so i went to the sony conference. it was my first shot at such a thing. sony bused a lot of people in from various hotels, but i wound up driving some coworkers there. it fairly organized. after you sign in, you get a wrist band, and then you can mingle for about two hours, have free food truck food and free beer and soda and water. saw feep during this segment.
about half an hour before the show, people begin heading into the stadium where the conference was. then we got to sit in these tiny seats built probably for audiences in the 50s or 60s. it was like being in the back seat of a car where the driver had pushed the seat back. or at least it felt like that to me.
it was well air conditioned, which was nice considering there were quite a lot of people in there. then the conference happened. i don't know what it was like for people watching at home, but the biggest, and i mean the biggest reaction was for gta v- something that dumbfounded me. grim fandango was a good second place (and even i threw in some applause for that one, since i've never been able to play it).
this was a better conference than last year, but it was so much more difficult to watch. here's how i would have done it.
0:00-0:05: showcase oreshika. make an event of it. then spend the other time showing off a sizzle reel of vita games
0:06-0:14: reveal persona 5, talk about the longevity of the ps3, and show a sizzle reel of upcoming ps3 games
0:15-0:23: use this as a springboard to talk about playstation (vita) tv, and how all those games will be available through playstation now. also, talk a bit about playstation now.
0:24-0:34: reveal littlebigplanet 3 and bloodborne or something previously unseen in the transition to ps4 games. showcase one game with exclusive content (destiny)
0:35-0:40: sizzle reel of ps4 games due in 2014. this is where they should have shown stuff like year old games like the last of us and gta v. this is also where a lot of those third-party games could have gone.
0:41-0:47: also talk about indies in a broad sense. once more, focus on a game instead of a couple. then if there's time, do another sizzle reel of upcoming indie games.
0:48-0:50: thanks for coming, but in case you weren't aware, we're making uncharted 4.
first off, it cuts out the really boring parts, like the absolutely pointless powers segment, or the things that seem out of place like the ratchet & clank movie trailer (and talk of a semi-remake of the first game, but no footage). second, it gives a sense of weight to certain things, so that the audience is wowed by the big stuff. otherwise, there's a big sense of diminishing returns. am i supposed to be super excited for abzu? or no man's sky? or batman? or gta v again? or metal gear solid v? because these games received about the same level of attention. finally, it offers a sense of variety, and should give off a feeling that there's a lot more than what there was. i mean this conference was one hundred and ten goddamn minutes long holy shit. it could have been half as long and twice as good.
i didn't see all of the microsoft show, but i will say that from what i saw, it appealed much closer to my sensibilities. i came away from the two feeling that microsoft was light and fun and that most of what sony was showing was way too fucking serious. it started with serious destiny then serious infamous dlc then serious the order then serious bloodborne. i actually smiled a bit during the dead island 2 trailer before i realized what it was. and i genuinely liked the lbp3 stuff because of the fuckups and that the game looked to be more a platformer than its direct predecessor. outside of those moments, it was back to stupidly dark shit for no reason, and it could have been broken up by showcasing some of those vita titles which were more lighthearted.
and worse, the conference ended on that uncharted 4 trailer the way it did. i'm not a huge fan of uncharted, but i understand the series to be a sort of indiana jones kind of affair. now it looks like it's turning even way too dark for what was intended for the series. how has this company had four shots at making a fun swashbuckling adventure and failed every god damn time to nail down the tone.
