Sony’s E3 2015 Press Conference Delivered the Goods But Lacked Direction and Focus

So ends all the big E3 press conferences. Sony wrapped up the evening with their own presentation that overall was really well done. Some great stuff was shown and some big bombs were dropped. Yet Sony seemed to struggle with the message they were trying to send.

Okay, let’s look at the good stuff. Destiny gets a snazzy new trailer for their next expansion even though the story still seems to make zero sense. Street Fighter V looked pretty good despite the pedestrian trailer. There was Star Wars news galore and some pretty amazing gameplay footage that made me squeal like a school boy! Uncharted showed up for a crazy gameplay demo that was lots of mindless, Drake to a tee destruction. The Shenmue 3 kickstarter was announced in what I thought was going to induce a mass stroke in the audience. FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE for god’s sake! Hell, even Assassin’s Creed showed up to take part in the fun.

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“The roster was full of games that everyone wanted but never expected to see, but every presenter kept trying to push how much of what was presented was a ‘PlayStation exclusive’…”

The new IP Horizon: Zero Dawn was pretty cool and definitely has piqued my interest. Meanwhile, Hitman showed up with a bad ass new trailer that was simply awesome. There was even a little project Morpheus to top it off. Co-op VR? Are you kidding me?

However, No Man’s Sky took the evening with some astounding footage. I mean, they talked about it, but seeing how huge that game is was actually made my jaw drop! It will probably be a day or two before I can even fully grasp the scope and magnitude that they showed tonight. I can already see my social life dwindling into nothing when that game comes out…

Did I mention FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE is a thing now?! Because that’s real.

But, as a I previously stated, Sony seemed to fumble around with the message they were trying to send. The roster was full of games that everyone wanted but never expected to see, but every presenter kept trying to push how much of what was presented was a ‘PlayStation exclusive’… even though most of it wasn’t. It got to a point where one of the presenters actually said it was ‘an exclusive to the PlayStation 4… and PC’. They kept using that word, but I don’t think they know what that means. It was very clearly trying to mimic Microsofts presentation from earlier, but the difference is that a couple of bonus maps doesn’t hold the same weight as multiple titles that are actually exclusive. For instance, PlayStation is now ‘the new home’ for Call of Duty and Black Ops 3, despite the fact that it’s multiplatform. It didn’t make any sense and it bothered me for the entire proceedings.

However, saying that their wording choice was what bugged me about their presentation is probably saying a lot about the content of their conference. Sure, I didn’t care about The Last Guardian (how many times can you actually promise that one?) and I didn’t know what to make of Dreams or World of Final Fantasy, but overall, they threw together a decent press conference.

From PlayStation Vue information, to the battle of VR to some pretty incredible trailers, Sony did their best to bring their A game last. Not to mention nearly causing the deaths of hundreds of gamers who were excited to a point of panic on multiple occasions. Did anyone else see that guy who was genuinely dumbfounded when Yu Suzuki came out? That guys reaction was the perfect response to Sony’s E3 showcase.