Tuesday, June 16, 2015

E3

Not anywhere near as exciting as it was in the old days, but E3 is still interesting. Here's a brief recap of Microsoft/Sony press conferences, using the same format as last year.

MICROSOFT
Sequel
Sequel
New Keiji Inafune IP (not this year)
**backwards compatibility with 360 (limited)**
New Elite $150 controller
Sequel
Titanfall on EA Access
Sequel
Sequel
Sequel
The Division (not this year)
Sequel
Gigantic ("team action game", this year)
Indie (Goat Sim, Superhot, Ark, Cuphead, Tacoma, Ashen, Beyond Eyes)
Early Access
Dean Hall new IP (Ion, space game, not this year)
Sequel
Rare Collection
Sea of Thieves (new Rare IP, not this year)
Sequel
Valve and Oculus VR
Minecraft on Hololens
Remaster
Sequel

In brief:
--backwards compatibility with the 360 is fantastic, if they support it. If you have the original game disc, inserting it into the Xbox One will trigger a download of the compatible version. The only catch is that while they're claiming 100 games "to start", the list they put out only had about a dozen games.

This is a significant point of distinction from the PS4 (where you have to pay for the download) if they choose to focus on it.
--strong assortment of indie games.
--Sea of Thieves (new Rare IP) looks terrific.
--apparently, Microsoft has totally abandoned Kinect and is now focusing on Hololens and working with Oculus and Valve. While it's frustrating to see companies abandoning technology they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing to convince you to buy it in the first place, Hololens does look much more promising. The Minecraft demo for Hololens  was staggering.
--Crackdown 3 was not mentioned. Boo.

SONY
The Last Guardian (not this year, but in 2016)
Horizon: Zero Dawn (open world RPG, not this year)
Sequel
Sequel
No Man's Sky (no release date)
Dreams (Media Molecule's new game, not this year)
Firewatch (indie, no release date)
Sequel
Sequel
Sequel
Final Fantasy 7 remake
Shenmue 3 Kickstarter
Morpheus (no release date, no price)
Sequel
Sequel
Sequel
Sequel
Sequel

In brief:
--a strong collection of games (very strong, at least for my tastes), but none of the new IP they mentioned is coming out this year. That's painful.
--the Shenmue kickstarter needed $2 million to be funded. It's about to hit $2.5 million in less than 24 hours. It's going to get $10 million+ easily, and maybe much, much more. It's been so long that many people don't even know what the Shenmue games were and why they were important, but for anyone even vaguely old-school, this might be the biggest announcement of E3.

Believe it or not, both of these presentations were stronger than last year's--at least, what I remember from last year.






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