This was going to be an article drawing comparisons between Sony’s and Microsoft’s respective press conferences to see who came out on top, but the Sony E3 Press Conference dropped the mic within minutes of it’s start. Then they picked it back up, free-styled in a lost ancient alien language, and dropped the mic again.
Sony had quite the show to follow after the Xbox Press Conference; Microsoft announced backwards compatibility for Xbox One, a new early access service for games still in development, and Minecraft on Hololens. But where Xbox shone strongly with more hardware-oriented announcements, Sony won hands down with titles alone. The only thing that broke the steady stream of trailer after trailer of new games was the announcement that Playstation Vue would be expanding their services to new locations. More importantly, however, the TV streaming service will now allow customers to purchase channels a la carte without channel bundles. Without considering the titles announced, this is already a pretty revolutionary step for Sony.
The press conference started off with a bang. Every single year for the last 10 years, prior to E3, people wondered what was happening with The Last Guardian. Some were worried it was doomed to cancellation while others remained hopeful. But the storm was quelled immediately when this occurred:
After satisfying millions of gamers with that trailer, Guerilla Games followed up with a new IP entitled Horizon: Zero Dawn.
Square Enix announced a new Hitman featuring PS4-exclusive content.
Birdie and Cammy were revealed to appear in the roster for Street Fighter V.
Sean Murray of Hello Games appeared on stage to present a gameplay demo of No Man’s Sky. But it wasn’t just any demo. It was improvised.
Dreams introduced it’s surreal world where what’s possible is limited only by the imagination.
And much to everyone’s delight, we were given a trailer for the new Destiny DLC, The Taken King.
Ubisoft unveiled a new trailer for Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate along with the announcement that players will be able to play as the Evie Fry.
And then the internet broke. Because a title that has been begging to see the light of day from the voices of fans to seemingly disgruntled developers was finally announced. Let it be known Square Enix stole E3 with a teaser trailer for a remake of Final Fantasy VII as a timed exclusive on PS4.
If it was still being considered who was winning between Microsoft and Sony, the deal was sealed in Sony’s favor at this point. But it was only halfway through the press conference and plenty of other titles sprang to bask in their first rays of hype. Here’s a list of the rest of the titles announced at the Sony E3 Press Conference:
Firewatch from developer Campo Santo
World of Final Fantasy from Square Enix
Numerous titles from Devolver Digital
Batman: Arkham Knight from Rocksteady Studios
Call of Duty: Black Ops III from Activision
Star Wars: Rise Against the Empire from Disney
Star Wars Battlefront from Electronic Arts
And finally, leaving with a bang almost as loud as the press conference started with, Naughty Dog gave us an 8-minute gameplay demo of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End.
E3 isn’t over just yet. Both Microsoft and Sony still have more to show us. But as far as press conferences go, Sony stood tall against it’s worthy adversary. What was your favorite part of the Sony Press Conference? Let us know!