E32015: Synthesis, Reflection and Game of the
Show
Article, Part 1 of 3
In honor of E3, I wrote a special three-part
article for you all in which I reflect upon what was shown and identify the
narratives that emerged from the biggest players in gaming hardware: Microsoft,
Sony and Nintendo. What do these takeaways mean for each company, and what do
they mean for the next year in gaming? Check out below for all this and more,
including my Game of the Show! Check The Impact Factor tomorrow for Part 2, and
the day after for the third and final installment!
The Electronic Entertainment
Expo (E3) has come and gone, leaving a wealth of video game news in its
increasingly large wake. This industry trade show has grown and evolved with
time, changing from more of a by-the-numbers preview of the year to come that’s
targeted at investors, retail partners and games media, to the biggest and one
of the most widely broadcasted events in video games. Though I’ve been a huge
video game enthusiast my whole life, it was not until about six years ago or so
that I started following E3 closely. Seeing the transformation of the event has
been fascinating, and certainly speaks to the way the games are being discussed
both in enthusiast communities and at large. E3 is one of the most exciting
times of the year for me—even though I have never been able to attend, watching
makes me feel like a part of an industry I care so much about and observe it
with scrutiny. Each year I get more and more involved in taking in, and
discussing, E3 news.
The past two years I live
tweeted the big press conferences. This was mainly for my own benefit;
something to look back at throughout the rest of the year to remind me of the
great time I had being a part of the pomp and circumstance. 2015 I wanted to do
even more. I began this blog in January 2015 because I felt like I had a
viewpoint to share and a niche to fill in video game discussion. My training as
a Ph.D. level biomedical scientist has affected the way I look at the world,
and the way I think and talk about my oldest and biggest passion: video games. So
as an extension of the writing I provide for you all here weekly, I buckled
down and decided to cover E3 in my own way—and in the best way I could. To that
extent, I live tweeted every press conference. That’s right, all eight of them this year. This
skyrocketed my total tweet count, from 1400 to over 2100. For the mathematically inclined, that’s a 50% increase
of my total tweets, and I’ve had a twitter for six years. Insane. But I wanted
to do more. For the first three nights of E3 I sat down and talked through my
thoughts on the press conferences, breaking them down and identifying the days’
biggest news. If you would like to check those out, you can find them here: Day
0, 1 and 2.
I also put together a piece talking about the games that made a biggest impact
on me on E3’s final day, which can be found here.
Despite all the changes to E3
over the years, the biggest and most talked about stories are always the new games. 2015 was a
gargantuan year for these kinds of stories. Titles like Fallout 4, The Last Guardian, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Shenmue 3,
Horizon: Zero Dawn, Star Wars: Battlefront and more are sure to gobble up
the headlines in the news cycles to follow. I suppose rightfully so. I’m
incredibly excited for all the titles I listed. One thing to always keep in
mind when discussing E3 game reveals, however, is that what’s shown is emulative.
That is, in nearly every instance, what’s revealed is merely indicative of what
the developers hope to achieve in the final product; not what we as game
enthusiasts should expect to have in our hands upon the games’ release. E3 exists to push your buttons and build
up hype, not to perfectly represent final products. And I’m ok with that. I’ve
found a balance where I can be excited for a new game but still maintain
skepticism and a level head. Not pre-ordering a game helps to keep everyone
honest, too. But I digress. The complicated nature of what is shown about the
games themselves makes it hard to have one specific title a focal point for
this synthesis and reflections piece. Too much is still up in the air, and so
much can change during the course of development.
That is why I wanted to talk
the narratives that emerged from this E3. As a scientist, I’m custom built to
detect trends and draw conclusions from the evidence presented before me. So
that is what I did here. E3 is a predominantly console-gaming focused event, so
in this article, I reflected upon the three major players in the hardware
space: Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. I draw conclusions about what these
companies’ message was to consumers, and what we should expect from them in the
year to follow. So let’s take a slightly closer look at what each of these
companies was trying to tell us.
Microsoft (Xbox)
Central Theme: Refining the
gaming experience on XOne, bringing it to closer to ‘PC gaming’. Focus on big,
immediate game releases.
Microsoft did an impressive
job at painting a clear, and exciting, portrait of the future of Xbox One
(XOne) gaming. Microsoft has once again vowed to focus on, and understand, PC
gaming with the upcoming release of Windows 10. The XOne press conference was
all about shortening the distance that traditionally exists between PC and
console gamers, with regard to how we experience finding, buying, playing, and owning
games. Big consumer friendly initiatives were the real star of Microsoft’s
impressive press conference. The two initiatives I’ll dive into served as a two
pronged approach to securing new owners of the XOne: one that is designed to
appeal to last gen hanger-ons, and one that may grab the attention of those who
have been ingrained in PC gaming for some time.
Xbox backwards compatibility
is the former. Backwards compatibility remains one of the most impactful
announcements coming out of E3 2015. It certainly set the Internet ablaze when
Phil Spencer dropped the information early in the press conference. As someone
who knows many last gen holdouts personally, the lack of backwards compatibility
that currently exists for both lead consoles (PS4 and XOne) is bewildering to
them and acts as an intractable pill to swallow. The previous generation of consoles
lasted so long (we’re talking a decade+ now), that gamers have amassed massive
back catalogues. Purchasing a new console would mean one of two things: either
you have to leave both systems plugged in, taking up power and space, or give
up on completing all of those games ‘you were going to get to eventually.’ While
the XOne backwards compatibility is certainly not perfect—members of the
preview program have reported only 10 total games work currently—the promise is
unquestionably enticing. From how Microsoft has talked about it, backwards
compatibility functions through emulation software built into a system update
for the XOne, so that the only thing that would prevent games from being
‘workable’ would be licensing issues and / or requiring USB peripherals to
play. That could mean in 100s of Xbox360 games could work on the XOne in the
months to come. That’s huge news for so many people. I can easily see this
converting stalwart holdouts, particularly those who were deeply ingrained in
Microsoft’s previous console. This is a move that also brings gaming on a
Microsoft console closer to what its like on PC, where there are no generations
and, assuming you can configure things correctly, you can endless play all the
games you previously purchased. Xbox backwards compatibility, if it works as
advertised, is a huge consumer win, and promising news for the future of
gaming.
Xbox Games Preview is the
latter initiative I mentioned above. PC gamers have had early access to games
for months and months now. Steam, through programs like Steam Greenlight and
Early Access play, have enabled PC gamers to try out titles that are early in
development. This is a boon for video game enthusiasts. For titles you are
excited for, early access allows you to jump in and play sometimes nearly a
year in advance of the game’s final launch. It also allows users to
meaningfully contribute to a living, breathing organism. Constructive feedback
from early access players gives devs insight into what works, what’s broken,
what can be done to improve the experience and what features fans want
incorporated. It creates this whole new space of collaborative development that
excites me. But early access, up to this point, has been entirely sequestered
to PC gaming. That’s where the Xbox Games Preview comes in. The program is
early access, but on XOne. Microsoft is keenly aware of some of the headaches
and regret that are a part of buying into unfinished experiences, so they have
incorporated a trial period built into the initiative. This is another
consumer-win, as you can try out any early access game without having to spend money.
Xbox Games Preview is another way that Microsoft is trying to close the gap
between the gaming experience on a PC and on a console and even if it doesn’t
work as it’s described, is still another step in the right direction.
Perhaps the most
future-looking part of Microsoft’s press conference was the HoloLens AR demo.
One thing to quickly note: this was not an actual demo, but a simulation of
what it would be like to wear one. Currently the field of view (FOV) is
restricted to a small square in the center of the devices, and does not allow
for AR objects to appear in the remainder of your FOV. Regardless, though, this
tech demo was impressive. Being able to create virtual objects in physical
spaces feels like the future of tech, much more so than shutting out reality
for the VR experiences that dominate the ‘future of gaming’ talk. AR and
HoloLens isn’t a technology I expect to have in my hands even within the next
five years, but I think if R&D remains well funded, we could be looking
forward to a very exciting future. The HoloLens demo made me excited for that
future. It will be interesting to see whether HoloLens and AR can refine the
gaming experience, as the narrative of the press conference would suggest, or
rather just add a different dimension to it. Look, a pun!
Finally, though I won’t be
talking the games themselves, Microsoft’s messaging was clear: If you want a
console that is going to have big, bombastic exclusive titles in 2015, XOne is
where you need to be. Five huge console-exclusives are making their way to XOne
this Fall / Winter: Fable Legends, Halo
5: Guardians, Gears of War Remaster, Forza 6 and Rise of the Tomb Raider. Their choice to showcase current games,
and the future of experiencing
games, was an interesting one. With the announcement that Microsoft will be
talking Scalebound, Quantum Break and Crackdown 3 at Gamescom, we can expect to hear about their future
titles there. Microsoft’s 2015 claim is unchallenged upon E3’s completion.
Neither Sony nor Nintendo come close in compelling exclusives this year.
Check back tomorrow, June 24th for Part 2 to read about my takeaways from Sony and Nintendo!
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