• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

E3 Press Conference Grading Thread

Who had your favorite E3 press conference?


Results are only viewable after voting.
Bethesda gets a 7/10. Like that they dedicated a lot of time to their games, lack of announcements though.

Microsoft I'd give a 7/10 too. Some interesting games but their big fall titles showed pretty badly to me, Halo 5 and RotT looked pretty boring. Dragged a bit in places and there was no "wow" moment for me.

EA gets a 5/10. Just boring, no interest at all from me except for Mirror's Edge and Unravel which saved it from getting a worse rating.

Ubisoft gets a 6/10, some boring looking games that appear to be no different than their usual open world shooty cliche. For Honor looked very interesting though and another South Park game is welcome.

Sony... well, Sony gets infinity/10 for basically making the ultimate fanfiction press conference a reality. TLG, FF7R and Shenmue 3 all in one place. Plus Horizon looking incredible, Dreams looking intriguing and Uncharted 4 showing really well. This is a conference that will never be topped.

Nintendo is slapped with a 2/10. Nothing E3 worthy was shown here, just a bunch of filler because they're given up on their home console and 3DS is also dying down. Pointless and silly.

Square-Enix can have a 6/10. The presentation was very old school and the talking maybe lasted a bit too long. Ending on a game concept is a very strange thing to do. KH3 looks stunning though and Nier 2 was a megaton. Truly the E3 of dreams.

PC Gaming Show I didn't really watch too much of as it was very boring so I won't score that one.

All in all, maybe the best E3 ever.
 
Square Enix 2/10

They continue to mishandle the dragon quest brands. They have a brand new dq coming to ps4, the first one in 5 years to be released in America and they don't even mention it out side of a quick flag during a trailer montage. Not to mention we still don't have announcements on the other games we haven't got.
 
I only watched Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, so I'll just grade those.

Sony: A-
Strong showing from Sony. Obviously, TLG, FFVIIR, and Shenmue stole the show, but it was solid all around. I loved what they showed for Horizon: Zero Dawn and Uncharted 4, and Media Molecule's game looks potentially cool even if I was left more than a little baffled after seeing it.

Microsoft: B
A fairly good show, but not without its flaws. Unlike apparently everyone else, I liked the look of Sea of Thieves, but I do wish we got a new installment of a classic rare IP instead of just a collection of them. Gameplay of Halo 5 and Gears 4 looked good, but after Halo 4 and Judgement I'm kinda soured on both brands. Awesome indie showing though. Very excited for Tacoma and Cuphead. Recore looks cool, but no gameplay shown is a bummer.

Nintendo: C-
The weakest of the three. It started off strong with puppets and Star Fox, but they spent way too much time having Miyamoto talk about Star Fox in front of the shrine. The overly long developer talks seemed to be a thing, and while the idea is a great one, they really dragged down the pace in places. They also didn't announce as many new games as I would've liked. The far off date for Xenoblade bummed me out, as well as the new Metroid games. Honestly, the Smash direct was more exciting.
 
Well, that's an obvious result.

I'll grade what I watched:

Sony: A. It's what E3 dreams are made of. We'll never get this sort of thing again.
Microsoft: B. Solid presentation, just not much content that was of my interest.
Squeenix: B- Some cool announcements, in terms of trolling Squeenix brought their A game though.
EA: Awful. Didn't even show proper ME2 gameplay.
Nintendo: Yeah no. I like how they present their digital events, but jesus that was dreadful. Expectedly so, I guess, but still worse than one would expect. This is what happens when you have an utterly dead system you can't bother to spend resources on, and the next one is still too far away to reveal.
PC Gamer: lol. Watched only bits and pieces here and there because it was so unbelievably boring.
 
Man I feel like every press con after this will always be compared to the Sony one and probably fall short every time for a long time. That'll be kind of disappointing.
 
Sony: A+. TLG, FF7R, and Shenmue 3. Just an amazing thing to see live. Sold me on a PS4.
Nintendo: B. I'm incredibly critical of this conference because it killed the Wii U. But it still had an excellent 3DS showing. The new Mario RPG, Zelda, and Metroid all look like games I'd enjoy. Also, while the Wii U's showing was very terrible, I think Star Fox looks fun.
Square Enix: B. KH3 looks fun. Deus Ex looks fun. Hitman looks fun. World of Final Fantasy looks fun and is gonna be on the Vita! I was happy about their presence this year.
Ubisoft: B-. I wanted South Park and could care less about the rest of their line up. I got South Park. I didn't expect more, I got what I wanted, I'm happy.
Bethesda: B-. I don't generally care about Bethesda games but it kinda sold me on Fallout 4, a game I previously had no interest in.
EA: D. Mirror's Edge and Star Wars look fun. Nothing else looks remotely interesting to me.
Microsoft: F. The only new game that interested me was Cuphead, a game we already saw last year. So many demos for walking simulators, so little demos for actual gameplay. It just was awful. Sure, they had backwards compatibility and a new controller. But backwards compatibility isn't new games, and I'm not buying a controller when there's no games I'm interested in. This conference made me wish I hadn't bought my Xbox One, because there's really no games coming out for it that I'm interested in.
 
Man I feel like every press con after this will always be compared to the Sony one and probably fall short every time for a long time. That'll be kind of disappointing.

actual first gameplay presentations of the holy trinity at the next e3 might top it ^^

Microsoft: F. The only new game that interested me was Cuphead, a game we already saw last year. So many demos for walking simulators, so little demos for actual gameplay. It just was awful. Sure, they had backwards compatibility and a new controller. But backwards compatibility isn't new games, and I'm not buying a controller when there's no games I'm interested in. This conference made me wish I hadn't bought my Xbox One, because there's really no games coming out for it that I'm interested in.

but why did you buy it in the first place then? this lineup is what one would expect right (as it is the same as always)?
 
Sony A+ - they brought it. New games, exciting announcements

Microsoft b+ - I'm a rare fan so the rare stuff made this conference for me.

Nintendo B- I thought it was good. No crazy announcements but they showed a lot of games that I want to play and will be able to soon. If we couple in the smash direct and NWC, Nintendo gets an A.
Ubisoft -C I don't like Aisha or most ubisoft projects. This conference did nothing for me but division looks neat
 
Bethesda B - I love fallout but nothing else did much for me. Still though it's Fallout.

MS A- - Halo, Gears, BC, Hololens, Fable, Rare comeback, Fallout mods and some great looking Indies plus a preview program. Think they could have added one more surprise to make it an A or included 1 of the games coming to gamescon.

Sony B - Seems like they have nothing so went for gimmicks. Hate Uncharted so really left with Shenmue and I'll keep an eye on Horizon though I was expecting more of an RPG feel. If it wasn't for Shenmue would be an F.

Sony criticised for gimmicks in the same post Microsoft is praised for Hololens. Amazing.
 
Sony's Conference rank

aAMn22R.gif


Microsofts Conference rank

giphy.gif


Nintendos Conference rank

dont+let+me+lose+my+jaded+misanthropy.gif
 
Microsoft - A: The games they showed are coming this year or early next year. BC was a nice surprise. Hololens looks awesome.

Sony - B: The games they showed are coming........? At some point in the future, I guess.
 
Oh, I want to add that watching and hearing peoples reactions to sony's conference was a lot of fun even if It didn't do much for me personally. They were giving their fans exactly what they want. They've really turned shit around over the past couple of years.
 
8/10 for Bethesda - Tuned in just for the Dishonored 2 reveal and, to a lesser extent, more gameplay from Fallout 4. Even though Dishonored 2 didn't show any gameplay, I got very excited nonetheless. I mean, Emily as a protagonist?? Who wouldn't be excited? Also, Fallout 4 looks great from an artistic perspective, I love the colours compared to the dull looking Fallout 3 (still a great game), and it seems to have a lot of depth with its crafting and other stuff.

6/10 for Microsoft - A nice conference. Nothing exactly stood out for me, I don't particularly like the Xbox IPs, but I suppose it was objectively a. High points were definitely the Dark Souls III reveal, although we already knew of it.

6/10 for EA - Didn't even know why I bothered, I only watched for the new Mass Effect and while luckily it did got confirmed, I expected actual gameplay. I suppose it's too soon, so it still felt underwhelming. Not a big fan of Star Wars, so Battlefront doesn't do a lot for me.

6/10 for Ubisoft - Exactly like EA. Didn't even know why I watched this, I suppose I didn't have a lot to do at that moment. But my attention was rewarded one minute in with South Park Butthole and it's exactly there where the show peaked for me.

9/10 for Sony - I don't have a PS4 yet and I don't even like a lot of the games that got a lot of hyped, but Sony has some sick fan service and I can really appreciate that. Also, with Horizon: Zero Dawn it had the best game of E3 so far.

3/10 for Nintendo - It may not be objectively a three, but that's how I feel. I didn't expect new Zelda U gameplay (already confirmed it wouldn't show), Metroid 5, F-Zero UX, Mario 64 HD or sequel, or whatnot, but literally everything they showed was of zero interest to me. They should have called it a E3DS event and be done with it. I was expecting at least one or two unexpected and hype worthy games. Instead we didn't get shit to genuinely look forward to.

6/10 for Square Enix - Nice conference, but I only tuned in for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Surprisingly I saw other nice things as well, Just Cause 3 seemed like a fun and brainless "destroy everything and cause mayhem" kind of game, and glad to see a little

N/A for PC Gaming - Unfortunately it aired late at night/morning here in Europe and I had to get up early today, so I didn't watch it.


TL;DR - Sony wins E3 for me, Horizon is the best game of the event. Bethesda comes second, very stoked for Dishonored 2. The rest had acceptable and decent conferences, with the new Mass Effect and South Park Butthole reveals being the most notable to me, while Nintendo had wet shit.
 
I dont understand the people saying that everything Sony announced is like 3 years away.

The only two things that fall under that are FF7R and Shenmue 3.

And Shenmue 3 HAD to be announced early now due to the kickstarter.

FF7R is really the only guilty party there.
 
Sony: A (not because they had the best games but because over all it was the most exciting conference, they also showed lots of games)
MS: A- ( lots of games, BC was a great announcement)
EA: C (Alright, was expecting some ME4 gameplay)
Square Enix: C+ (Jensen is back, that's all im gonna say)

couldn't watch anything else
 
]Microsoft - A: The games they showed are coming this year or early next year[/B]. BC was a nice surprise. Hololens looks awesome.

Sony - B: The games they showed are coming........? At some point in the future, I guess.

You know this how? Many of the games sony showed are early next year or sometime later next year, They didn;t just show FF7 and shenmue. In fact I am pretty sure what you posted is in fact incorrect.
 
I dont understand the people saying that everything Sony announced is like 3 years away.

The only two things that fall under that are FF7R and Shenmue 3.

And Shenmue 3 HAD to be announced early now due to the kickstarter.

FF7R is really the only guilty party there.

I made that same point earlier in the thread. As you mentioned, everything they announced or showed aside from Shenmue 3 and Final Fantasy VII is indeed pegged for 2015 or 2016. In any case, E3 conferences do have a habit of having announcements for games 2+ years away (Kingdom Hearts 3, Crackdown, Scalebound etc).

nib95 said:
Games shown or announced at the Sony E3 presser.

Horizon - 2016
Uncharted 4 - 2016
The Last Guardian - 2016
Star Wars Battlefront - 2015
Dreams - 2016
No Man's Sky - 2015
Arkham Knight - 2015
Firewatch - 2015
Street Fighter V - 2016
Call of Duty - 2015
Assassin's Creed Syndicate - 2015
Destiny DLC - 2015
Hitman - 2016
Disney Infinity 3 - 2015
Ronin - 2015/16
Mother Russia Bleeds - 2015/16
Crossing Souls - 2015/16
Eitr - 2015/16
Shenmue 3 - NA
Final Fantasy VII Remake - NA
 
Sony's conference blew my mind. Its hard to compare any of the other conferences to it. I don't see the point of grading them this year personally. 5 years from now the sony conference will live on in legend, and the others will be forgotten.
 
Oculus = XB1 Controller/10 Honestly it was a terrible and completely unnecessary conf. They're new to the game so I'll cut them some slack. Walled garden VR on PC bugs me a lot though.
Bethesda = B+ Very solid conference. Doom/Fallout look awesome. Lots of gameplay.
Microsoft = B- Decent but safe conference. New Rare game looks cool, BC is nice even though it's pretty late in the generation. New controller is cool until I heard the price. I don't think Halo/Gears demo'ed all that well.
EA = D- Only redeemed by Battlefront/Mirrors Edge.
Ubisoft = B Pretty solid showing. Everything was Tom Clancy but those games did seem cool. Still excited about The Division: Asshole Edition and as far as entertainment goes it was fun.
Sony = A What can I say that hasn't already been said? Sony murdered the conf scene and it will never be the same again. The only reason I didn't give it an A+ is because I would've liked to hear a solid date/price for Morpheus.
SE = C I understand the hype for Nier, but as far as a conference goes, it was so old school and dry.
 
Uhh Sony by far

Jesus, what a megaton of a conference that was

I want to see more live reactions like the one above my post
 
Don't pull that fanboy shit cause the only Playstation system I own is a Vita, and we both know damn well that the Vita is not a reason that conference was good.

Simmer down, tough guy.

If you can't see the humor being pointed out, you're too invested. Relax and laugh a little.

(I don't own any of the current-gen consoles, btw.)
 
Simmer down, tough guy.

If you can't see the humor being pointed out, you're too invested. Relax and laugh a little.

(I don't own any of the current-gen consoles, btw.)

haha sorry. I just remember early yesterday repeatedly being called a Sony fanboy for being thoroughly disappointed in Microsoft's presser.
 
The ones I watched:

Microsoft - B: Some games that look cool but I'll get on PC (Cuphead, Tacoma, Beyond Eyes), but the only game I plan to buy on Xbox One from this year's E3 wasn't at any conference (Rock Band 4). The stuff that I wasn't interested in, I was indifferent to, but nothing was really awful here, aside from the lighting in the Gears demo.

Nintendo - D+: Star Fox and Mario Maker look good, and the Smash DLC is cool, but while it looks good from a gameplay perspective, that Federation Force reveal was disastrous, and nothing else in the stream tickled my fancy. I spent much of the stream laughing my ass off. Enjoyable show, but not in an intentional manner.

PC Gamer - A-: Love the format and I love the more niche genres and devs getting the spotlight. There wasn't much I saw myself playing, but most of what was shown was impressive either way, something I can't really say for the other two streams.
 
That Sony conference will be a benchmark for years. Only thing that will do it is Kojima returning to a Playstation exclusive Metal Gear, the Bayonetta 3 kickstarter and Agent finally resurfacing all at Sony's 2025 conference. Until then, this is it. Best E3 conference of all time.
 
Hey man, that's the impression I got.

I am not even sure what you mean? MS conference was the same, how did tou get that impression from Sony's and not MS? Did you even see sony's conference? Many of theri games are 2016, like MS. The ones for MS that were 2015 have been shown since 2013......
 
MS gets an A for that awesome controller, some great games actually coming out this year, and backwards compatibility.

Sony gets an A++ for the promise of 2016

Nintendo gets a GTFO with an emphasis on the 'F'
 
Microsoft - B - It was a good conference. I was more interested in it this year more then usual. Personally there was nothing too interesting for me but it was an entertaining watch. That Hololens demo looked like the fakest thing ever though.

EA - D - Battlefront and Mass Effect looked hyped but I literally fell asleep watching them.

Sony - A - Holy shit, dreams come true. I felt real emotions during this press conference and yelled out loud more then once. Horizon looks amazing and is my game of E3 (gameplay!). Only reason its not an A+ is that they hid a bunch of their own games inside a sizzle reel, games coming out this year! And worse they have a bunch of Japanese games coming over that didn't even make it into the sizzle reel. Also since #buildingthelist is just full of Vita games they decided to ignore that as well.

Nintendo - D - Come on they couldn't even give us a name for SMTxFE. At least Xenoblade is coming this year.

Square Enix - (A-) - I did not expect SE to be the savior of JRPGs. Like holy shit they showed something for everybody at that conference. I'm thankful that all they're Japanese projects are confirmed to be localized. I just wish the actual presentation was better.

So yeah Sony was my favourite overall. I know people are saying how everything they showed is wont be out for a while but I'm fine with that. I see E3 as a pep rally for video games, and Sony delivered something to be hyped about. Also I got like 12 preordered retail games coming out between now and December so I'm fine with stuff coming out later. Gives me a chance to refill my wallet lol.
 
I only watched 3.

Sony > MS >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> EA

I was wondering how Sony was going to top MS's BC bombshell and HoloLens. I was actually slightly deflated walking into the theater to get my popcorn before the event. Had there been BC from the beginning, I'd own an XB1 right now instead of a PS4. So that announcement stung. And Rise of the Tomb Raider looked sweet too. There was no way Sony could overcome all of that, right?

WRONG!

They started with The Last Guardian. STARTED the show with it! Then Horizon! Wow that game looks amazing. No Man's Sky's galaxy map was mind-bottling. More Battlefront footage and I'm frothing at the mouth. And finally, I was really, REALLY upset about losing access to Tomb Raider with my console decision UNTIL I saw the footage of Uncharted 4. I'll take a wise-cracking Nathan Fillion lookalike bantering while driving through people's backyards over a foul-mouthed Lara Croft climbing an ice wall any day.

"Crap, crap, crap!" is right. Because that's what my wallet was saying at the end of it all.
 
Microsoft - A: The games they showed are coming this year or early next year. BC was a nice surprise. Hololens looks awesome.

Sony - B: The games they showed are coming........? At some point in the future, I guess.

Only this isn't about what we'll be playing this year, it is about the reactions to the press events. In terms of impact while watching the conferences, most were blown away by the Sony big announcements. Yes, they were hail Mary announcements, but they resonated. Long delayed, desired games will have huge emotional reactions, regardless of the timeline of development they're currently in.
 
Keeping an objective mind and perspective to actual games that I can get my hands on iin the foreseeable future.:

Sony: B
- UC4
- Horizon - ZOMG
- NMS + many other indies

MS: B+
- Halo 5
- Backwards compatible :D
- FM6
- Tomb Raider
- Cuphead
- Gears
- Rare Collection
- mods is kinda cool

Nintendo: D
- zzz
 
I only watched the big 3 (and Bethesda but I don't like Bethesda games so I don't feel right grading them)

Sony: A-
Great presentation without too much filler at all. Would be an A+ but their 1st party 2015 lineup was sparse and 2/3 of their big announcements are vaporware at this point.

Microsoft: B
Also very well constructed but the software wasn't to my taste. Were I a big Xbox fan, I probably would have loved it. As is, I can respect that they had a solid showing but it wasn't for me.

Nintendo: C-
The 3DS portion was pretty great but they bucked expectations too sharply with the lack of new Wii U content. The lack of Devil's Third and Fatal Frame was also baffling. Federation Force should have had a better trailer, and while I'm glad Star Fox is being made, I hope they take the feedback this year about the controls and graphics to heart.
 
Top Bottom