The ball is now in your court Sony. Wow, quite the end to a great conference. Whether or not you can keep track of all the consoles that Microsoft will have in the coming years, the conference was packed with game after game that either excited you or was at least pretty to look at. But instead, let’s start with the end. Project Scorpio is a kick in the face for Sony after these endless leaks of a half measure PS4 was rumored for a long time and then sort of announced a week ago with little fanfare. This is pretty much the definition of fanfare, developer after developer talking about teraflops and pixels moving beyond generations. One new(ish) console to rule them all. One of the more interesting things about this reveal is how Sony will react after getting hit square in the face. Sony’s Andrew House has already stated that Playstation Neo is real but that it won’t be at E3 this year. So maybe the best thing to do is double down on games. But the problem with that is Microsoft also killed it on that end too.
Gears of War 4 looks like my dream come true. Crazy looking fights, shades of brown and reds everywhere with bulky armor and a chainsaw gun. What else could you want? How about Laura Bailey as the protagonist. Of course! The State of Decay, a game loved by many for good reason is getting a sequel. But this time, it’s bigger, prettier and has multiplayer. Imagine if you will building a settlement of survivors to keep out zombies. Sounds great. Well, now you can do it with your friends. Recore finally seems to have taken shape and is almost like a 3rd person Mega Man X. Using robot buddies to platform around and shoot evil robots and We Happy Few looks crazy indie and crazy awesome while also being terrifying at the same time. That’s the kind of game I don’t want to see again until it’s in my hands.
Dead Rising 4 seemingly not Xbox exclusive.
The less than enthusiastic moments not Counting things like Halo Wars 2, Fallout VR, (which was announced during Bethesda’s conference.) Forza, and Minecraft. Not because they weren’t good, simply because they are what they always are, and those fans are very peticular. Which I am not one of. But some of the real clunkers were Final Fantasy 15 and Sea of Thieves. Look I get it. Let’s plays are popular but if someone is half-heartedly playing through a game and trying to be funny by shouting and laughing. It’s tough to take it seriously especially when it’s being presented by a big soulless company conference like Microsoft. That being said the game idea looks fascinating but as we’ve seen before grouping up multiplayer games like Evolve, and seemingly now The Division don’t have long lifespans. And FF 15 just looked dull. I’m sure this traveling boy band idea will turn out to be a good game but after what I thought was a malfunctioning controller seemed just to turn into bad gameplay.
Clubs, Looking for Group, and Background music were all announced as well. Nothing earth shattering about those but when your conference is going well, these are just cherry’s on top a sundae. Clubs is a little interesting in the sense that Sony has seemingly done what Sony always does and announces something and then it goes nowhere and does nothing. It will be up to Xbox to make Clubs more enjoyable than PS communities.
Scalebound was also there, but I have no real opinion about that game after what seems like three straight E3s of dragons and headphones. Ultimately Games were the focus of Xbox’s show. Even if I wasn’t enthused about one, another one came along quick enough to distract me from the last. Indies like Cuphead. Gwent (heavy breathing) and Inside kept me glued to the screen after things like Scalebound or Sea of Thieves had me checking Twitter. Xbox came out of the gate strong, and it will be tough to top for Sony, in fact, i’d go as far as to say they can’t. I’m sure Sony’s conference will have great games, but they can’t end with something like Project Scorpio unless it’s something mind blowing like The Last of Us 2. Scorpio, Xbox One, Xbox OneS and Windows ten all prove to be a difficult marketing technique for Microsoft to pull off. No matter what they say the old consoles will eventually be left in the dust. but at the moment Xbox has the headlines.
