The hype would have you believe that every year is super important. Each one can be super exciting of course but, I don't think anyone would disagree that some years have more note worthy news/impact then others.

So with that in mind I've got a hypothesis I wanna throw at the GB community, and see what you think. Feel free to agree, or prove me wrong, it just seems to me to be a big issue I'm not hearing discussion on.

Alright so, to me, this is a make or break it year for both Sony and Microsoft. In the sense that if they want these consoles to be run away smash successes, this is the year that decides if they sprint towards the finish, or just sorta limp along.

We are at a point in each consoles life cycle where you would expect things to start picking up steam after all. They have the hardcore base, they just need to get their systems to be 'must have' for the general population now. Certainly a Price drop helps, but the major thing that does it as always is new and exclusive games.

That's been the issue so far with the console. The number of exclusive games on each system is absolutely tiny when you factor in PC versions of things. The number of new games is also down as we are getting HD remakes/remasters instead. Neither of these fits the bill I feel for pushing a console from "Just ok" to "Doing great!"

I'm not talking about problems anyone doesn't already know of course I'm just laying out the groundwork for why I say this E3 is the year, the year they have to put up or shut up. In the past it was totally fine to say "The consoles are new, give it time" I think this is the year that excuse no longer flys..

Lets think about the time-span the games talked about in an E3 tends to be. You've got the big game-play demos of things coming out this year. You've got the lengthy cut scenes with in game footage that tend to be releasing the next year, and then you've got the teasers for stuff coming out in 2ish years.

Now factor in, between now and holiday 2017, about how many exclusive, AAA , not on pc games do you think each console should have?..and how many do we currently know about?

You begin to see my point here. Like I would say it is not unreasonable to expect at least 6-7 titles to fit that category, right? One every 4-6 months doesn't seem outrageous. A new console that far into its life should have a big list of games that are exclusive to it that are reasons to jump on board..

Which leaves us back to where my hypothesis begins. E3 this year is quite important..because we really need to be seeing, what, 3, 4, or 5 different absolutely new, not on PC games on each platform. Otherwise..why buy them again?

Now that said. I am sitting here with a PS3 and a PC that can likely run anything released for the rest of this generation. I'm also the jrpg nerd type so most of the exclusives that would sell me on a system have suffered from being on PC (square) or also coming out on the PS3(persona 5). My viewpoint may be too self-centered, but I gotten the general sense that a lot of people think the exclusives for these platforms are limited.

What does everyone else think? I am just blowing smoke?

Oh and the tl;dr E3 is more important then ever, make or break it, we need a lot of exclusives!

Exclusivity should be phased out.

Times are changing in the way people are consuming and entering the gaming sphere. I don't think exclusivity is the key to it. It has been in the past, but think about this for a moment:

You mentioned the hardcore gamers are the ones that have the systems but getting to the next step where the larger community takes hold of the PS4 or Xbone consoles. The thing to keep in mind, those playing the would be "exclusives" on PC, are primarily those hardcore gamers. Those continually monitoring the industry and know everything that is coming out. They don't really care which systems the game is released for as long as it is well made. If it comes out for all three but is one of the best games one plays for the year, I don't think anyone is going to bat an eye in regards to the "exclusivity".

With games becoming increasingly expensive to make, especially AAA titles that would warrant an "exclusive" tag on one console only, I think the days of getting those exclusives on such a regular basis is going to be much fewer and far between. There may be some timed exclusive releases but full on exclusive to just one platform forever I feel is a dieing breed.

In the 6 years that PS3 was out there were only about 30 big exclusive games or 5 a year, we are on that pace with the PS4, Xbox is the same situation, I don't think the problem is volume, I think it's more that there doesn't seem to be anything new or on the horizon that is exciting.

E3 doesn't seem at all important. All these game announcements around E3 make it seem kind of irrelevant

Console sales are great and consoles still target a slightly different demographic than someone who uses a PC. I don't really see an issue and the only thing important about E3 is the continuity of great games spilling out in 2015. Seriously, this year has been insane for gaming.

No. But is it a more important E3 than normal?

No.

Aren't they already "runaway smash successes"? I thought they'd already sold quite a few of them.

Microsoft and Sony's consoles serve those who want the easiest and quickest access to the newest games, which happens to be most people. Yeah, if you've built a PC, you're getting a better gaming experience, but you're also putting way more work into it than someone who just plugged a console in. Even if you bought pre-built, you're probably going to have to mess with settings in a lot of games.

If you own a PS4, Microsoft would like to see you also own an Xbox One. They're not going to do that without exclusives. And, to get you to spend hundreds of dollars on one of their consoles, they're going to need to get the very best they can on their consoles, so they have every reason to push for quality - this is a win for people who love games because it means both companies are catering everything they can to us.

...or so the thinking used to go. It seems like they're trying to sell consoles with features rather than exclusive games these days. That seems to be working for your average Joe, but if you look around the forums, you'll see a fair number of posts where people are lamenting the lack of reasons to buy a console. Neither of them really have any meaningful features that the 360 and PS3 didn't, and they certainly lack in comparison to the PC's infinite list of possible features.

*than, than, than

I think it's all going to be fine. They (or we) don't necessarily need exclusives, just new games, and lots of them.

When has E3 ever been important?

Yup, I guess my tl;dr needed to include a "Sorry my spelling sucks you guys".

I'm not sure where I fall on some of the responses being said but hey, this was meant to generate discussion, which is did.

Good on everyone who responded (Even the people who just mocked my spelling) Better late then..than..if..never to learn.

I mean, more great games exclusive or otherwise are always welcome and would help even more, but it's not really the make or break situation that you're painting it as. Sales wise, the ps4 especially is doing great and is right up there near the Wii as the fastest selling consoles of all time. It's also had a pretty good first 6 months of the year for exclusive games so far and it has a lot of games announced for this year, but a lot of it is more niche like the Japanese stuff.

The Xone is doing alright. It's a little ahead of where the 360 was, though it's needed so many price cuts and crazy bundles to even be there, so it could definitely use a boost. It's had pretty much no exclusive games these first 6 months of the year so far, though it has a pretty good holiday lineup that could help it.

I don't know, I think with all these kinda of threads some people need to realize a lot of people just don't care at all about buying an expensive gaming pc. And pc isn't even best for some types of games. The console shooter crowd for instance wouldn't want a pc cause those games on pc lose their multiplayer player count pretty fast and there's a lot more aim botting and stuff like that.

Anyway, still hoping for a big e3 but I don't think it's really more important this year than it always is.

@bladededge: Both consoles are already smash successes.

I think it might be important in that this is the last E3 before all the VR stuff starts dropping. A strong showing at E3 would help drive sales, and potentially decide wether this is a fad or something here to stay.

I think there's already quite a list of games we can expect to see. Fallout 4, Doom, Arkham Knight, Mad Max, Metal Gear Solid 5, Persona 5, Halo 5,Ancestors (new game from the original Assassins Creed guy), Dishonored 2 (maybe). Final Fantasy XV (small chance), Kingdom Hearts 3 (maybe?) , Scalebound, Tomb Raider, Battlefront, Rainbow Six Siege, the Division, Mighty Nr 9, Uncharted 4, Assassins Creed Syndicate, Sportsgames .

Add some smaller stuff to that and one or two games that haven't been released yet, and i think thats quite a beefy list already.

The console releases were bigger. Both companies are selling plenty of hardware and even if their software is lackluster this year it won't matter, at least not right away. You'll probably see more sequels and HD rereleases to pad out the sparse release schedule for 2015 and a lot of 2016 titles.

Next year will be more dire if we're still limping from major release to major release. It's helpful to games like Bloodbourne and Witcher 3 which may not have received such high praise and attention for weeks on end if they were directly going up against another Batman game. But without a real reason to keep playing either console then we may see even fewer risks taken by the larger developers/publishers.

than*

Console release wise, no I don't think it is that important. Overall it's already just a better year for video games than last year (not that there weren't great games last year, too- there was)- E3 will just tell us what more is yet to come (most of which we already know about at this point I think).

To me, service and software is the future.

And mostly, it all gets down to how and if Microsoft is as determined to unify the console and pc market. If they are really committed and provide a good cross buy cross play ecosystem, the war is over. But seeing as MS has always been one step in the right direction and one step in the wrong direction, I don't think they will pull this off. I have hope, but no faith.

What they need to do is continue to provide affordable consoles (xbox) but now operate on a service level, which seems like the path the entire company have been going on for the past 2 years since the Satya Nadella took the helm.

I would even go as far as to no longer lock the console life to a 5 -7 years cycle and come out each year with a new and improved xbox and sell those exactly like Cell phones with a service plan. You buy the console 99$ with a 2 years contract over xbox live of 19.99$ a month. Meaning in the end, you have paid 436$ plus taxes after 2 years instead of a 500$ machine every 5 years that has been outdated half way through it's life cycle.

Sony... I really don't know what they must do. To me, they are the ones that will really play catching up in 5 years when the console market as we know will be completely gone. I guess open their PSN service on PC as well?