I think my favorite thing about E3 every year is sitting down Monday night and thinking about how the two big press events compared. The Xbox One vs PS4 narrative is well-worn territory (it’s even the SEO driving this article) but these two companies are so obviously rivals that it makes for a great story in an industry that loves stories. Just compare the aesthetics of the shows themselves. Microsoft’s Galen Center staging blazed with spotlights and massive screens and speakers. A flashy, showy tech-driven set. Sony booked The Shrine, a stately theater, and even brought an orchestra to provide the music. It felt like a deliberate choice, even if it wasn’t, to showcase that Sony is very different from its rival.
But the Xbox One vs PS4 E3 2016 debate isn’t about which one had the prettier set, it’s about which one generated the most excitement with their news, trailers and exclusives. And, despite Microsoft announcing two new consoles, Sony had what I consider to be the superior show.
A Tale Of Two Consoles
Yes, Microsoft had what is objectively considered to be bigger news. The launch of new hardware is always a bigger project than the launch of a new game. And Microsoft didn’t stop with the Xbox One S, a slimmed down Xbox One with 4K capability and a 2 TB hard drive, it doubled-down and ran a teaser for Project Scorpio full of industry big wigs praising the new console as the next big thing for gaming. Two consoles is great right? Well, not really.
By tagging the Project Scorpio reveal to the end, Microsoft more or less told fans not to care about the Xbox One S. Sure, it’s a good deal for anyone without an Xbox One. But even a potential customer will have the same question as early adopters: why waste the money? The Xbox One S is retailing for $300, but the Project Scorpio console has no price. Clearly it will cost at least $300, probably more.
And if it’s coming out a year later, why not just wait? Not to mention that anyone who already has a PS4 and wants an Xbox One to play a few exclusives can just wait until after the Xbox One S comes out. Odds are their friendly neighborhood gaming store will see an uptick in trade-ins from local diehards and there will be gently used Xbox One consoles on sale cheap.
One console announcement would’ve been cool. But two sends a mixed message and comes off a little desperate. Microsoft did have some other non-gaming announcements, like the introduction of Clubs to the Xbox Live service, but E3 should, in my opinion, be about the games. And the games are where Sony showed its strength.
Fan-chising Not Franchising
Let me clear the air. I don’t want to say Microsoft had a bad E3. It didn’t. Microsoft had a fine E3, and showed off a lot of titles that got me very excited. Hell, my most anticipated game of the whole show is an Xbox exclusive (Sea of Thieves ftw) but that doesn’t change the fact that, on the whole, Sony showed more games that generated more excitement among its fans than Microsoft did.
Microsoft opened the show talking about the Xbox One S. Sony opened the show with a God of War trailer that was brutal and intense and utterly captivating. There was polite clapping and few hoots for the Xbox One S (a number of leaks spoiled the surprise) but when God of War got going fans were cheering and screaming. There was an electricity in the air that wasn’t there for Microsoft.
And it’s hard to argue against the legacy of devs like Hideo Kojima, who is working on a Sony exclusive for his first post-Konami project, or games like The Last Guardian which is the spiritual successor to PS2’s beloved Shadow of Colossus. We’re talking about true legends in gaming. Microsoft tapped into some successful brands, with Dead Rising 4 and State of Decay 2 acting as a zombie apocalypse double punch alongside a gorgeous Gears of War 4 demo. Sea of Thieves looks great, but appears to be in a squishy development state with no release window established. Microsoft had a lot of good ideas, but not a lot of new ideas.
Looking at Microsoft’s lineup it’s clear that they are tightly bound to franchises. There were a lot of 4s and 2s in the presentation, sequels in series fans know well. Sony is blazing new territory with incredible titles like Horizon Zero Dawn, Kojima Studios Death Stranding and Detroit: Become Human. God of War is more reboot than sequel, and we saw a new Spider-Man game from Insomniac Games and a mysterious Batman VR title with a killer Joker voiceover in the trailer. Microsoft may have made fans happy but Sony made fans excited.
It’s the excitement and the sense of something new that causes me to give Sony the edge in this year’s Xbox One vs PS4 E3 debate. Yes, Microsoft had a lot of great games in the showcase but the overkill console news undermined the product debuts and talking about Xbox Live service updates show Microsoft is listening to fans but it’s not exactly riveting stuff to see onscreen. Neither is two different teasers about expensive controllers. Sony, also developing a new console btw, chose instead to focus almost entirely on games and the little bit of time spent on non-game news was to announce the release date for a VR system Microsoft has no definitive answer for (yet). It was a good E3 for everyone, fans included, but a better one for Sony.
