 6 looks like a forza game. Halo looks like a halo game.

It kind of bums me out that sony is still in the whole "greatness still awaits" thing. Like, they're announcing more games that aren't going to come out for the forseeable future. I feel like it's almost as bad as the first several years of the playstation 3, where they didn't have much. It's kind of silly that both conferences ended with the forth entry in a third person shooter from last gen. I felt like they were both on par with eachother, in terms of how I'm not so excited about either of them.

And nintendo is abandoning the wii u so I guess it wasn't a big surprise that they weren't announcing very much of anything for it. It's just kind of sad. Yes, I'm excited to play star fox and xenoblade but that's about it. Mario maker does look really cool, though.

I think you are being too hard on sony given that they showed three great wonders in the gaming space.

Microsoft : B

Microsoft had a solid showing and i thought they would take E3 with being so solid and showing new IP to boot. I guess the problem comes down to not really having anything shocking. Nothing really blow me away or made me say wow they went there.

Sony : A

I feel Sony knocked it out of the park this year. The surprises just kept coming and if you named all the megatons many would labeled it a fanboy's ramblings and not believe it to be true. The downsides are sony always runs out of steam in the middle of the show and this year was no different with the disney infinity bundle and unneeded sizzle reels. Also many of the big drops are not pure exclusives for sony and sony still seems light on games dropping this year. But at the end of the day E3 is about the presentation of it all and Sony killed it this year in that regard.

Nintendo: C

Nintendo show is always fun to watch and it continue to be interesting in how they are doing their own thing and not just doing a e3 show. That being said the bigger games were a bit underwhelming like star fox and not having any big surprises also hurt the show.

I don't understand why Sony is getting so many plaudits. They announced a bunch of stuff that's going to come out on 2017 or later (including the two biggest announcements) and basically nothing for the near future. Also the Shenmue thing is super weird. That it would be a Kickstarter, for one (Seriously Sony? Seriously?) and also that it would get so much attention. I think this is a case of the video game hobbyist echo chamber. How many people in the West even played Shenmue? Wasn't it a big flop? Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for the people who love that game and I'll probably play it myself (in 2.5 years at the earliest) but it seems super niche and the Kickstarter thing really rubs me the wrong way.

Imagine if Microsoft announced a game by pointing to a Kickstarter. Yeah.

Also Sony is getting a ton of attention for not canceling the Last Guardian, a game they already announced and said wasn't canceled. Announcing that you haven't canceled a game you insisted you weren't canceling doesn't seem like a blockbuster to me personally.

I have a PS4 and my thoughts about the Sony conference were basically "This stuff looks like it will be great in a few years." But shouldn't we be judging the Sony 2017 against the (as yet unannounced) MS 2017 lineup instead of comparing Sony 2017 to Microsoft 2015-16?

these things don't seem to serve Sony other than them associating themselves with these things to give people the illusion that they are the good guys

FFVII is going to sell like hotcakes. Without knowing how much production will cost, I am willing to wager that they will make a good profit off of it.

Squeenix will, but the game is not a Sony exclusive. unclear what role Sony will have with it.

I like arbitrarily rating things too!

• EA: B
• Sony: A
• Ubisoft: B
• Square: B
• Microsoft: F
• Nintendo: F-
• Bethesda: A+