Nintendo: 8/10
Overall, they had my favourite presentation, mainly on the innovation, brilliance, and pure fun of Mario Odyssey (the opening of that trailer with the dinosaur, before revealing Mario blew my mind), the promising Xenoblade 2, and the megaton of Metroid Prime 4. Treehouse Live also continues to be a brilliant initiative. Watching the live co-op of Yoshi was really fun and cute, and seeing the producer of ARMS school the tournament players is pretty great. The main absences that stung for me were Animal Crossing, Smash Bros., Monster Hunter XX, and Dragon Quest XI. As well, the Switch has been a brilliant indie machine so far, so I was also a bit bummed that they didn't show off a lot of the really cool-looking indies on the horizon.
Sony: 5/10
Sony actually have a fantastic lineup for 2017 and beyond. I think the problem is they had already played so many cards too early, so we already knew about most of the games they'd shown off. If Spider-Man and/or God of War were announced this year, it would have seemed much more exciting, but instead it largely felt like a repeat of their conference last year. Still no release date for Days Gone and Detroit is a head-scratcher. Dreams and Sucker Punch were MIA though they could just not be ready to show off their stuff yet. I also think it was a mistake to not put exciting games like Gran Turismo, Crash, Everybody's Golf, Ni no Kuni, Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, and Ace Combat 7 which were present at the event or pre-show in the actual main conference, and they didn't show off any indie games on stage at all. That second one especially was a big mistake since initiatives like Limited Run Games have thrived on Playstation and revolutionized the indie scene, so I thought it would be really nice to give the scene some love on the biggest stage possible. Maybe that's more a PSX thing but it was a surprise seeing Microsoft eat their lunch on that front. Lastly, the show's abrupt nature, and the orchestra/performance art being mainly used to show off already-known games, made it seem less exciting than it was last year where it was accompanying big news like God of War or The Last Guardian's release date. With how little Layden was out on stage, it felt more like a halfhearted attempt to justify why this is a stage show.
Microsoft: 6/10
This was a great multiplatform game conference, but it was kind of weak as an argument as to why you should buy an Xbox One (X, S, or otherwise). As a non-Xbox owner there wasn't a lot of incentive for me to really be interested in the ecosystem since virtually everything they showed was playable elsewhere. Wasn't really feeling their first-party lineup except for maybe Sea of Thieves which looks charming, and Cuphead which is a major labour of love. Dragon Ball FighterZ was an announcement that came out of nowhere and melted my brain. OG Xbox backwards compatibility was a great reveal. Overall the variety of games they showed off was pretty impressive and since I wasn't really planning to get an XB1X anyway, I didn't feel that chuffed about that side of things.
Ubisoft: 6/10
Ubisoft started and ended strong with the WTF--hey this is actually pretty cool nature of Mario + Rabbids, and the WHOOOA nature of Beyond Good and Evil 2. Though some of the details that came out afterward for the latter game are iffy, the excitement when it suddenly dawned on us what we were seeing made it feel crazy in the moment. Plus I love the female protagonist. As far as stuff in the middle goes, South Park continues to look good and that's about it for me.
Bethesda: 4/10
They didn't need to do a conference. Evil Within and Wolfenstein were really strong but could've been part of any other conference. The rest they showed was really minor in comparison to everything else. The main reason they get points is because even as someone who doesn't play too many FPSes, the Wolfenstein trailer was really, REALLY good.
EA: 0/10
Their conference was pretty much a bomb aside from A Way Out which actually looks pretty cool. Too many gimmicky, awkward presenters, too much time spent on sports games where we already know the drill, and they talked up how much they'd heard the demand for a single-player mode in Battlefront which they proceeded to not show. Their biggest announcement, Anthem, wasn't even properly shown off at their own conference, but at Microsoft's.
Overall thoughts on the conferences: 6/10
Overall thoughts on the games: 8/10
While Sony and MS's conferences weren't quite as earth-shattering as in the past, and the three third-parties' were mostly run of the mill, there are plenty of games on the horizon to look forward to, major and indie alike. Maybe in the moment it wasn't the most brain-melting thing ever, but this was a very consistently strong lineup of games and I'm pretty staggered by just how much there is I can't wait to play.