And then there was one. After a weekend of press conferences from developers, publishers and hardware giants, E3’s final press event had finally arrived. Once again Sony managed to snag the last slot of the day, this time hosting press, industry and fans at the Shrine Auditorium. Last year’s press conference from Sony was refreshingly simple in its execution: Minimal talking and plenty of trailers.
Sony decided to repeat the formula as big boss Shawn Layden hit the stage for what seemed to be less than a minute and vanished straight afterwards. What followed was a straight hour of trailers, focusing mostly on Sony exclusives that had been announced at last year’s press conference. Days Gone, God of War and Spider-Man were all back for another showing, as were several third-party games that have exclusive deals locked to the PlayStation brand.
That made for a fine show…but maybe not a fine press conference. Sony’s press conference was fantastic for the people in attendance, but it also felt like it could have taken a page out of Nintendo’s book and gone for a proper online-only session. Maybe I’m being weird, but I wanted to see games that I knew would be out this year in addition to the 2018 line-up.
Trailer after trailer just created a sense of fatigue, as I found myself slipping off towards la-la land as the show dragged on. What did you think? Too much trailer, not enough detail shared with the audience? Because that’s what I left the show feeling. Sound off in the comments below and let your opinions be heard as I finally rest my eyes. But only for ten minutes, I promise.
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Last Updated: June 13, 2017
Guild
June 13, 2017 at 13:41
Honestly prefer less talk and more trailers. So I was happy. That said release dates would also be great.
Jim of the Banana
June 13, 2017 at 13:53
Yeah, SONY’s conference was like a Rammstein concert. No unnecessary yammering, just pure in your face adrenalin – as it freaking should be.
This is what I hope Microsoft learns… I don’t care about the personalities. I don’t care about scripted MP where people sound like they’re extras on a shitty sitcom, I just want to see the games.
Show me the GAMES!!!
Geoffrey Tim
June 13, 2017 at 13:56
Apolgies – we did a dumb with the video.
Jim of the Banana
June 13, 2017 at 13:58
I knew it! We demand that the offender receives 50 lashings (and delivers a formal singing apology to the masses)!!!
Original Heretic
June 13, 2017 at 14:06
Singing apology? Yes, yes, I like it. In chorus. Full karaoke!
Sageville
June 13, 2017 at 14:34
You know, back in my day, if we did a dumb with the video, we would take the youngest as sacrifice and he would do the obligatory dance followed by the ritual slamming of testes in the holy drawer.
But you kids today….
Jim of the Banana
June 13, 2017 at 14:02
They should have shown off more of God of War, and the over reliance on DLC addons is disappointing. Overall I would give this conference a 6/10 – It wasn’t as explosive as previous ones, and I would even go as far as to say that this was one of their weaker conferences.
Jim of the Banana
June 13, 2017 at 14:03
They still win E3 though, but I am a little disappointed.
CodeDisQus
June 13, 2017 at 14:39
In the war or green vs blue, blue comes out in top again…. There presser was just full of things you want to play and Wl exactly how they will play! The Spider-Man demo stile the show IMO, you just need to listen for the roar of approval from the crowd when Kratos rocked up (same as last year) and all other games looked great….. What makes it even better is that all those AAA games shown on stage, you can only play them on PS, whereas the majority of the titles in the Microsoft conference were multiplats. Microsoft seriously need to dig deep, they have a fantastic box, now they better now leave it empty
Pieter Kruger
June 13, 2017 at 15:57
Havent seen it myself, but if of all places, Neogaf posts agree it was shitty, I’m not even going to attempt to watch it later on tbh……
Guild
June 13, 2017 at 16:45
But that’s because you are a XBox supporter. So why would you watch the PS conference?
And I haven’t watched the XBox conference, cause I don’t have an XBox and my games are all on steam or PS. I’ll watch trailers that are cross platform like Anthem but there isn’t anything that’s made me want an XBox.
xdvd
June 13, 2017 at 16:58
So if you didn’t watch the Xbox conference how did you know that they have nothing for you? ?
Guild
June 13, 2017 at 17:26
Watched the trailers for what caught my interest. The main thing that gets me is why own an Xbox if you have a PC? I can play the Xbox games on my PC.
xdvd
June 13, 2017 at 17:44
It’s obvious really. It’s a very small percent of the market that will have both a gaming PC and a console. The reason why consoles exist is because a large portion of the market (like myself) can’t be bothered with the effort and cost to play the equivalent games on PC. Microsoft has sold about 30 million Xbox Ones and, while it’s nowhere near the amount of PS4 consoles sold, do you honestly think that 30 million people will play those exclusives on PC? It’s easy to say that you can play Xbox One Games on your PC but remember not everyone will spend R10000 on a PC capable of playing Forza Horizon 3 where they can buy a R3500 console to play the same game. Either way Microsoft gets your money so a win win for them.
Guild
June 13, 2017 at 19:48
Agree. Either way MS win. Just a tough sell for XBox one X. For a few more Randela’s you can buy the R10K PC and play the XBox and PC games.
xdvd
June 13, 2017 at 17:02
It’s only obvious that most people would watch all conferences, irrespective of which console you own, to see what the future holds. Who knows, he might be convinced to buy a PS4
Guild
June 13, 2017 at 17:25
Pieter bleeds green. He would never buy a pony. But you right others will watch all the conferences irrespective of what they own. I just didn’t have time for Xbox this year. I stuck with watching the trailers instead like Anthem. That looks awesome and I want it
Jim of the Banana
June 13, 2017 at 17:06
Yeah, but Neogaf is in general pretty shitty. Only the mentally challenged, game journos, SJWs and the criminally minded even bother with that site these days.
Sock-puppet
June 13, 2017 at 16:39
I found myself pressing the skip button several times with some of the trailers. well most of the trailers with a few bits here and there that seemed interesting. Nothing really grabbed me and made me go “well if that’s what it will look like when it’s released I’ll get it” like Anthem did.
Overall I think this years E3 is actually showing the fatigue the industry has been feeling in recent years. Some studios don’t know what to do, some do too much and others do too little. As always I am an Xbox fanboy so they get my vote but I did skip some of their trailers as well due to not being interested, not wanting to waste time and in general not really wanting to see what they have to show.
Sony needs to add more talky talk, yes more trailers is good but at some points I could feel the awkward tension in the hall through my screen. Like when they randomly showed the two Playstation’s, the VR headset and the boring VR view of Skyrim. Some context or just skipping those parts would’ve been nice.
Like the people over on Reddit are saying, the Xbox conference was great but Microsofts lack of first party studios is quite clear with some exclusives cropping up but nothing (well except for Ori) making the crowd yell with absolute enthusiasm. Also, I think we need a gap year from the Forza franchise, give us room to properly enjoy what they currently have. Right now it feels like Call of Duty, just another one.
Then the developers, the ones that make the games…yeah nothing drew me to their shows. I went to bed and just watched the trailers released after the shows ended.
E3 wasn’t disappointing but it most certainly wasn’t a huge success. Sony and Microsoft brought their latest but not their greatest and that same sentiment could be felt with the other trailers that I’ve seen.