E3- Press Conference Round Up
11th of June, was a big day for gaming. Microsoft and Sony showed of games
and tried to sell their systems to us. The winner at the end of the
day was Sony.
Microsoft had the
challenge and the opportunity to go first. It is the equivalent of a
nerd standing on a 10 feet high diving board at a swimming pool and
in his back is the guy all are rooting for. Microsoft took that leap
and tried their best to come out with a great lineup of games.
In their line up was not
the big surprise. Of course they brought their system seller
"Halo", which they really need to get systems into homes,
since they had some new Ips where did not show much gameplay of. They
showed of the car racing game Forza with a real McLaren on
stage, but they didn´t show actual gameplay of the game itself, just
some in engine footage. To their credit, they never mentioned TV, it
only came sort of up as they announced Halo 5. So they did
their job and showed some cool games. Especially Project Spark felt
like a fresh breeze in the grey-brown Dead
Rising-Battlefield-soup. The most interesting question ist if
Quantum Break is coming to PC on some point, since Remedy, the
developer of Alan Wake
and Max Payne 1+2, admitted that they are still at hear PC
gamers1.
Eventually Alan Wake
came to PC, so maybe we have the same luck and get it a some time
later down the line.
As Adam Sessler pointed
out after the presentation Microsoft did what necessary, but there
were a lots of grinning and it did not feel like actual passion
behind it2.
At the end Microsoft presented the price point with 499USD, 499€
and 429£, which lies
above the predictions of many gaming insiders. For many that is a big
chunk out of our pockets.
For “us”, the PC
gamers, the EA and Ubisoft conference were very exciting, we heard a
lot of news about Rayman Legends, Assains Creed, The
Divison, The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot and of course more
Titanfall. Titanfall looks like it brings new ideas to
the FPS-multiplayer hardcore shooters. Since it is based on the
source engine from valve, which is quite dated, the textures look a
bit washed out and it does not help that they took the same color
template as gears of wars and call of duty use, lots of grey and
brown again. Important to notice at this point that the presentation
was only streamed in 720p, which means that the graphic assets could
look better or worse in the final product. This very well could be
year for Super Mechs to make
a comeback with Mechwarrior Online, Hawken and
as well the movie Pacific Rim.
Of course EA took a big
chunk out of their press conference to show us what EA Sports are
offering. Bring UFC fighters onto the stage and having them praise
fighting as sport was kind of awkward. In EAs whole presentation
there wasn´t a single new brand.
Ubisofts presentation was
by far the best of all four. The key was Aisha Tyler who did a great
job as a host. Smart, funny and great games.
After seeing many
games and many new brands the question arose: What does Sony have up
their sleeve? Sony came out with some announcements of new PS3 games
and Vita games. Then they continued to the PS4. In the beginning they
told us shortly about the media options the Playstation network will
offer with Sony Pictues and Sony Records to the gamer. Micheal
Lynton,the ceo of sony entertainment, who gave the presentation of
the movie&music segment, seemed very lackluster. After a few game
trailers the audience very quickly did forget about his part. The
rest of the show was all PS4 games. Firstly they showed us new bits
of footage from some of the games Sony did present last February.
Then they also showed a real nice looking and funny clip from the
very impressive tech demo from David Cage The
Dark Sorcerer.
Next was a trailer from
the steampunk game The Order: 1866, which also seemed very
promising.
Then Sony showed
lots of console exclusives and most of them indie games. Many of them
are already out on PC or will be at the same time at launch of these
titles. Still, it is great that console gamers can get their hands on
indie games. Many indie games are plattormers and such games fit
perfectly on consoles. It is great to see the support Sony is giving
the independent scene. One only can hope that Sony will continue
supporting the development of first party indie games like Journey.
Then Sony showed us live game footage from Assains
Creed Black Flag which look marveling
and you know it was live, since the console froze here and there, but
everyone should know that all these games are not final and are very
much in testing. Later in the showed us gameplay from Watch
Dogs
and for the first time gameplay from Destiny.
At the end Sony fans got excited because Sony told gamers everything
they wanted to hear: no used game blocking and no internet connection
required to play games. The crowd went totally nuts when they
announced the price point of 399USD, 399€, 349£.
It did not take minutes
until gaming press, gamers and fans proclamation Sony the winner of
the E3.
In the next post I´ll be
talking about which company made the right moves and what they should
do now.
P.S. Why can´t we have
1080p stream from such an important and big event as the E3?
