Final Thoughts on E3 2016

9 July 2016

Overall E3 2016 was a great show with plenty of unforgettable moments, especially from Sony. EA was fairly standard in terms of game content, but the cross-Atlantic venues worked surprisingly well, and Mourinho's appearance was a definite highlight. Bethesda did well with their content, but I can't help but feel they'll struggle to hold a conference every year. Even a showing every two years would build excitement and allow them to reveal more. By contrast Ubisoft do not have this problem. A number of their games look great but their conference went on far too long. They have to shorten it in the future, and one way to do this is not include movie news and interviews!

As for the Microsoft vs Sony battle, Microsoft came in strong and had a great line-up of hardware and software, but the big surprise was them confirming Project Scorpio and basically all rumours were true. So then it came as a massive surprise for Sony not to address it all. Especially when rumours of the Neo were public long before those of Scorpio. But Sony really smashed their conference. Game after game, no padding, no low point, and super short. Many people's perfect E3 show. However it was also interesting to see how most of Sony's revealed titles were years away, compared with Xbox showing most games to be launched in the next 6 months.

There were also a bunch of games I expected to see at E3 in detail but next to nothing was shown of them. There was no Crackdown 3 at Microsoft's stage, and no Gran Turismo Sport at Sony's. This was most surprising with it bound to be the PS4's highest selling exclusive this Fall. There was also no news on Rise of the Tomb Raider for PS4. I have subsequently read that Square Enix has confirmed the game will launch in 'Holiday 2016', but how was this not revealed at E3? One of the absolute best titles of 2015 is coming to PS4 later this year, and there's not a single mention of it at Sony's biggest conference. This would have added to their amazing game reveals so nicely.

Another interesting point I realised after E3 concerns the upcoming cross-buy feature with Xbox and PC. A good friend of mine has a PC, Xbox One and PS4. He's always leaned towards Xbox but kept his PS4 for the triple-A exclusives. After Uncharted 4 he was thinking about selling his PlayStation. However after the cross-buy announcement he can now sell his Xbox One. He can play all triple-A games from Microsoft and Sony on PC and PS4. If you have both a Windows 10 PC and an Xbox - why keep both? You just need a PS4 and PC to cover nearly all triple-A titles. Microsoft will surely loose more ground in the console market after this reveal, despite unveiling the new Xbox One S, and their plans for the future with Scorpio. As Colin Moriarty said on PS I Love You episode 42, "They have so many balls in play now". It seems they're trying to cover all options, but the fact is an Xbox exclusive title will no longer exist from this year onwards. That is crazy. Of course at the time of the announcement it seemed only to be a good thing, and Microsoft software sales will be boosted dramatically. But hardware wise, Microsoft will surely suffer in the longer term, especially at the hands of Sony. Continuing Colin's thoughts, "it seems like they're eroding their own eco-system", and I completely agree.

So, bringing this back to the wealth of content on show at E3 2016, which title takes game of show? Quite unbelievably it is a Nintendo game, and that is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This is the one game everyone in gaming media has talked about and can't wait to play, including non-Zelda fans like myself. It's crazy to think this the first Zelda game with a jump button. That's how far the series has come to this point. Of course now we just need to know what sort of hardware this game will be played on? If the NX is due for release in March next year, this console has to be fully revealed before 2017. Surely Nintendo!

In terms of a winner of E3, it has to be Sony. Their conference was unlike any other I've seen based on how concise it was, the fewest number of people on stage, and the amazing-looking games revealed. Being a Sony fan I think IGN's Brian Altano summed it up best...