I was originally going to write about E3 broken down by the three major console manufacturer’s but on second thought I decided it was a rather boring E3 this year so I’ll break it down to a few paragraphs instead.
First… Microsoft. They decided to price the XboneX at$500 targeting less than 10% of Americans…. good job? I guess the 90% will live on knowing Microsoft doesn’t care about them. Oh well, I wasn’t all that impressed by the graphics in the games they showed off as “exclusive” anyway. They also kept touting the “most powerful console ever made” joining previous generations with…. WiiU (if you consider it last gen), PS3, Xbox 1a, N64, and the Atari Jaguar…. ummm ok. Am I the only one that notices the trend? Outside of the XboneX… they really didn’t have a whole lot, probably because the biggest upcoming games they had, they’ve cancelled leaving a ginormous hole in their library, not to mention all the defecting third parties. I think I am mostly looking forward to Cuphead on this console. The backwards compatibility with the original Xbox 1 was also pretty interesting and surprising. But I have no games from that console so it doesn’t affect me at all. It feels like a wild attempt at trying to get more games on the console… I’m sorry Microsoft, but the Virtual Console hasn’t actually helped Nintendo a ton.
Sony…. I don’t even really remember much of what they announced. Horizon expansion? Oh Uncharted, I thought that game was Tomb Raider for the first half of the trailer, they really need to consider putting the titles in the corner or something. God of War looked really good. And… wait that was pretty much it. Not showing off Final Fantasy 7 Remake or Kingdom Hearts 3, or anything new really. I actually kind of thought they’d announce the PS4 Pro having a new price point of $349 just to mess with Microsoft, but I guess they decided on having a console $100 cheaper being very similar in graphics was good enough.
Nintendo showed a bunch of stuff we already knew about. Except they actually had I would say the 3 biggest announcements of the show with Metroid Prime 4, a mainline Pokemon, and Mario + Rabbids. All 3 had been rumored. I thought Mario + Rabbids looked amazing, I didn’t have much hope for it when rumors started flying early this year but I think it looks like a solid game. I will say that this show made me far more interested in Mario Odyssey. The hat possession looks really cool and some of the worlds look very unique as well. It reminds me a lot of Super Mario 64 mixed with Banjo Kazooie mixed with Kirby. I’m actually likely going to get it. Oh and praise be to Xenoblade, which despite pre-E3 rumors is sticking to a 2017 launch date.
Oh and there’s Assassin’s Creed.
I mean I would say any year that doesn’t have a major console being shown off is going to be a down year, but then… Microsoft had one… and this was actually the first year at E3 for the Nintendo Switch. So why did this year’s E3 seem so….. boring?
And I leave you with this year’s winner of E3… Devolver….