Along with several other big players in the video game industry, both Microsoft and Sony held big pre-E3 press conferences this year.
Microsoft announced several exclusives coming soon to Xbox One and Windows 10, as well as two new Xbox skus---the Xbox One S launching later this year, and the Xbox One "Scorpio" launching in 2017.
On Sony's side, tons of games for the PS4 and PlayStation VR were shown, either in trailers or brief gameplay demos. I gave the win to Sony, whose press conference was exactly what it was supposed to be: Entertaining.
Lots of people disagreed with me. Some even accused me of being a shill for Sony (surprise!) or a Sony fanboy (bigger surprise!) despite my giving the E3 win to Nintendo last year. (Back when I was a shill/fanboy for Nintendo I guess.)
I actually think that Microsoft's press conference was just fine, minus one big mistake, but I think Sony's was better, at least in terms of doing its job to build hype and make PlayStation look cool.
Well, perhaps unsurprisingly the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, believes that Microsoft had the better offering, in large part because unlike Sony, Microsoft included release dates with their game announcements.
“When I look at this year, I’ll just take the E3 conferences… we showed four big games launching exclusively on Xbox One and Windows 10,” he told GamesIndustry. “When I think about Gears, Forza Horizon, ReCore, Dead Rising 4 – all of those games are launching this year and they’ve been announced, there are dates next to them. And I think on the indie side, we've got Inside which I've been playing. We've got We Happy Few. We've got Blow. We've got Cuphead. There are a ton more, but I'm just thinking about some real highlights in indie games that are coming this year. When I watch the other platforms, it's not always clear to me when the games are shipping or how many of them are shipping this year.”
This is the refrain I've heard most in response to my Sony presser article. Gamers are upset with the PlayStation press conference because Sony didn't include release dates with their games, and so it's all "smoke and mirrors."
I'm not sure I would describe the first glimpse of God of War 4 as "smoke and mirrors" since there is no conceivable way, in my mind, that that game would fail to release. But it is true that Sony showed off a lot of new stuff and didn't give any of it a release date outside of just a couple titles. I can see how some people might be irritated by this, and why Spencer is using the contrast between the two conferences to talk up the Xbox side of the aisle.
That being said, I'm not sure an E3 press conference is the best place to announce release dates for a bunch of games.
By only announcing the launch date of PlayStation VR, The Last Guardian, and some PSVR titles, the release dates of all the other games weren't lost in the shuffle---and believe me, getting lost in the shuffle is exactly what happens at big gaming conferences.
Nor did Sony force its developers to commit to launch dates that would likely have to be pushed back in the future.
Better still, for Sony: when God of War 4 gets a release date, it will be another news item. They can do this at one of the other big gaming shows, or independent of them, or next year at E3.
And while people claim that it's no fun to have to wait, I'm not so sure. A big part of the fun of video games takes place before they're even out. The fun of anticipation. Thumbing through a Game Informer magazine and looking at the pictures of games that you can't play for months, or even years; talking with friends and speculating on forums; watching the new trailer and scrolling through a new batch of screenshots; getting riled up by the latest controversy.
This is all part of the fun of video games. Call it "meta" fun. Some people enjoy this more than the games themselves.
Both Microsoft and Sony did a good job (for the most part) at E3 this year. And really, given that it's not that exciting an E3 to begin with, that's great. Microsoft's Sea of Thieves and Scalebound, each slated for 2017, both look terrific. Sony's God of War 4 and Horizon Zero Dawn look fantastic.
But I don't think Sony gets points taken off for being all flash and no substance. The deep dives and informative stuff comes after the press conferences, not during. The only reason these press conferences even exist is to build hype. The many articles that follow---including the GamesIndustry piece I link to here---are where you go for more information.
I still give this E3 to Sony, though my "Best Game Of E3" will likely not be a Sony title. Stay tuned for that.
