If the gaming industry had a Superbowl, it would be E3.
Yes, it’s true that there are no points, and the only sports are e-sports, but I’ll bet you anything that if you begin a conversation with your closest gamer friend about it, he or she will have an opinion about which corporate entity “won” E3 this year, and the year before, and the year before that.
To be fair, most of us understand that it’s a bit more nuanced than that. After all, the majority of projects announced at E3 are multi-million dollar undertakings with long development cycles — All of which represent the blood, sweat and tears shed over thousands of hours of work, all put forth for the sake of entertaining us.
…I mean, yeah, not me. But most of us, I think.
I, on the other hand, judged each of those presentations so hard, because why the hell not? It’s not like any of these people have souls, anyway, right? Let’s go one by one:
Microsoft
Ok, I’m gonna go ahead and say it. Microsoft is so damn American. Always trying to be out of the gate first, with our sleek shiny shit, acting like no one else is doing anything. Really, we should punch ourselves and Microsoft.
I mean yeah, ok, Microsoft did announce a bunch of new games like Recore, Halo Wars 2, Gears of War 4, State of Decay 2 and Forza Horizon 3, plus some really cool-looking indies, like Inside, and We Happy Few. Annoyingly, they also announced a refinement on the Xbox One console, the Xbox One S and something called Project Scorpio, which had me all like, “Guys, what even is a Teraflop?”
For some reason, Microsoft is pulling all the stops, telling us well ahead of time when major hardware updates are coming and what will be compatible. Saying things like, “Oh, you wanna play on your PC? That’s cool, we got you,” but everyone’s acting like they should sit down and shut up.
The only reason I can think for that is that everyone’s still pissed about this:
Which is like, yeah, fair point.
Sony
Sony rolled up into that bitch with a full orchestra. No joke. Then, they were like, “Oh you liked that, did you? How about that bearded Kratos? Don’t forget Kratos Jr.!” And predictably, everyone lost their shit.
That was even before Hideo Kojima showed up with his weird ass CG movie that may or may not be a game. Don’t look at me like that. Just because Norman Reedus is in it, and has an umbilical to some whales, or headcrabs or whatever, doesn’t mean I haven’t noticed that there isn’t a release date, or even an engine decided on, for that matter. Look, I’m not saying it wasn’t cool. I’m saying that we all probably have a good few years to get excited about Death Stranding, so I’ll just hold off for now.
While probably not the most hyped, Resident Evil: Biohazard and Detroit: Become Human both looked pretty promising. Batman: Arkham VR also looks pretty cool, but I can’t shake the feeling that Sony will treat that sweet VR headset in the same way they’ve treated all of their other peripherals. It’s like, Sony and VR are going on a date, and Sony is 98.5% likely to ghost afterwards. VR will be texting Sony like, “I had a good time! How’s your week going?” and Sony will text back like four days later with “Been hella busy with this Kojima thing. Sorry can’t rly hang.”
Nintendo
Oh, Nintendo. You lovable rascal, you. Somehow, somewhere along the way, you became convinced that the rules didn’t apply to you. Somehow, someone very high up on the chain decided that it was possible to create and distribute products within a particular industry without being a part of it. And by “being a part of it” I mean, at the very least trying to keep up with your primary competitors in terms of hardware.
But hey, what would life be, if there were no variety, right? It’s lovable scamps like you that really keep things interesting. Which is why so many of us are willing to sit through a whole 40 minutes of Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon before getting to that cool new thing they’re calling Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which does look pretty awesome.
And oh yes, and there is a new console coming out in March 2017 called the NX, which everyone already kinda knew. There really isn’t that much info out there about this new console, but it’s anything like the Wii U, expect it to be about on par with the latest and greatest tech available 9 years ago. But, hey, it’s a family-focused machine you’ll (at some point) be able to play Smash Brothers in, so a good number of people will undoubtedly hang out for that.
As I said, there is a distinct possibility that none of these people have souls, but a good number of them do have some impressive games and hardware they can’t wait to share with us. All of which means that fortunately for all of us, a soul is not a prerequisite to a successful E3 experience.
For further evidence of this, check out our E3 Liveblog coverage of Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo‘s full presentations for more in-depth ruminations on the gaming’s industry’s Superbowl.
So who’s the real E3 winner, you ask? That’s easy. You are.
Not only do you get your pick of the best show in gaming, but you get to fast-forward through the boring parts. And isn’t that what life is all about?
