Memory begins in the hippocampus. Experts believe this is the region of the brain that sorts through all of the external stimuli and decides which bits are worth remembering. It’s the decider. My hippocampus took in a lot of info during the Microsoft and Sony press events this year. Not everything will be remembered equally, and, ultimately, June 15 will be the day my hippocampus stores facts under “the day that Microsoft finally evened the score in the next-gen console war.”
My scorecard runs thusly - 2013, Sony wins. Sony wins hard. The infamous “How to share games” video utterly decimated Microsoft’s convoluted message that the Xbox One was an almost-all-digital-TV-watching-thing that comes with a super sophisticated camera and may be part of PRISM. 2014? Draw. Both companies showcased lots of games and catered to their respective fanbases. There was nothing as slam dunk-y as that 2013 video.
This year, there was.
You’re eyes aren’t deceiving you. That isn’t some advanced CGI. That’s the Microsoft Hololens in action with Minecraft. Microsoft shelled out $2.5 billion for Minecraft and this demo erased all doubts surrounding the price tag of the potential. A video game popping out of a coffee table? It felt like some Fifth Element shit. It felt like the future.
If you’re looking for how my Xbox vs Ps4 E3 2015 verdict could be summed up in one moment, that would be it. There is, naturally, a lot of other things to consider. Neither company truly failed, as both brought serious euphoria to their respective fanbases, and neither company was flawless. Here’s the good, the bad and the ugly of E3 2015 - Day Zero.
Xbox One vs PS4 E3 2015: The Good
Microsoft once again had its E3 2015 press event at the Galen Center early in “Day Zero.” Going first hasn’t always played to its advantage, but this year Microsoft benefitted from this bar-setting position. Making Minecraft arise from a coffee table will, I think, stand out as the most exciting moment of this entire E3. But the backwards compatibility announcement is a close second.
Microsoft will bring backwards compatibility to Xbox One later this year. It allows cross-console multiplayer. It will work with discs and digital files. It will transfer your 360 library to your Xbox One. It will be absolutely free.
Even the devs get off easy. Microsoft handles the transfer, all it needs is the “OK” from the publisher to do it. Hundreds of games are expected to be part of this program by the end of the year. Last year, Microsoft didn’t have an answer for PlayStation Now. This year, it practically killed it.
Microsoft honored the Xbox division with this move, but also cashed in on Windows 10 gaming. As the PC Master Race vs Console Peasant war flames on across the internet, Microsoft decided to step in and spread around some features. Fallout 4, unquestionably the biggest game at E3 this year, will utilize PC mods on Xbox One. It will be a timed console exclusive in the grandest sense of the word. And it won’t be the last game to get this treatment, either. But it will be one of the biggest.
The PCness continued with the announcement of the Steam Early Access-esque Xbox Game Preview program. Xbox gamers will pay to play “beta” versions of games before they launch on the system. Right now, Elite: Dangerous and The Long Dark are available now.
Microsoft also showed five console exclusives set for release this year. The Rare Replay collection, Halo 5, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Forza 6 and Fable Legends. A few others, including a new Gears of War and the promising open-world pirate game from Rare, Sea of Thieves, are coming in 2016.
All this adds up to a pretty high bar. Sony countered with some big news of its own but, ultimately, I think they fell short of the ambition, scale and fan service delivered by Microsoft. This was not a blowout victory, though. And Sony fans have almost as much to be excited about.
For starters, the Last Guardian is confirmed. Shadow of the Colossus devotees have been waiting a long time for this title, and many of them spread the word/hype throughout some seriously influential circles in the last decade. Last Guardian had achieved a white whale status rarely seen in the rumor mill and the trailer absolutely delivered. Living up to the hype is step one, and the Last Guardian did exactly that.
Sony had another surprise in the “games fans have been longing for for forever” category: Shenmue 3. The long-awaited sequel will launch with a devoted fan base of its own. This is one of those titles where, if you’re as unfamiliar with it as I am, the reactions of other people tell you everything you need to know. People were swooning over this announcement, including iDigi’s Zulai Serrano.
Oh, and they announced a Final Fantasy VII HD remake. You either don’t care or that’s the biggest news of the show for you so far. There aren’t many gamers in between.
Three hugely anticipated titles provided Sony with the “holy shit” moments, but a few other surprises bolstered the rest of the show. On the services side, Sony announced that PlayStation TV will provide the world’s first “pay for the channels you want” cable platform. Only standard premium services like HBO and Showtime will be available at launch, but the graphic teased major cable heavyweights like FX and USA Network too. Obviously, this program could be killed by a bizarre pricing scheme, but right now it looks like Sony stole the TV thunder that Xbox One had relied on the past two years with its cable-ready compatibility.
Sony’s future prospects also looked impressive. Horizon’s the dinosaurs-are-robots premise gave even the mighty Fallout 4’s Americana-gone-wrong theme a run for its pre-war money. No Man’s Sky made an appearance as well, giving fans a glimpse into its impossibly large universe. It is, without question, the largest open world ever conceived for consoles and Sony will surely benefit from the timed exclusivity.
And, just like it stole TV from Microsoft this year, Sony somehow emerged as the premiere next-gen console for FPS play. Microsoft’s decision to go all-in with its Halo franchise has left the door open for Sony to snag some exclusivity for Call of Duty and Destiny.
Both conferences were overwhelmingly “good.” Microsoft out-gooded Sony by showing more than just games and showing more games that will come out this year. This year’s Xbox One vs PS4 debate isn’t being decided by everything Sony and Microsoft did right. It’s being decided by the things they did wrong.
Xbox One vs PS4 E3 2015: The Bad
It wouldn’t be an E3 2015 press event without a few head-scratching, underwhelming, who-gives-a-meh moments. Ultimately, Microsoft made fewer missteps than Sony. But missteps were made with two big properties.
The first, Gears of War. The long-awaited gameplay trailer felt underwhelming. The graphics felt too dark to convey next-gen horsepower, and introducing two unknown protagonists with little context and no backstory for a game that will thrive because of a passionate fanbase wasn’t ideal. It’s a new direction, a new studio, and the game isn’t near complete yet. But the Gears of War 4 trailer could’ve done a lot more to energize me for the return of a franchise I loved long ago.
Another low-point in the Microsoft press event was Fable Legends. I say this with all due respect, but, really, do we still care about Fable? The franchise has been in a slow decline since the first sequel (which was actually quite awful) and it’s hard to get jazzed for a game with a poor track record. Sure, it’s free, but that doesn’t exactly make me more confident in its quality. It felt like more of a gimmicky nostalgia play than a re-envisioned launch for next-gen.
Sony fared worse than Microsoft when it came to press conference disappointments. For starters, Sony didn’t come close to matching Microsoft’s exclusives in 2015. In fact, if you don’t count exclusive timed DLC, Sony didn’t announce any exclusive titles coming this year. They set up plenty of big titles for 2016 but, well, you can’t really call it a “win” if the other guy announces five titles and you announce zero.
When Sony wasn’t busy announcing titles that won’t come out this year it was busy spoiling Arkham City for anyone trying to get caught up for next week’s launch of Arkham Knight. Didn’t know the Joker died? Now you do! Not mention the strange timing of the trailer. The game is out soon after E3 is over. Why bother using valuable space at the biggest gaming press event on your calendar to show footage for something you announced last year?
Truthfully, the “bad” of each press conference feels a bit nit-picky. Not all announcements are created equal, so in a sense it’s hard to even compare an exclusive DLC trailer with Last Guardian. Conversely, there were a few truly ugly moments that make the bad of the Xbox One vs PS4 press conference debate look much, much better.
Xbox One Vs PS4: The Ugly
Microsoft had only one really ugly moment of their event and, unlike Sony’s visible gaffes, this ugliness was implied rather than displayed. When the announcement came that Just Dance would no longer require a Kinect the news should have been displayed on a tombstone. Just Dance, basically the ONLY franchise supporting Kinect, just left it behind for the practicality of cell phone cameras.
The death of Kinect isn’t surprising, and while execs will pretend it hasn’t happened, we just watched it happen. As a Kinect owner I understand why it got left behind. At best, it eliminated the need for a TV remote and at worst couldn’t tell my hand from a dog’s ass. Regardless, the move felt more like a shiv to the back than an honor killing and Microsoft needs to stop the corporate speak and just admit they’re moving on without it.
Speaking of moving on, or rather, not moving at all we can talk about Sony’s ugly moments. The most obvious, of course, is the freeze heard ‘round the world. Uncharted 4, unquestionably the hottest franchise for PS4, locked up during the finale of the press event.
These things happen, sure. But we’re trying to settle the “who won e3” debate and, if we’re ticking boxes for “marquee franchise software failure,” the edge goes to Microsoft for NOT crashing Halo 5 or Gears of War 4.
Sony also managed to exude some slimy corporate greed when it announced the Kickstarter for Shenmue 3. The news sent thousands of fans to the site, crashing it. Because why shouldn’t they support a game they love that’s in need of help?
Because Sony is backing it and decided a cash-grab PR move would be totally ethical. Basically, Sony implied that they were just helping to spread awareness of the Kickstarter, let fans throw cash at a beloved project, and then announced that they are funding the thing after all. I understand that Kickstarter is more or less a hype machine for games these days, but its roots are in community funding. I felt Sony misrepresented both the status of, and their involvement with, Shenmue 3.
I know I’m in the minority when it comes to the court of public opinion on E3 and, frankly, I’m a bit astounded. Even factoring in for some latent Xbox fanboyism I still can’t believe that the general consensus is that A.) Sony won and B.) Microsoft sucked. For me, this year’s Xbox One vs PS4 debate centers around some of the best E3 events either company has had in recent memory. This wasn’t a blowout. This was a prize fight that went 12 rounds.
Microsoft edged out Sony because the event was tangible. Sony offered up long-term goals and vague release windows. Microsoft showed its peripheral in action. It’s putting products in gamers hands this year, too, a factor that shouldn’t be overlooked. It’s entirely possible Sony’s E3 next year will have another Last Guardian trailer, another FF VII remake tease and another vignette about the backstory behind the backstory of Shenmue 3 development.
Microsoft should continue the strategy of delivering in the present instead of only promising for the future. And if you don’t think tangible, on-the-calendar release dates are a big deal, well, go ask some Nintendo fans how their E3 went.
Maybe Sony just needed puppets.
