So now we’ve seen the two big conferences of this years convention. We’ve all formed our opinions on who had the best games and apps, but what we should turn our attention to is who had the fans cheering and jeering? This is the most important principle in having a very memorable conference, which most of the companies so far this year have figured out. Some however, don’t give the fans what they want, and rely solely on their finale to get them by. Yes EA, we’re talking about you, Star Wars Battlefront saved your convention. Anyway, let’s get down to what each company’s conferences got right.
We’ll start by talking about the games, and who had the games that had the fans most excited.
Microsoft started out strongly with their biggest franchise. We got some fast paced, high intensity gameplay from Halo 5: Guardians right off the bat, as well as an awesome new mode coming with Halo 5 called WarZone! Throughout the conference we then saw things like a new Gears, plus the Gears of War collection, a new interesting looking IP called Recore, the much loved racer Forza 6, Dark Souls III and many more great modern classics! We also saw how a lot of these games are going to have the ability for cross platform play with the PC and Windows 10. A lot of exciting, fan pleasing games!
Sony started off extremely well too, showcasing the extremely long awaited The Last Guardian with some gameplay to boot! The fans definitely cheered for this one, and it was the first of many exciting game reveals from this conference. We then got a taste of some new IP’s such as Guerilla’s Horizon: Zero Dawn and Shenmue III, which a lot of people were happy about as well as some well known games with timed exclusivity deals like Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and the new Destiny expansion: The Taken King. There was one thing I noticed about the Sony conferences games however and that was that a lot of the games that were announced or shown off didn’t have a release date or were all slated for 2016 releases at the earliest. This was where Sony fell and Microsoft gained some ground.
Next up, we’re going to talk about new features coming to each console, for a better player and user experience.
Now, there was one really huge one to note for Microsoft and Xbox One, and that is the fact that starting soon, games from your Xbox 360 will be able to be downloaded and played on the Xbox One, as Xbox open up their backwards compatibility program. This is something that gamers have asked for from these new consoles for a long time and Microsoft, under the reigns of Phil Spencer have finally given us what we have asked for. We also saw the new Xbox One Elite controller which will be coming soon, which seems to have the features that all gamers want. Whether you’re a fighter and want the new and improved omnidirectional D-pad, or a shooter guy where those paddles may appeal to you, you can now buy an in-house controller that does everything you need it to do without buying it from an outside source. That was pretty much it in terms of features for the Microsoft conference, with the team at Xbox really giving the fans what they want with a couple of big features, but mostly all about games.
The Sony conference didn’t really have too much in the way of new features for the console, apart from their usual sales pitch of Playstation Vue, their TV service. I mentioned to my colleague that it seemed as though the conferences had done a complete flip from what we got 2 years ago with Sony all about games and Microsoft showing off their TV features and things like the 10 minute long Call of Duty segment. We then also saw Playstations virtual reality provider of choice show up, in Project Morpheus.
Overall, it is a tough one to call. I was absolutely blown away by both conferences this year and I think it’s fair to say that neither conference was bad at all. That being said, given the fact that I am an Xbox player primarily, I am going to say that the Xbox conference was the one that got me most hyped and therefore is my winner. I will say however, if I was a Playstation gamer, I may have had a differing opinion. Let the fanboy wars commence!
Let us know what your favourite things about each of the conferences were, down below!
P. Don Cornflakes
Good points! Xbox had me way more hyped. As an old Dreamcast player I was stoked that Sony had Yu Suzuki but Shenmue could still be years away.
Guru007
Both were great, but Playstation had more surprises. Backwards compatibility is a great feature for Xbox, but there was not much new besides Recore. Playstation had Last Guardian, Horizon, Shenmue. The Playstation fans clapped like crazy when those were announced. Of course everyone is going to favor their favorite console.
Jed aka "Papa Doc"
Yeah, a Sony rep already said it’s years away (my guess is 3 years). I’m a HUGE Sony fanboy and I thought that MS won and I still “kinda” do. With not much coming out in 2015 for PS4 and the lack of exclusives Sony has in general, MS could really start to catch up to Sony this holiday. 😉 #BuckleDOWNSony!!!
jesus
You are a terrible journalist.
Craig Kronvall
You are a pointless troll
jesus
I was only stating the obvious, you don’t write articles about who won E3 then state he prefers his xbox so microsoft did better and never saying anything about why they were better…
So what was better about the Microsoft conference? It was the same line up of games Microsoft have used for the last 10 years Halo, GoW, Forza and a Rare game although this time Halo and Gears have new less talented developers, Forza is pointless with Project cars out and assetto corsa next year and Rare games are just shit, also the controller will most likely be same price as a scuf but not as good and backwards compatibility is over rated and just an attempt to soften the blow of PSNow, Microsoft have had another shocking year.
However Sony had the best conference for games in years, Long lost last guardian, new IP Horizon, CoD DLC just for the blow to xbox, FF7 Remake, Uncharted gameplay, Shenmue, SFV, etc..
Sony killed Microsoft but Third party games like SWBF and Fallout stole the show
Irlook
Thank you Jesus.
mike zealot
BC is an attempt to soften the blow of PSNow?
If that’s not BS, Idk what is. Backwards Compatability is better than PSNow in every way.
jesus
If all games were BC then it would be a good feature, but since you can only play games microsoft allows… it sucks
PS Now you can play last gen games whether you previously owned them or not without downloads.
mike zealot
Over 100 games will be BC by Fall, with hundreds more added each month, and MS already has polls up to see what people want to be BC. All a publisher has to do is let the game be BC, and MS can make it so instantly.
You also have to pay for those games again, even if you have the game for PS3.
jesus
Now you are just making up numbers, sign of a desperate fanboy.
They should rename it Limited Backwards Compatible, lets face it, XBone cant replace the 360 like the PS2 replaced PS1 and 3DS replaced DS.
The current list of games are pretty bad, If it was so easy to make games BC why is the entire Microsoft Studio games not available? Microsoft always talk big deliver little, you may get some good games but majority will remain exclusive to 360.
http://uk.ign.com/wikis/xbox-one/Xbox_One_Backward_Compatibility_Game_List
mike zealot
Now you’re just not doing any research, sign of a desperate fanboy.
http://www.xbox.com/en-us/xbox-one/backward-compatibility
“With over 100 titles slated for this fall, and hundreds more added every month, Xbox One is now the best place to play your Xbox 360 games.”
It can and it certainly will.
Because they want to test the BC system on simple games first, and build off it from there. I’d know, I’m in the Preview Program.
Kryptonite42O
A couple of Sony’s surprises were great. The Uncharted 4 footage was just amazing and Horizon looks pretty killer. But overall, I have to give this one to MS.. I just felt that Sony spent too much time talking about games that were mostly multiplats. The BC from MS will be awesome if they get publishers to join in. Also the idea of mods being transferable to the X1 for Fallout 4 should prove to be very interesting. Overall, Im glad im an owner of both consoles.
xAUSTIN316x
xbox won
John Berchmans
I agree. Both were great, but Microsoft won because almost all of their announcements were Holiday 2016/Spring 2016, whereas almost all of Sony’s announcements were 2016/???. And Microsoft had more true exclusive content. (Sony’s two biggest announcement’s, FF7 remake and Shenmue 3 weren’t really exclusive) That being said, the only real loser’s this year were Nintendo. (Cough Cough, Mario Tennis)
Zakk Jonson
Uncharted 4, Dreams, Horizon, The Last Guardian and then Playstation have exclusive content on Batman Arkham Knight, Black Ops 3, Assassins Creed Syndicate, Hitman,Metal Gear Sold V and Destiny. We also have Until Dawn to come and we still haven’t herd what Sucker Punch are up either. What I mentioned there are all 2015/2016 as well. So I don’t know what your on about.
Zakk Jonson
“I am an Xbox player primarily, I am going to say that the Xbox conference was the one that got me most hyped and therefore is my winner. I will say however, if I was a Playstation gamer, I may have had a differing opinion. Let the fanboy wars commence!” no point in this article then because your bias towards Xbox.
Walter Pretorius
Seriously guys don’t forget every single 3rd party game is going to look and play better on the ps4 and not just by a little bit. I would be so disappointed if i had a xbox 1 and saw how much better everything on the ps4 looks #getapcforxboxgames