Wanted to give my opinions on the first day of E3 2015. For the purposes of this article, I will ignore yesterday’s Nintendo World Championships and its announcements and Bethesday, because whatever. They were minor bits to the grand scheme.
First up is Microsoft and really their highlight was backwards compatibility with Xbox 360. Almost universally this has been pegged as their big announcement and I gotta say that I don’t see what the deal is. First of all, the purpose of backwards comparability is to provide owners of your console to have a library of games to play during the first couple of years before the real content unique to the console starts coming out. Well, adding compatibility two years after launch makes me think that Xboned owners have a couple more years of lackluster titles before they get into the meat which is very worrisome if I were a Microsoft fan. I mean yeah being able to play old games is great, but it’s a bit late for that. Second of all, Nintendo did that with the Wii U and that clearly wasn’t a system seller. And last, the comparability seems like the Xbox 360’s BW where the Xbox 1a games you could play on it were few and far between and even when you found one, it wasn’t a great play. They say they have about 100 games that will work later this year. That’s not much. So yeah, it’s nice but not a game breaker.
The second big thing they did was show off more of their VR headset the holo lens, which still is disappointingly NOT holo. First of all, let me say that I am not sold on the VR tech that has been going around the gaming verse right now, not even the grand daddy the Oculus Rift. I mean yeah the tech looks cool and I would definitely want to play with it a little bit, but I can’t see sitting down and playing with a VR headset on my face for more than a 15 minute stretch let alone a 6 hour run. It doesn’t seem like a comfortable way to play. And the same is true fro Microsoft’s solution. Second of all, even for VR, it doesn’t look great. I mean yeah the playing with Minecraft on a table was sweet, but again that doesn’t look overly fun for more than a 10 minute demo. Otherwise you just sit and look at a wall to play Minecraft how we already play it. Yipee?
I will say that the ability to install mods for Fallout 4 on the Xboned is actually kind of cool, although it mostly just begs the question of why are people getting games on the Xboned when they could just get them on a PC?
Ummm what else did Microsoft have? Halo 4 or 5 or some number whatevs, that was announced last year. A remake of Gears of War. <sigh> This is totally the generation of remakes. Gears of War 4 ok that’s something no one saw coming, a sequel to a futuristic shooter. Ok the Rare compilation of all the non-Nintendo Rare games for $30 looks cool, but sad at the same time (why not on Nintendo platform yo?) The new Rare game looks kind of lame though… it looked like it was supposed to have some personality and character but they just forgot to add it. The one and only game I actively thought looked awesome out of the entire Microsoft Press Conference was Cuphead. It looks amazing.
But hey all you Microsoft fans… I am sure you are EA fans too so you must have been happy to hear that on top of the Xbox Live Fees you will now be faces with EA Access fees. FTW.
Sony seemed to beat Microsoft in nearly every aspect yet again. How? Well instead of showing off past games, they actually showed off new and upcoming games. Sony wasn’t without their remakes… they did show of FF7 remake, which I do think is better than a Gears of War remake, though that is just me. But for the most part it was new stuff. Last Guardian looks weird but new and I’m interested. Horizon Zero Dawn looks really interesting and cool. Street Fighter V looks like Street Fighter V. Uncharted looks amazing just like its predecessors. And No Man’s Sky looks phenomenal. I have said once and I will say it again.. this might be the first true killer app of the generation. I actively want to buy a PS4 to get my hands on No Man’s Sky and every new time they show it, I just want it more. I’m sorry Microsoft, Playing 360 games doesn’t do that for me, I already have a 360 for that.