I love E3. I wish I could cover E3 in some substantial way but I’ll leave that to bigger and better minds. But I do want to take a look at the main E3 players and muse what we can expect and my own personal predictions – without biased as much as possible.

I remember that year Nintendo had the large orchestra to celebrate the Zelda anniversary at E3. It wasn’t a particularly memorable E3 but it was an electric experience at home, I can’t imagine how it was for those in the audience. That’s what E3 is all about for me. The experience. I understand that E3 costs a lot of money and Nintendo are in no position to spend such increasing costs but I feel the decision to host these pre-filmed Nintendo Directs at E3 isn’t for the financial reasons but more that arrogant thought that they don’t need to bother. Evidently they do.

There were some stand out games including Wind Waker HD for the Wii U and Super Mario 3D world. In essence, the usual players. There was little in the way of third party support and a lack of content to support the system throughout the entire year. Edge’s review of the conference summed it up perfectly;

Again, Mario Kart is safe, as is Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze and Super Smash Bros. Nintendo’s E3 2013 roster isn’t a show of creative strength but a retreat to base principles, amid a sprinkling of apologies for the delays of Wii Fit U and Wii Party U into 2014 that had Iwata breaking out that heartbreaking bow again. At this critical stage in Wii U’s life its release schedule is startlingly quiet, a deep disappointment for those who’ve bought one, and complete failure to compete with the bright oncoming lights of PS4 (oh, and Xbox One)

In a world with brand new consoles, AAA games and creative indie games Nintendo seems to getting more and more irrelevant and, well, up itself.

What are your expectations for Nintendo at E3? comment below.

For extensive convention coverage and awesome content head on over to our good friends Rage Select

I love E3. I wish I could cover E3 in some substantial way but I’ll leave that to bigger and better minds. But I do want to take a look at the main E3 players and muse what we can expect and my own personal predictions – without biased as much as possible.

Sony had a surprisingly successful year. Made at least in a small way due to the bad reaction to Microsoft. But Sony have been doing considerably well for a while now, even with the final year or two of the Playstation 3 with increased support, Playstation Plus taking off, stellar first party exclusives such as the best game I’ve played this year ‘The Last of Us’  and a push to support indies in ways Sony have never done before.

At E3 2013 Sony were clear on their vision of the Playstation 4 and their continued support for the Playstation 3 including such games as ‘Beyond: Two Souls’ and the aforementioned ‘Last of Us’. Unlike Microsoft’s conference a huge bulk was dedicated to new indie titles and the big push of self publishing on the Playstation 4 which was met with very warm reactions.

But the highlight of the conference was the direct strikes made towards  Microsoft, which came when Jack Tretton returned to stage and said with absolute clarity that the PlayStation 4 will support lending, trading, reselling, and playing your games on your console in the ways we were already used to with no Always online restrictions. The crowd  bellowed, and it was clear that it was a point for Sony. Though in hindsight I still believe that what Microsoft were doing was more revolutionary and the future, and Sony were going for a dated concept. Unfortunately console gamers just weren’t ready for it and Microsoft couldn’t sell it.

Check out my Sony at E3 thoughts below.

Are you looking forward to Sony’s press conference? What games do you think we’ll see? Post your thoughts and predictions below or throw them my way on twitter @Chris_Harrison_

For extensive convention coverage and awesome content head on over to our good friends Rage Select

I love E3. I wish I could cover E3 in some substantial way but I’ll leave that to bigger and better minds. But I do want to take a look at the main E3 players and muse what we can expect and my own personal predictions – without biased as much as possible.

Microsoft’s E3 press conference wasn’t as bad as you probably remember. The problem was the Xbox One reveal conference that came out before hand with its focus on entertainment, DRM Always online, packed with Kinect sensor. Much has been said about the always online issues and for me, the problem wasn’t so much the infrastructure itself – which is essentially how steam works and increasingly likely that it’ll be future of entertainment – but instead how it was presented to the public with a lack of information, inconsistent information and some pretty arrogant comments from certain Xbox employees.

After the rise Microsoft felt during the reign of the Xbox 360 it was sad, nay shocking to see such a fall from grace. Over the weeks and months much of what made Xbox One was reversed, including the always online policies and even taking away the bundling of Kinect to cut the price closer to the Playstation 4.  At this point, the changes seem a little disingenuous given the lag in sales compared to the Playstation.

Like I mentioned, last years conference wasn’t too bad. We had a number of game reveals, like MGS V, Titanfall, Quantum Break, Dead Rising 3 and so on, with barely any mention of Kinect. Solid for a normal E3 year, But it wasn’t enough in the launch year of a new console.

Phil Spencer is the new head of Xbox and this is good news. He has a strong focus on games and is popular in the gaming community. Immediately after being hired he made a commitment that the focus would be games.

This past year has been a growth experience both for me and for the entire Xbox team. We’ve taken feedback, made our products better and renewed our focus on what is most important, our customer. Our mission is to build a world-class team, work hard to meet the high expectations of a passionate fan base, create the best games and entertainment and drive technical innovation. As we continue forward, this renewed focus and mission will be a foundational part of how I lead the Xbox program…I’m gonna lead with a gaming focus and making sure that’s where we’re led. That’s the North Star for the organization.

So it’s a safe bet to assume the majority of the press conference will be games driven with a passing mention of the new apps coming to the console, the use Netflix, Hulu Plus, MLG and other apps without paying a separate subscription fee which was recently announced to further align themselves with other systems. To demonstrate the commitment to games I expect we’ll see a lot of Halo, Forza Horizon 2, Sunset Overdrive, Gears of War and Fable Legends. 

Microsoft have a lot to prove going into this years E3. But it’s usually when a company is on the more negative side that they do something incredible. I hope they succeed and show us that the Xbox One is a great console and that they believe that. What are your expectations for Microsoft at E3? comment below.

For extensive convention coverage and awesome content head on over to our good friends Rage Select