Watching now, but had me cracking up in class when it started
MS
- New Console and Gears of War in the first few minutes of and some people were posing it was boring
Sony
- GoW (TLOU version) to start and many proclaiming it to be the best conference eva!!
Obviously not the same people but the difference in tones is hilarious
It's all in the presentation imo.
MS started off their conference with that quick, snappy tempo that I've come to associate them with.
But this is nothing that we haven't seen from them before. The all-green stage is snazzy. Familiar. Comfortable. There's nothing there to throw people out for a loop like what happened with Sony's grandiose start. A new slim console is big news for lots of fans and people in general. So good call, they start it off with that. Problem is, these images were already leaked. By the time Phil is there showing the console off, everyone had already gotten a good look at the console. ( Still wished that whoever who had leaked those XB1S images had decided against doing that. But it's already done. They just have to roll with it. /MS shrug) They follow that with the GeOW demo. It was fine. If they had shown off a beautifully scenic area or shown how they've done something new with the Gears formula, maybe that would have gotten people talking more about it. But then again when 343 made drastic changes to Halo, the fans were livid so maybe they didn't want to forsake familiarity for (possibly) needless innovation. And I know diff strokes for diff folks and all that, but was that really a 'wow' moment for you? Tbh, that seems to be MS's main issue right now. "It was good but not great." "It was okay." "It was solid". Middling reactions. Safe, solid conferences. E3 is all about the spectacle, isn't it? And being good doesn't cut it when your competitor is aiming for something beyond great.
Sony, on the other hand, opened their conference in this grand, opulent-looking theater. They already have people buzzing about the frigging /venue/. The conductor walks in and people are applauding and I'm here thinking, "Why is Neil Druckmann making such a grand entrance?" The lights are dimmed, the crowd goes silent and the
/live orchestra/ start playing for a full what 3 minutes? There's a crescendo of nordic-esque music, the curtain rises and you see this boy playing with his tattered toys. Is this Horizon? TLOU2? A new IP? A gruff voice speaks and the camera pans to Kratos. Kratos with a /son/. The crowd roars. It also helps that the game looks absolutely stunning.
Sony it seems like have gotten that E3 conference formula down pat. They even took a page out of MS's own book and cut out the bloat. Focusing mainly on a snap, snap, snap of back-to-back games.