E3 2013: The Press Conferences

- by Ninja Ross, 12 June 2012

E3 is here again, ladies and gentlemen! For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s the Electronic Entertainment Expo; the biggest video game event of the year. It’s a place for companies to show off all of their pretty devices and games.

This year is the most anticipated in several years, since both Microsoft and Sony are trying to convince us to buy their new consoles. Besides that, we had one from Nintendo, Ubisoft and EA.


So, who “won” E3? Who had the best conference? Who was the sexiest, most badass mofo of the ultimate- Ah, whatever let’s just get stuck into it.

EA's CONFERENCE

EA has been voted Worst Company in America twice in a row, now. So, in a very morbid way, I was looking forward to seeing EA’s conference. I was expecting them to fall flat on their face a little. Not due to their games, but mostly due to my expectation of Cthulhu showing up to endorse them.

What we got instead was a relatively mild crowd who reacted positively to the video games shown. It wasn’t the disaster it could have been but it wasn’t  the huge success it might have been a few years ago.

Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare was revealed and it looks like it could be the most fun shooter of the year. That’s right; they turned the classic Plants vs. Zombies into a shooter. That’s the most EA thing EA has ever done.

There was a lot of focus on Sports, which is something to be expected from EA, but the important thing is...  Dragon Age 3: Inquisition. My excitement threatens to eat me. But we’ll get into the specifics on Monday, when I go through the best looking games.

EA also showed some behind the scenes footage for Fast and the Furio- I mean the Need for Speed movie. So EA had a pretty good conference, when you get right down to it. No intense hate from the audience, no real surprises, just a publisher showing off their games.


UBISOFT's CONFERENCE

Most conferences at E3 were presented by creative directors and such. The people behind the games. Ubisoft decided to take the celebrity route and had theirs presented by the one and only Aisha Taylor! I know, I forgot she still acts after Friends, too [...she was in Friends? - Ed.]. But she was confident, demonstrated knowledge of the products but suffered from the terrible script writing and jokes that plague E3 every year.

Ubisoft kicked things off with Jerry Cantrell playing the guitar, announcing a brand new RockSmith game. If you want to start thing off right, you use pretty ladies and cool guitarists, right? Ubisoft made sure our attention was grabbed before the great games showed up.

We had some Watch Dogs gameplay here which got a huge reaction from the crowd. For good reason, too, the game looks incredible. Everything that was expected from it after being announced last year is in there.

Besides that, they announced a Raving Rabbids TV show which looks genuinely funny. The interactive mode they’re promising, which gives viewers the chance to play mini games while watching the show, looks a little boring and awkward but it doesn’t look like that’ll affect the viewing.

Besides that, we got Just Dance, Frontier and Tom Clancy’s Division. The Division and Watch Dogs were probably the best looking games at Ubisoft’s conference, demonstrating the publisher’s ability to back some great looking games. More on that Monday.


NINTENDO's CONFERENCE

Yeah, they were there. They didn’t have a big conference, it wasn’t promoted much on the E3 website and they didn’t announce anything big besides Mega Man in the next Super Smash Brawl game. But that isn’t a negative thing.

Nintendo’s Wii-U console hasn’t been doing so well, thanks to the lack of games at launch. They didn’t throw anything at us that’d make us run out and buy a console but they took it slow and steady. They have a loyal fan base and they presented games, such as Mario Kart and the Super Smash game I already mentioned, that would keep loyal fans happy.

So, it was a boring, safe conference for Nintendo this year.


MICROSOFT's CONFERENCE

Oh boy. Even non gamers have heard of the bad reaction to Microsoft’s Xbox One reveal a few weeks ago. Rumours began showing up all of the place; You’ll have to pay to play used games, you can’t lend games, you have to be online at all times, Hitler’s ashes are hidden in the processor, etc.

It's hovering due to demonic possession.

But Microsoft cleared up those silly rumours not so long ago, putting everyone’s fears to rest! You only have to log in ever twenty four hours! If you don’t, you can’t play games. Not even single player games. The used game stuff is generally down to publishers but they said “There are two requirements: you can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.”

No word on the Hitler thing, yet, though... Suspicious.

What gamers were hoping to see at Microsoft’s conference this year was somebody dressed in a clown suit shouting “THIS HAS ALL BEEN A TERRIBLY THOUGH OUT APRIL FOOL’S JOKE!” Nothing of the sort happened, of course. Instead we had a slightly grumpy audience and a demonstration filled with glitches.

During the demonstration of Battlefield 4, they experienced some sort of freeze, preventing them from playing the game live for a few minutes. This was met with laughs, boos, insults and terribly awkward silences. It’s how I thought EA’s own conference would go.

But they had some decent looking games, most notably Titan Fall, created by people who worked on Call of Duty 4. It looks like it could rival Call of Duty, in the online multiplayer department. It looks a lot of fun, which helps. We also saw a teaser for Halo 5, Ryse and Witcher 3.

At the end of the day, Microsoft’s conference wasn’t the huge failure anyone expected it to be, but... It did fail.


SONY's CONFERENCE

Well, if Microsoft was this year’s big failure, Sony was the winner.

Sony was really pleasant to watch this year. Jack Tretton started off by offering special thanks to everyone watching, going out of his way to say how much it means. That’s pretty cheesy but a surprisingly nice touch.

After that they showed a whole bunch of games not only for the PS4 but also for the PS3. They showed off some very pretty games, this year, including some new intellectual properties.

While not having many Exclusive games, they do have a lot of exclusive features including some technology with Grand Theft Auto 5 (special headset!) and a couple of interesting new skins for Batman in Arkham Origins (Knightfall and ‘60s Batman)

But the main reason people went to Sony’s conference was to see the new console and find out some details. Did Hitler have anything to do with this one, too?

When they announced that there would be no mandatory check in, they supported used games and that they were basically making none of the mistakes Microsoft were making, the crowd went nuts. No game managed to get a reaction like the one heard here.

It was a glorious attack on Microsoft. They went straight for the throat in this conference, proving themselves to be the better company. They did so well that nobody seemed to care that you’ll have to have a Playstation Plus account to play online with the PS4.

The console design itself was revealed for the first time here, too. While it kind of looks like a broken monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, it looks better than the Xbox One.

The need for a Playstation Plus for online play does make Sony’s victory a little tainted but overall, Sony came out on top. It had better new IPs than Microsoft and it seems like they’re getting a lot of support from developers.

I still question the need for a new console generation, but Sony also demonstrated that they’d be continuing support for the PS3, putting out new games on the console. But, if I had to get a new console, it’d be the PS4.

E3 was pretty big this year, right?!? Everyone had a good conference but some were better than others! Some great games were revealed! Be sure to check in Monday when I take a closer look at the games shown at this year’s E3!


What did you think of E3? Are you planning to get a new console? See any games that impressed you?  Let us know below!

Tagged: video games.

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