Early Reveals Killed the E3 Surprise

We are less than two weeks away from E3 2015.  It is an exciting time as everyone from video game aficionados to casual fans speculate on what's in store for the show.  During these two weeks, rumours, predictions and even leaks spread across the web like wildfire due to increased levels of interest in E3.  To combat third-parties from leaking their lineups for E3, some game companies adopted the practice of revealing some of their titles in the weeks leading up to the show.  Some people love getting these reveals early because it keeps the games from getting lost in all the hustle and bustle of E3.  On the other hand, these early reveals kill the element of surprise that is a key part of the show's success.

Let's take a trip down memory lane.  What E3 moment made you fall in love with following the event from beginning to end each year?  It certainly wasn't for leaked/revealed games like Titanfall, Gears of War: Judgment, Beyond: Two Souls or Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.  It was surprises that made your jaw drop, got you to sit back in disbelief and possibly left your crying tears of joy.  Some moments that come to mind include Shigeru Miyamoto appearing onstage wielding both the Master Sword and Hylian Shield at the Twilight Princess reveal, the legendary Metal Gear Solid 4 trailers, the return of Kid Icarus and Sony's PS4 reveal.  Everyone has a moment that stands out in their mind, but they all have one thing in common: the element of surprise.

By revealing games early or making these secrets vulnerable to leaks, these companies are hurting the show that serves as a massive marketing push for their products.  Seriously, a product's showing at E3 can make or break it.  Case in point, look at the success of Watch Dogs and Destiny or even the continued struggles Microsoft faces with the lagging sales of the Xbox One.

Speaking of Watch Dogs, nobody knew anything about the game or even the fact that Ubisoft would unveil a brand new property at the end of their E3 2012 press conference.  The surprise of the game's reveal coupled with the scarcity of information about it started a frenzy surrounding Watch Dogs.  In the end, it lead to one of the biggest disappointments of 2014, but not before selling millions upon millions of copies.

Now look at Fallout 4.  Yes, the game's existence has been one of the worst kept secrets in gaming history, but that is beside the point.  Fallout 4 was all but confirmed before Bethesda dropped the trailer earlier this week.

Now, just imagine if Bethesda waited until their E3 press conference this coming July 14th, where hundreds of journalists and millions eyes around the world would be focused on this one event, to reveal the Fallout 4 trailer.  It's not hard to image the audience, both live and at home, would have lost it and Bethesda would have seen a dramatic spike in interest for the game.  By trying to get ahead of third-parties, Bethesda has missed out on a golden opportunity and took a great surprise away from the biggest event of the year for the video game industry.

As much as E3 is about impressing investors and marketing products to a worldwide audience, it is about the gamers.  We are the audience that tunes in every year hoping to be surprised, entertained and ultimately excited for the future of this industry.  Taking the surprises out of E3 only leaves people feeling disappointed.  My advice to game developers and publishers: resist the urge, keep your secrets close to your chest and make E3 2015 an event we will never forget.

Xbox One Reveal Impressions

The next generation of home consoles is just around the corner.  Nintendo has launched the Wii U, Sony has revealed the PlayStation 4, today was Microsoft's turn to reveal their plans for the next generation Xbox.  Being the last out of the gate meant a lot of eyes were focused on Microsoft to deliver the next evolution of their Xbox brand.  Microsoft's reveal was the Xbox One, the next generation system focused on being a one stop shop for entertainment, sports, social networking and gaming.  The initial reveal was this afternoon with plenty of new information being revealed throughout the day from Question and Answer sessions held after the event.  These impressions are of only the reveal itself.  I will leave my thoughts about the Xbox One as a whole to a later date when things settle down.  

Microsoft started their reveal by showing off the actual console itself.  Right off the bat, everybody saw the Xbox One, the new Kinect and the new controller, which were all had a slick industrial design.  From there, Microsoft showed off the Xbox One's interface.  The interface is very similar to that of Windows 8 with the added touches of the Kinect voice control and the ability to run multiple applications at a time.  The voice controls were impressive as the Xbox One instantaneously reacted to the presenter's commands, a huge improvement over the original Kinect's voice controls because they did actually work.  Microsoft then went into detail about the tech behind the Xbox One.  They separated this segment into three sections: the system, Kinect and the controller.  Microsoft took a quick look at the design and features behind each piece of the Xbox One.  While I personally do not believe for one second that there are forty innovations in the controller, this segment was enjoyable as it was concise and to the point unlike one other console manufacturer that loves to talk for hours on end about their consoles specs by the name of Sony.  The first half of the reveal concluded with a look at the new Xbox Live, which will boast thousands of servers, dynamic achievements and improved cloud storage.  

The second half of this reveal was where everything fell apart for Microsoft.  The first half got everybody excited to see what this new console could create.  Sadly, Microsoft could not show the software to back up their claims.  Nothing shown in the last thirty minutes did anything to excite, it actually made this writer role his eyes and yell at the television in disdain repeatedly.  Microsoft touted that they will be releasing fifteen exclusives for the Xbox One during the console's first year on the market.  Eight of those exclusives are suppose to be brand new franchises yet they had barely anything to show.  Microsoft did show teasers for Forza Motorsport 5, a series that is quickly overstaying its welcome, and Quantum Break, a new game from Remedy that looks like Beyond: Two Souls just with a young girl instead of Ellen Page.  The lack of first-party support at the reveal was very telling of how little Microsoft cares about their first-party content outside of milking Halo for all it is worth.  The third-party games on display were not much better.  EA Sports made fools of themselves by showing off their new Ignite engine along with a montage of what their games will "look" like on Xbox One.  This montage was very similar to the Madden 2006 target video showed off at the 360's reveal.  Personally I found it insulting for EA to try and pull the same crap they did at the beginning of this current generation.  There is no way these graphics will be possible on the Xbox One right out of the gate and people are not dumb enough to believe it.  EA should stop insulting the intelligence of the audience and show actual gameplay footage.  The other third party publisher at the reveal was Activision, who showed off the first gameplay footage for Call of Duty: Ghosts.  Despite Activision's attempts to convince those watching of the huge leap of graphics and gameplay from Modern Warfare 3 to Ghosts, it is more of the same with prettier graphics.  Ghosts was nothing special and the fact that it ended this presentation just left a bad taste in this writer's mouth.  Microsoft also announced a Halo television series and a partnership with ESPN, but honestly there was no reason to have these announcements thrown in with the rest of the game reveals.

Overall, Mircosoft started out strong with their showcase of the Xbox One's interface and features.  The last half of the Xbox One's reveal was a disaster.  There was no software to back up all the tech and features that Microsoft showed off at the beginning of the reveal.  This lack of software extremely hurt the Xbox One's first impression.  It did nothing to convince those skeptical to put down the cash to buy the Xbox One day one.  The fact Microsoft clearly told everyone that they are going to show all the good stuff off at E3 with their countdown clock meant this reveal had no real purpose or focus.  It was more of the same entertainment crap Microsoft has been shoving down our throats for a good two years now.  At one point during the reveal, this writer was ready to jump on the Xbox One bandwagon, but it only took thirty minutes to change those thoughts.  E3 is only a few short weeks away.  Microsoft has a second chance to impress those not convinced by this reveal, but it will be much harder to do so the second time around.  

E3 2012: Sony Press Conference Impressions

As the first day of E3 comes to a close, we saw Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft show their cards.  Some were more impressive than others, but ultimately today we saw what the future holds in gaming from the biggest publishers in the industry.  To close out day one is Sony to either end it with a bang or a whimper.  Surprisingly the result is somewhere in the middle.

The Sony Press Conference had a good starting and ending, but the middle dragged and bad.  The best thing about this year's press conference was that it was much better than last year's boring affair.  Sony gave a good amount of time to each demo, maybe too long for one in particular, and showcased some pretty solid games.  Much like Microsoft, Sony did jump from topic to topic with no sense of focus or direction and it ultimately hurt them and the conference in the end.  Some important topics such as meaningful additions to PlayStation Plus and pushing the PlayStation Vita as more than a port/sequel machine and game showings like The Last Guardian were no where to be found.  Sony's conference started out with the unveiling of Beyond: Two Souls, Quantic Dream's new IP.  It was a very interesting demo that showed off the game's very realistic graphics and gripping story, but like always I would have liked to see more gameplay.  As a first look of a game that will not come out until 2014, it was a good showing nonetheless.  That was followed by PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, Sony's Super Smash Bros. clone, now for both PS3 and Vita.  It was a boring demo that really showed nothing new about the game.  They did reveal two new characters for the game in Nathan Drake and the Big Daddy, but who cares unless they make Kevin Butler one of the fighters.  After that Jack Tretton ran through a bunch of stuff no one really cared about before going into more demos of Assassin's Creed III and Far Cry 3.  While they were new demos for each game, they did nothing to outshine the demos Ubisoft already showed off at their press conference.  Maybe manning a ship in Assassin's Creed III is neat, but the demo really did nothing to make it look that entertaining or interactive for a matter of fact and Far Cry 3's online co-op had some obvious problems with lag and loading textures.  Right in the middle of the show, Sony decided to shift gears and target the casual gamers with Wonderbook, a neat concept that Sony will never fully support in the long run.  They demoed the J.K. Rowling's Book of Spells for Wonderbook, which was absolutely terrible and soo long drawn out that I almost fell asleep due to boredom.  Also on top of that the PlayStation Move was so finicky and non-responsive that it made the demo even worse.  That was clearly the lowest this press conference could go as things got much better with a demo of God of War: Ascension, which is really more of the same God of War experience, but still good.  To end the conference, Sony went with The Last of Us.  While the demo was very impressive yet looked like it played a lot like Uncharted, I thought Sony would save at least one surprise for the very end.  After The Last of Us demo, which has got me a little more interested, the conference just seemed to end and it felt odd.

Overall, Sony's E3 2012 Press Conference was a decent event.  It had quite a few good moments, but nothing that surprised me and got me excited.  Beyond: Two Souls would have been a big surprise only if Sony kept their mouth shut and did not reveal that Quantic Dream was going to announce it at their conference.  The big dip in quality right in the middle along with the omissions of some big topics and The Last Guardian, which I now believe sadly will not see the light of day, hurt this conference more than Sony has actually realized.

Grade:  C+