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[K.Sabot]

Microsoft: C
-Comcept / Armeture game was my highest interest, as well as Cuphead looking boss, but their big showcase games didn't do it for me. 3 GAMEPLAY DEMOS THAT INVOLVED RUNNING ON THINGS THAT WERE FALLING APART (Halo, Tomb Raider, Gears)
EA: D-
-Content wise, was abysmal. For how long they've teased the new ME they had nothing to show. Same with Mirror's Edge.
Ubi: C+
- A lot of bland game concepts outside of For Honor, Squeenix may have RPG Factory Japan, but Ubisoft has FPS Factory France (if i may swipe that joke concept from jeff gerstmann for a moment)
Sony: A-
- A lot of red meat megaton announcements, smaller indies were well represented. Uncharted looked okay, but I don't see how it can get me interested in playing it again rather than watching it.
Nintendo: C-
-Sparse, nothing really worth getting excited about. Spin off games and ports / localizations ahoy.
Square Enix: B+
-Yoko Taro getting to make more video games, best reveal of E3.
PC: B+
-PC Conference was very entertaining and full of smaller scale content that wouldn't get noticed in the large, bumbling, awkward publisher conferences.

Sony had the actual megaton announcements, but Square Enix absolutely destroyed everyone in terms of the games they are releasing.

Edit: el finished

 

[Supermanisdead]

Sony fucking crushed it and I CRIED when I saw that petal and heard that classic music.

 

[jiggle]

Sony: A superb presentation
Squarenix: Better than expected
Nintendo: C u NX yr
Microsoft: Dull

 

[Doug Heffernan]

I'll go with best and worst...

Microsoft had the best conference by far for me... BC came out of fucking nowhere, what a bomb to drop! Rare is back, new IP from Inafune, Forza 6 has everything I wanted, Ashen, Cuphead, Halo had a great showing as expected and Gears 4 seems to be in the right hands. Absolutely mind blowing overall!
9/10

Worst was Nintendo... just a complete debacle.
4/10

 

[Barry Burton]

Didn't watch the PC show, but here are my ratings for the rest:

Bethesda (B+): Doom and Fallout 4 were the headliners, and Bethesda spent the majority of the show on gameplay for both of those games. And both looked great. They kept the show mostly about showing games and didn't spend too much time talking. Dishonored 2 announced was just icing on the cake.

Microsoft (B-): This was an alright show that had a lot of games and some good announcements, but my big issue with their first-party lineup just keeps on coming up. It just seems like every conference from them, it's Halo, Forza, Gears and Fable. Every time. There's just not a lot of genre and thematic diversity at their show. So I think for hardcore Xbox fans this show delivered for them, but I'm more interested in stuff like Quantum Break and Scalebound which weren't there. On the plus side, the backwards compatibility announcement and the Rare collection made me very happy. The highlight of the show was the indie section, which really saved this conference for me. All four of the highlighted games looked great, and a few games in the sizzle reel looked like they might appeal to me as well.

EA (D): Just a flat-out bad conference. It was incredible boring, didn't feature that many interesting-looking games, and an inordinate amount of talking. The only positives I took away from it were the new puzzle-platformer Unravel, which was too good to be at such an awful show, and that a new Mirror's Edge is coming out.

Ubisoft (C): Well, it was better than EA's. A lot of awkwardness and both intentional and unintentional comedy made this an easier watch. The weird part is that there may be several games here that I'm interested in, or absolutely none. The overlap in game design and themes between all of their franchises has never been more apparent. If I get Ghost Recon, do I need to play all of these other games that kinda do some of the things Ghost Recon will?

Sony (A): This will go down as one of the best press conferences in E3 history. Games, games, games all the way through. Not too much talking. And bombs being dropped left and right like I've never seen. That, in and of itself, makes a good conference but the vast majority of the games shown are ones that appeal to me. I originally had this as an "A+", but I think it should get docked for how little Morpheus stuff there was, and for The Last Guardian still not ready to release this year. But yeah, what more is there to say? It was great.

Nintendo (C): A total mixed bag. This was not a good presentation, but not a disaster either. There were games there that I'm excited for: Star Fox, Yoshi, Xenoblade, Mario Maker, and others. I *do* like the developer stories even if they are a bit out of place at E3, and the humor hit more often than it missed. But a lot of things really went wrong. I thought Nintendo nailed it last year, as far as showing why the E3 Direct is a better direction for them than the press conference. It felt special, and it was clear Nintendo understood who the audience was. This year was a huge regression in both areas. It felt like an ordinary Direct, and the reintroduction of the Metroid franchise in that manner was a colossal misfire. That just screamed "clueless" to me. There were too many games shown that we've known about for a long time, and most of the new game announcements didn't deserve to be announced at the year's biggest show. I just can't get over how anyone thought it was a good idea to unveil that 3DS Metroid Prime today.

Square-Enix (B): Very solid show. I came for Hitman and Deus Ex and was not disappointed, but I was a bit surprised by their Japanese presence here. And a few complete surprises mixed in like Nier 2 from Platinum. Some issues definitely in the presentation aspect, but yeah: Just Cause 3, Tomb Raider, FFVII remake, Kingdom Hearts 3, Star Ocean, Nier 2, Deus Ex and Hitman. That's a pretty damn strong lineup of games for a press conference.

 

[Shadowninja100]

Sony A: Great Conference, Last Guardian, FF7:R and Shenmue 3 were huge reveals. Horizion looks fantastic and I was really suprised that it came from Guerrilla. The big downside is that most of the games shown won't be out until 2016 or later.

Microsoft B: Recore looks like an interesting new IP, the announcement of Backward Compatability was unexpected, Rare Collection, Cuphead looks fantastic. Overall it was a very strong showing for Microsoft.

Bethesda B: I wasn't much of a fan of doom but Fallout 4 completely blew me away.

Square-Enix B-: A lot of great games were shown but I feel like the presentation itself was pretty bad.

Ubisoft C: South Park was completely unexpected but I wasn't really that interested in their other games.

EA C-: Mirrors Edge and Battlefront looked great. But the sports stuff in the middle was an absolute snooze fest.

Nintendo D: Star fox was looked good, Paper Mario and luigi was unexpected, Triforce warriors looks pretty fun, and the puppets were funny. Other than that Metroid and Animal Crossing really disappointed me and everything else was previously announced. I feel like the should have saved a lot of thier pre-E3 reveals like the Smash DLC and Mother 1 for their Direct. I feel like the really signified the end of the Wii U.

 

[PeskyToaster]

Sony's was legitimately one of the greatest E3 conferences ever. Legendary. No real down parts either, lots of new IP, gameplay, and a tiny slice of TV which is actually a nice deal. I thought MS's dragged in quite a few places and the Gears 4 reveal was underwhelming despite me being a massive fan of the series. I didn't watch Nintendo's but people seemed very disappointed. I thought Bethesda's was an amazing conference as well but it dragged a bit. That Fallout 4 release date was so good.

I don't know how anyone could get down on the Song conference though. Even if you don't care about TLG, Shenmue, or FF7 (even Nier 2 is coming to PS4), they delivered legends and the reactions were so infectious. I couldn't stop smiling. Horizon looked phenomenal, UC4 still looks amazing, and Star Wars Battlefront will make me cry (that Hoth gameplay was absolutely mind blowing at the EA conference). Sony just delivered on every front imaginable this year. I'm gushing some but it was just too good. Everybody got what they wanted, even their wildest dreams and I don't think anybody could seriously rate another conference ahead of it.

Overall, this E3 was one of the best and Sony propelled even further into the stratosphere.

 

[kuhnbeast91]

Bethesda- C+ Im not a huge fan of Fallout, but what they showed was interesting. too much doom

Microsoft- B Very safe conference, but they showed what they needed to show.

Ea- D+ The content of the conference was actually pretty good, but the show was poorly paced.

Ubisoft- B As usual Ubisoft likes to bring the surprises, unfortunately for them I generally don't like their games. South Park could be cool.

Sony- A This was a magical conference and nearly perfect. The pacing was great, the surprises were great, and Sony really looked like they knew what they were doing.

Nintendo- D One of Nintendo's worst showings at E3. I am a big fan of Nintendo, but this digital event means one of two things. They either don't know who watches E3, or they are shifting focus to NX.

Square- C I liked Kingdom Hearts

 

[rockman zx]

Microsoft: 6
EA: 5
Ubi: 5
Sony: 10
Nintendo: 3
Square Enix: 9

 

[wapplew]

Sony
Presentation C+ : they reused the same stage design for 3 years, getting old now. Sizzle reel not that memorable, music choice super generic.
But they start on time for the first time so that's a plus

Pacing and arrangement B+ : the talks are fine and didn't drag too long, usual bad jokes, luckily didn't spend too much time on that.
Started high slow down in the middle and end with high note. Good pacing overall.

Content A+: very diverse line up, game demo really well. 3 dream come true moment just can't be top.


MS: B

EA: C

Ubi: B+

SE: B

Bathesda: B+

Nintendo: B

 

[Busaiku]

Nintendo World Championships - 10
Bethesda - 7
Microsoft - 8
EA - 5
Ubisoft - 8
Sony - 9
Nintendo - 6
Square Enix - 9
Treehouse Day 1 - 9
PC - 7

Sony and Nintendo are different than what I would've rated them immediately following the conferences. After some time to settle, Sony's conference wasn't as good, and Nintendo's wasn't as bad.
Super Mario Maker during the finals was still the greatest thing this year.

 

[Elandyll]

Sony: A. (would be A+ but lack of GT7 or GoW4 -and Bend IP- got it down just a notch, along with shooter overdose with COD/ Destiny. Legendary Presser though.

Bethesda: B+ (Fallen 4 and Doom look amazing)

S-E: B. (Nier 2 / KH III...)

MS: B- (usual trifecta of Halo / Gears/ Forza is beyond tired, but Hololens was cool, and ReCore looks good)

Ubi: C

EA: C-

 

[Nzyme32]

Oculus - D - u-turning on their prior principles and a personality shit to the corporate with obfuscation of info. Oculus touch in theory was a saving grace but with no real info

Bethesda - B - great first show

Xbox - B - Decent content and exclusivity as well as system features and services and hardware. Same old faux exclusive tat though.

EA - D - Star Wars Battlefront is pretty much all they had of meaning

UBI - C - more of the same, but hooray for south Park and anno

Sony - B - 3 crowd pleases of long awaited titles, sparse exclusive content. Lots of beta Dlc and other faux exclusive tat

Nintendo - D - good humour and Star Fox and Mario maker, but so much milking and cash ins.

Square - didn't see

PC - B - diverse, lots of content, friendly atmosphere rather than corporate feel, great host and reveals, although a bit long and could have done with some more reveals

 

[SatoAilDarko]

Microsoft: B+

Solid press conferences with a good mix of big reveals and exclusives.

EA: C+

The sports section dragged and the constant pushing of Star Wars was weird. The Mass Effect teaser and Mirror's Edge showing each needed more. The former information and the latter more solid idea about game flow.

Ubisoft: C+

Other than South Park their games for me were the most uninteresting especially just due to those three 4-player co-op Tom Clancy games. There were three of them. Three.

Sony: A-

Sony feels weird because objectively I feel they were weaker than Microsoft and a ton of stuff was far away. The thing was their three big game reveals are completely crazy due to historical significance. That's hard to grade. I mean FFVII was completely prerendered, Shenmue III was a Kickstarter start and The Last Guardian was a very short demo. In fact Horizon really helped them most of all.

Nintendo: C-

The puppets were great and honestly really funny. Outside of that the pacing was horrendous. None of the sit down interviews didn't really tell anything about the games (Skylanders!). Cut all of those to a minute and Wooly World should have been a trailer. Finally stuff like Fatal Frame and Devil's Third should have been acknowledged. Also how can you have Aonuma on the talk about two Zelda games and not comment on the Wii U one. Finally don't release a chibi Metroid as the Metroid comeback.

Square Enix: B

Very good conference but the whole games with concept art should never take too long.


These don't reflect solely my views on the actual games shown otherwise stuff would be different.

 

[Qwerty710710]

Only watched Sony and MS.

Sony 3/10- Pretty boring conference overall don't give a flying fuck about the 3 "big" games they showed. Last Guardian looked like shit the only good game was Horizon.

MS 7/10- Could of done better, BC saved it for me.

 

[illmatic22]

Bah gawd, stop the damn poll, those conferences have familys dammit!

 

[ElRenoRaven]

For me personally it was Microsoft who won it for me. That's just my personal choice. I've never been interested in Last Guardian or Shenmue. So for me those did not really get me hyped. I did like the Guerrilla game shown and of course Uncharted will be fun. I'm not saying the Sony conference sucked. It was actually pretty packed without a lot of fluff.

Microsoft for me had what I was looking for though. Again like Sony their conference was pretty packed. Halo looked interesting. Gears Remaster looks interesting. Rare Replay is a must buy. The Rare pirate game looked interesting. Backward compatibility is something I am overjoyed to see coming. Oh and Recore looked interesting too.

Nintendo wise I didn't bother to watch their Direct so I won't comment on that. So overall I give both Sony and Microsoft 9/10s for their conferences. Both had a lot of stuff shown. I think anyone who owns the consoles will have plenty of good stuff coming their way.

 

[Navy Bean]

Only watched Sony and Microsoft.

MIcrosoft: A-. BC, controller, and exclusive games this year. Needed to show Crackdown and Quantum.

Sony: B. TLG might be cool but it's been around for years and still not releasing until next year (maybe). FF and Shenmue are years away. Basically played to the hardcore fanboys but nothing in the near future.

 

[BotoxAgent]

Sony: A++++ definitely the best E3 conference and probably won't be topped for a few years. And I'm a Street Fighter fanboy, so they already won my soul with SFV at PSX. Anything else would have been gravy, but then they whipped out the holy trinity of megatons. And then Horizon and Uncharted.....holy crap!!

Microsoft: C- never been a Halo fan nor Gears and these presentation haven't changed my apathy towards them. BC is def a promising feature tho.

Nintendo: didn't watch

 

[trixx]

Sony- A: Fantastic conference with great game play demos from Horizon and Uncharted. Nice announcements

Microsoft- B: Solid conference. Needed less cgi trailers and more gameplay. New IPs severely needed, only had ReCore which was a cgi and pirate game aside from indies. Great overall, only disappointed with the pitch black Gears trailer and the new rare game

Nintendo- F: Nothing much to be said. I liked the puppets, turned it off after animal crossing

Bathesda- C+: Aside from Fallout reveals it was whatever to me. DOOM looks like generic shooter #382 the only thing that intrigued me was map creation. Everything else was forgettable. CGI/title reveals w/e to me.

Didn't watch any other conferences. Liked Kingdom hearts 3 reveal but missed out on Square Enix conference because I was so pissed at the Nintendo one.

Don't care for EA or Ubisoft.

 

[Nothing1016]

Sony : A

Having FFVII Remake and TLG at the same conference is impeccable. Shenmue 3 was a surprise but the kickstarter rubs me the wrong way. And of course UC4 always looks great.

Bethesda: B

Fallout 4 and Dishonored 2. That's all that needs to be said.

Square Enix: B

KH3, SO5, FF World, Nier 2, Tokyo RPG Factory IP, and FFXV. Japan is coming back. Feels like the good old days when square was firing on all cylinders. Also Tomb Raider looks pretty good.

Nintendo: C

I'm a huge Nintendo fan but they didn't really show anything to make me excited. It was very meh. Star Fox looks great, so do the two FE games. Other then that everything else was all right. I have some
Pretty big expectations for next year though. NX, Retro, Zelda, EAD Tokyo, and mobile should make a great conference.

Microsoft: C

Your average MS conference. Nicely paced, cool western games, and Halo. Sad that we didn't get to see some scalebound but I am looking forward to gamescom now.

Ubisoft and EA: D

They brought games. So that is something. Oh Yarny looks cool.

 

[AntiFacebook]

Bethseda - B - because of the dishonored 2 announcment
MS - B - backward compatibility and the rare collection were great announcments, but quantum breakcrackdownphantom dustscalebound were MIA
Sony - C - not a single announcment I cared about
Nintendo - B - FE fates looks nice, and a new metroid!
PC - A+ - a PoE expansion? fuck yeah. the best announcment of this E3 by far
SE - A - Deus ex looks great

 

[Mass Effect]

Allow me to some up my thoughts with trite gifs.

Sony:

Microsoft:

Ubisoft:

Nintendo:

EA:

 

[mishakoz]

Bethesda: A
Loved getting in-depth looks at games instead of the standard 5 minute slot fare. Would have never looked at all the content in separate trailers.

Microsoft: C
Huge step up from last year's conference with prerendered trailers and broken promises. But their big games, halo, tomb raider, and gears all had very strange demoes, did not show well

EA: C-
Sports sports sports sports STAR WARS! Okay, mirrors edge was awesome too, I wish there had been more

Tom Clancy's Ubisoft: C
Eh, some good stuff and some bad stuff. I just think I want to see some more innovative stuff

Sony: A+
Tied with 2013 as Sony's best E3. When it comes down to it, you can make announcements any time of the year. When you want to create hype, announce three big games. Also, there was meat with Horizon, a pleasant surprise.

Nintendo: F
I'm probably being harsh, but not only was there no surprise, there seemed to be a disregard for intelligent decisions. I know Zelda was announced as not being there, but really, it should have been. Star Fox is, yeah, star Fox, was expected to

Square Enix: D+
Not the conference for me, don't play a lot of those games. Just Cause looked great, deus ex, and of course, Kingdom Hearts.

PC Gaming: no grade
Kinda had it on in the background, have no real opinion of it and it was definitely "different" in its vibe, there were no stakes to the announcements. Happy about Planet Coaster and No man's sky.

 

[Pegosaurus]

I voted for Squeenix because of Kingdom Hearts 3

but I think that Sony really won, damn

 

[privitsan02]

Bethesda: B

They knew what they wanted to show. They wanted to show off their games at their pace, with their narrative and without the looming presence of competitors at a console makers conference. They showed Fallout 4 with all the time in the world with a fantastic speaker who not only got me interesting in Fallout for the first time of its existence, but made me interested in actually playing a Bethesda game. The only low point I'd say was how Doom looked from a gameplay perspective as I'm a bigger fan of Doom 3 rather than classic Doom.

Microsoft: B-

While its improved over last year and the backwards compatibility news is absolutely fantastic, they still didn't give me a reason to want an Xbox One beyond its yearly Forza releases. No announcement of a slimmer console, Gears of War having the flattest reveal ever, Rare's new IP reminding me why I don't care about them anymore, Rise of the Tomb Raider being more linear than Uncharted itself and etc. The conference was brilliantly paced but there were a lot of questionable content which I wasn't a fan of.

EA: C-

Need for Speed and Battlefront's gameplay reveals were the only reason I checked their content and while Mass Effect and Mirror's Edge had their moments, and the conference being infinitely better than last years boring mess, EA just showed me why I dislike their conferences so much. Awfully paced and particularly boring, even from a FIFA and NHL fan.

Ubisoft: C

I love Ubisoft. Being from Montreal, I feel a sense of pride and joy whenever I used to see Ubisoft Montreal get on stage and demo one of the biggest games of the year. Nowadays, its seems like every big game from Ubisoft follows the same open world Far Cry + Assassin's Creed formula. Why does Ghost Recon have to be a Far Cry clone? Why does the DIvision look like Watch Dogs with RPG elements in a post apocalyptic world? What happened to Assassn's Creed? The Ubisoft burnout is finally catching up to me and I can't stand how all of their big franchises are just becoming a blur of a bigger picture: Ubisoft's factorized content.

Sony: A+

I have nothing more to say other than bravo, and hopefully next year isn't a massive drop in entertainment, content and enjoyment.

Nintendo: F (or lower)

As a former Nintendo fan, this conference was the biggest middle finger since E3 2008's finale. I hope they take the criticisms seriously and improve. There's a bigger audience out there beyond just your hardcore fans Nintendo. There are gamers who want to try your content, only you don't seem too eager to invite us over.

Square Enix: B

Fantastic conference with a melting pot of different cultures handled very well. From Nier 2, to Just Cause to Kingdom Hearts 3 and Deus Ex, Square Enix are showing a new side of their corporation. A company with vision. They know what they want to do with the console, mobile and handheld markets and are finally being smart about their business decisions. Despite the hiccup with Tomb Raider, hopefully they continue to improve and show that consoles still have life in Japan and JRPGs can still be successful.

AMD: D +

I'm not sitting through 3 hours of PC content and while there was a lot of amazing announcements of ports and new content, they really needed to make it more
condensed. I do encourage them to try this again next year.

Best wishes

 

[RPGamer92]

Seriously from what I watched:
Sony: B+: Obvious the big 3 games, Horizon and Uncharted both looked superb. Dreams looked interesting but I need to see more. Was kinda meh on the third party section but they did a good job keeping the media section short this year. Not having specific dates for their reveals lowered it to a B+ for me.

Microsoft: B: Great conference to me. Lots of cool reveals like Recore, the Rare collection (can finally play Conker!), backwards compatability. They should've brought Scalebound, QB, and Crackdown here to help as those are the most interesting XB1 games to me (along with Recore now). Sea of Thieves was disappointing to me since I'm not an MMO person but the collection makes up for it. I appreciate that Gears 4 was trying to go back to being more horror-ish but the demo was too dark for me (visually).

Bethesda: B-: They killed it with the Fallout 4 segment but beyond that, I didn't really care for the rest. Nice to see a company reveal a big game with a release in the same year.

Ubisoft: C: About what I expected it to be bar South Park.

EA: F: Why did they even have a conference?

Square: B: Lots of good games. The pacing of the conference was a bit eh which dragged it down. They had some cool surprises like Nier 2 and the ending game (forget the name). Nice to seem them focusing on making big JRPGs for consoles again.

Nintendo: F: I'm selling my Wii U tomorrow. A conference is not suppose to make me do that. The games they showed were just not appealing to me at all for it. Bleh.

Didn't watch the PC show.

 

[dmr87]

Microsoft: 7/10
EA: 6/10
Ubisoft: 4/10
Sony: 11/10
Nintendo: 2/10
Square-Enix: 5/10
PC: N/A

 

[Zvonimir Boban]

Microsoft - You've come home at the end of a long, stressful week to sit down on the couch cuddling and watching Netflix with your long term bf/gf. Nice and comfortable and you wouldn't want it any other way. Nonetheless your single friend's comments about being whipped still get under your skin. You've pinned your hopes on a romantic summer getaway which will hopefully show him that your life isn't boring and predictable.

Sony - You've just agreed to a date a fortnight from now with your old high school crush who you recently reconnected with online. She is the girl of your dreams, you never had the balls to ask her out when you were younger and you have spent years killing yourself over it. You will spend the next two weeks walking on clouds with a huge grin on your face, nothing anybody says can hurt you. Not even the voice at the back of your head wondering why all her smoking hot profile pics are from 2009 or whether that was young children you could hear in the background of your phone conversation. She's so perfect even your own brain is jealous.

Nintendo - You just had the most incredible orgasm of your life. So what's the problem? There's still 55 minutes left in the hour you paid for and all this escort wants to do now is make awkward small talk in broken English while you desperately try and get it up again. Please understand.

PC - A Turkish bear of a man leans over and whispers sweet nothings into your ear for two and a half hours. You're not really sure what the fuck just happened and you leave the Turkish bath house hoping that they turn the heating on next time you visit. It doesn't stop you boring your friends as you lecture them about how cultured and intellectually wonderful you are. Can't they see you're just trying to help them improve themselves?

 

[Suikoguy]

The Sony conference was basically 100% games.
They also kept things moving, never dwelling quite too long on a single title.

It's amusing since, when you see a show that is literally 100% games, it feels like they could have spent a few minutes talking about the DNLA MKV Media Player, and a couple of other non-games tidbits, but when they actually do that it feels like it should be more about the games.

Even if you take out the 3 big game announcements the show was good. The variety showed was quite significant (aside from the lack of a driving game). There was something there for everyone, in a way I don't think has quite been matched in awhile. Add in the 3 games gamers have been looking forward too for years, and you have a legendary conference. If you have been a gamer for a long time, and you were not excited for at least one of those 3 announcements, you are in an extreme minority. Next years show is going to seem so lame in comparison...

Another thing of interest, it's quite apparent that Sony got back most, if not all of the leverage it had during the PS2 era. They have the 3rd parties at their beck and call again this gen. That substantial lead worldwide is certainly starting to show.

Don't care about press conference warz very much, but of the bits and pieces I saw, Horizon was the most impressive thing by far. A beautiful environment and an interesting setting, a take on post-apocalyptic that isn't just Fallout again, weird robot ecosystems and what looks like a decent battle system. Oh, and a likely looking heroine. But really it was mostly the beautiful environment.

Yes, and aside from Uncharted it was the most impressive game graphically. It was a big surprise for me how well it's turning out.

 

[Neiteio]

Thinking I may throw in my vote with Nintendo.

I re-watched the conference, my expectations in check (no Retro Studios, no Monster Games — OK!), and I realized I want to try nearly every game Nintendo showed. I've done a complete 180* on Federation Force, in particular. And all of the titles they showed will be out by early 2016, with most of them out this year.

My PS4 gets lots of love, but Sony's show was mainly exciting from a "GAF narrative" standpoint. The bulk of the buzz was from three games that have been notoriously absent for years, but when I think of those games, I'm not sure how much I actually want to play them. Not to mention that FFVII will likely be delayed multiple times, and who knows if Shenmue III will be out in a reasonable timeframe. Really, I think the star of Sony's show was Horizon: Zero Dawn, which looks far along, and like a breath of fresh air compared to the rest (albeit still a TPS).

Nintendo has a lot of great content at E3 this year. If they had played their cards smarter (as I describe in this post here), I think they would've at least broke even in terms of fan reception.

I think the biggest mistake was showing stuff before their conference. They should've saved the new Smash content (Ryu, especially), Mother 1/EarthBound Beginnings, and the big Micro Direct reveals (Bravely Second, Monster Hunter X [if localized]) for the big show. In hindsight, it would've been smart to save SMT x FE for E3, since that was a game missing in action for so long that it had become a TLG-like legend (to a much smaller degree, of course). I think they should've saved the latest look at Itagaki's new game, Devil's Third, for the conference, as well. Instead it was shown a couple weeks ago.

They also should've said upfront that Platinum is developing the campaign in Star Fox Zero, and clarified that they're aiming for 60 fps on both the TV -and- the GamePad, hence the "simpler" visuals (which are still clean and will only improve — Nintendo games are among the few AAA titles that avoid downgrades, for the most part, and only look better and better as they approach release). That game looks incredibly fun.

It really comes down to communication. Last year, when Nintendo won the show by most accounts, it felt like they were inside our head, with ongoing media coverage and a strong self-awareness of how they're perceived, and a desire to subvert that (example: the part in last year's Robot Chicken skit where the reporter sarcastically says, "Oh, another Mario game," and Reggie says, "I don't like your tone, but actually, no Mario this year"). It's like they knew their perceived weaknesses and set out to address them. This year, they didn't seem as savvy. They might not have the same strong lineup they had last year (to be fair, what could match Smash), but they still could've handled things better.

Ultimately, the games will speak for themselves, positively so, as people learn more about them. I think this was a great E3, for all three parties — just wilder and crazier than I had anticipated.

 

[stryke]

I voted for Squeenix because of Kingdom Hearts 3

You chose wisely.

 

[zulux21]

Bethesda: C+ Overall a good first showing, but not a lot that interested me. Fallout Shelter was a cool announcement, and would have gotten this up to a B but since they didn't support Android at launch it just made me jealous others could play a cool looking game. Note: They actually would have been a B- if they hadn't lied, but they said that the one guy would only do one demo for E3 and then he showed up at the microsoft conference :/


Microsoft: C Definition of an average conference. Had one interesting looking new game CGI only trailer (recore) had one nice new feature for the system (BC) and then talked about the same IP they always talk about at E3 (halo, gears, forza, fable) of which I don't care about any of them anymore since it's all microsoft ever seems to have anymore. Finally had a slightly different walkthrough of a previously seen third party game (fallout 4) They had some new little things in there such as the rare game, but they didn't look all that interesting. I kind of feel like it was the same conference I had seen for the last few years. Not bad, gets people who are interested in those franchises excited to some degree, but nothing special either.

EA: NO GRADE: I technically watched this but I barely focused on it since it's EA. ME and ME (I suppose I need to clarifiy, mass effect and mirrors edge) looked ok but not much else was exciting. so much draw out about a game that is over a year old hitting their paid service ect.


Ubisoft: NO GRADE: I did not watch this one... heck I didn't even see any trailers posted from this one that were relevant to my interests.

Sony: A+. I am not going to buy last guardian at launch, it's not just my type of game. Did not change the fact that it was a cool way to start off the conference as so many people had been wanting to see it, and it just kind of set up the conference as something that would show what people would want. We saw a solid looking new IP in horizon, some interesting smaller games that will likely be cute but not set the world on fire, and then we got the remake people have begged for since square decided to troll us with a ff7 ps3 tech demo -_- I understand how the ff7 remake could not be super exciting to someone who doesn't know of the series, but for anyone who saw that tech demo all those years ago this merely broke down walls and brought out the kid inside again... and oh yeah why not finish the pipe dreams of the conference and announce shenmue 3 another huge fan wanted project. All of these aren't coming this year, but to me that doesn't matter. E3 isn't about showing off what is coming out in a few months, it's about selling people on the future of your platform, and if I didn't already have a ps4 (got cheap from cowboom but honestly barely play it as all I care to play on it that are out right now is mlb the show and ff type 0) I have no doubt I would really want one after this conference. This is the type of conference that will be in the best e3 conferences of the decade in a few years, and at this point I imagine it will be sitting right at the top.

Nintendo: D+: ehhhhh I'll likely buy mario maker but despite seeing a new star fox, a new zelda game and a new metroid game I really don't see myself buying any of them even though i am a fan of all 3. Star Fox looked decent then they talked about gyro controls and using the wiiu pad. if I can play it like star fox 64 I will likely get it at some point but if I have to use gyro well screw that. tried it in the past and detest it. It just doesn't fit my play style. The zelda game looks like it could be cute, but it felt pretty cheaply made... or at least it did until I saw the metroid game lol. the metroid game came on and I was like "what small indie project is this this looks horrible" and then it was revealed to be metroid... just lol.

Square Enix: B+ For my interests any other year this one would have a good shot at being top dog. For this year it won't even get an A-. Quite frankly the pacing of the show wasn't great, the SE conference popping up between everything was annoying, and they had plenty of translation problems with mics not working or the guy seemingly not paying attention. That being said SE is selling me on a ps4 better than sony is. We already knew SO5 was coming but seeing it again on stage was nice as well was a release window. We had already seen the FF7 remake trailer, but even the third time (I watched it once on youtube) it was still great and awesome, the wait is gonna suck. We got to see new KH stuff which was cool and then we got a new game that shot right to the top of my most wanted list with nier 2, and we had another console rpg announced at the end. I am a huge japanese game fan and it felt like square enix was finally being the RPG company I wanted them to be again.

PC C-. I didn't watch the whole thing, but I felt like it could have been a lot tighter, dragged on a lot and while I know it was sponsored by AMD it felt like merely an ad at time.

 

[Aikidoka]

Sony: A
Not only did they announce the most interesting games to me (Horizon and TLG if that counts) but they showed demos that were very well done. Moreover, The Uncharted 4 demo utterly impressed me more so than any other demo I've seen. Of course, they had two announcements that certainly made gaming history and were executed near perfectly (loved the WoF troll). Also, they had good showings of multi-plats. Though they had a poor showing of the morpheus and hid things in montages.

Microsoft: B
They had strong content for the most part, but the game demos they showed seemed much too staged and "cinematic", leaving me feeling that the games are not being represented accurately. The backwards-compatibility seems like a major update that could be very good, but it's too early to really trust MS implementation. Minecraft hololens demo was well done but is still a novelty in my mind -I am eager to see how else it can be applied.

Ubisoft: B
Overall, it was pretty well paced and Aisha Tyler kept the show flowing enjoyably that Just Dance (which I don't care for) didn't stagnate the experience for me. The reveal of For Honor was a superb game reveal (loved the lead dev's stage presence) with a CG trailer followed by a live demo, which made me very interested in trying it out asap. Moreover, the live demo didn't have silly voice chat. The Siege demo was interesting like last year though perhaps not as much. The GR trailer did make me interested in learning more but was just a CG trailer. Main downside of the presentation was the Syndicate trailer, which really confused me.

PC Gamer: B/B+
I think it's not very good to lump this in with the other conferences as it's more in-line with a stream like IGN's or GameSpot's though it did have a couple of good announcements. Sure it has fat that could be trimmed, but overall Day[9] was a fantastic host and the content was high quality. I'm much more of a fan of listening to dev interviews, where I can get a solid understanding of what the game is supposed to be instead of just a trailer with not much context.

Bethesda: B
The first half of the conference (read non-Fallout 4 stuff) was a bit underwhelming. Doom disappointed with the allegedly fast gameplay freezing every few seconds for an execution or weapon change and ESO: Hearthstone/online are boring to me personally and also didn't have much more than just talk and trailers. However, the Fallout 4 section was very very well done. With Todd Howard revealing in good detail some of the amazing features of Fallout 4 along with in-game footage.

EA: C-
Vast majority of this conference was a complete dredge. This includes the ME 4 non-content opening - basically if I hadn't read the leaked stuff on Neogaf a month or two ago, I'd have no fucking clue as to what anything in that trailer meant. Frankly, it's not much better than just concept art. However, Mirror's Edge and Yarnia were pretty interesting and the Battlefront demo was kind of fantastic - really enjoyed the edits that showed all the different positions a player can hold.

Square Enix: C+/B-
Way too much talking whether it be in-between trailers or during them. For example Just Cause 3 looked cool but after it lasted much too long with continual narration that sort caused all the explosions to blur together. Pacing of the whole conference was crap. But, the KH3 gameplay trailer was really exciting to watch and seeing some new JRPGS on the horizon was great. Not too mention the exciting Platinum despite it being just a short cg. The concept art as the "one last thing" was just... ugh though.

Nintendo: D
Puppets were fun and great; everything else was complete crap. I've been on the edge of buying a Wii U, but this event really illustrated how I should just wait a little bit for it to be officially dead and pick it up cheap. Pacing was really bad with dev commentary that added virtually nothing to my understanding of the games, and all games announced in popular franchises were just lame spin-offs. Exception being Fire Emblem for which we got a subtitle and.... yeah.

 

[ironcreed]

Allow me to some up my thoughts with trite gifs.

Sony:

Microsoft:

Ubisoft:

Nintendo:

EA:

LMAO

 

[akidnamededdy]

MS: B+

The backward compatibility stuff is kind of a big deal to me and I'm glad it's coming (already here, for some of my games!). They showed some neat games too (not sure what all is and isn't exclusive, but I liked what I saw anyway so there). The mods for Fallout 4 thing is fairly huge, and the Rare Replay collection is a day 1 purchase for me. Gears remaster is eh, and Gears 4 didn't really wow me, but what can you do.

SONY: A-

It goes without saying that Sony stole the show. The Last Guardian, FF7 R, and Shenmue 3? I thought I had some kind of brain fever, it was nuts. Uncharted 4 looked good as well. The big problem with this one is that all the good stuff is a long way off. And they talked a bit about TV stuff, which we sort of crucified MS for doing a few years ago.

NINTENDO: B-

Star Fox Zero by Platinum, ohhh yeahhhh. Mario Maker looks great too, and I'm stoked for the new Mario & Luigi crossover with Paper Mario. Metroid was...not what I was hoping for there. Looks bizarre. That Animal Crossing Wii U game made some people mad I'm sure. I wonder what Retro is working on...hopefully it's something for Wii U, because next year is looking pretty barren. Earthbound Beginnings release was a nice surprise.

 

[Sifl]

Sony A: A lot of great announcements, happy for the people that are finally getting the games they've been waiting for.

Microsoft A: I don't own a Xbox One and don't plan to, but they still had a lot of good content. Backwards Compatibility, Halo Guardians, Gears, that new ip (Recore?). Also a pretty cool demonstration of Holo Lens.

EA D: Pele made me fall asleep

Ubisoft ??: After the EA conference I couldn't bring myself to watch this

Bethesda C+: Doom didn't look that great to me, way too slow. Wasn't the biggest fan of Fallout, more of a fan of story and narrative driven content, which isn't the focus of Bethesda games. They create giant sandboxes where you can do whatever you want, except that's the only reason for you to do it, because it can be done. All of this is fine as long as the story, narrative and writing don't take a back seat to it.

Nintendo F: This conference was honestly a disaster. I didn't see any reason to buy a Wii U and there was nothing that made me justify my New 3DS purchase.

Square Enix B-: This was honestly one of the better conferences, would have gotten an A of they worked on their presentation. It was a really stiff and business like conference. The games were there, but them constantly talking over the trailers and the gameplay took away from the presentation, and them getting on stage at the end was very Evangelionesque and weird.

 

[massoluk]

I actually gave it to Nintendo even though I felt Sony is more hyped because the 3 beasts probably have release date of like 2016-2018. While a lot of its highlight was pushed to NWC and other directs/treehouse.

 

[I-hate-u]

TLG
MM's game
GG's game
COD Maps exclusivity
FF7 remake
Shenmue 3

Sony's line-up this year exceeds the fan-fiction "leaks" of conferences that we get every year before E3. The one downside is that no E3 after this will live up to the hype levels of this show. It is now written in history that Sony's E3 2015 conference is the greatest of all time, forever to be uncontested. Not even Nintendo and their IPs will ever reach this level of hype.

Sony: SSS (Smokin' Sick Style)
Microsoft: A-
EA: C
Ubisoft: C+
Nintendo: It is so obvious many of their devs and publisher efforts are focused on NX, so its not even fair to grade them this year. I feel for who ever bought the Wii U though.
Square: B+

 

[Fbh]

In order:

Sony A+: If I had seen a leak saying they would show FFVII remake, The Last Guardian and Shenmue 3 during the conference I would have laughed at it for not even trying to be realistic.... they did. I mean, if you want to be pessimistic you could say that 2 out of 3 megatons are still years away and aren't even true Ps4 exclusives, but it just doesn't matter. To me, E3 is at its best when there are surprises and megaton announcements during conferences, and I've never seen one come even close to last night

Square A: If I had to be objective I'd give this a much lower score. The biggest problem is that half their announcements were so early, they had nothing more than concept art to show. They also reused several trailers.
But... A Nier Sequel, by some of the key member of the original game, with the same composer, developed by platinum games!!!!!. OMFG!!!. It's the type of announcement I wouldn't even put on a E3 wishlist because it sounds even less likely than TLG and a FFVII remake

Bethesda B+: Not a whole lot of content and Dishonored 2 only being shown as a CG trailer was dissapointing. But it was still a great showing with plenty of gameplay for the other games. I've never been a fan of Doom and Fallout but after watching what they had to show I'm absolutely sold on both games. I'd even be playing the mobile game they showed if it was on Android

Microsoft B+: Sony had the megatons, but Microsoft also had plenty of cool content to show and, mabye most importantly, several things to be excited about in the near future (Unlike FFVII and Shenmue 3). Backwards compatibility was awesome, Hololens looks amazing and they had an overall solid showing of games.

Ubisoft C+: It was Ok. For Honor looks amazing and a new South Park game was a plesantly unexpected surprise, but the rest wasn't too exciting. The Division and RS:Siege demos felt like slightly different versions of what they showed last year (and The Division keeps looking graphically worse with every new showing). And as some have mentioned, Ghost Recon looked like Ubisoft: The Videogame, and not in a good way

Nintendo C: The puppets were a lot of fun. Other than that, some unexciting footage of already announced games and some lackluster announcements. I feel I should be excited about Star Fox but I don't know, it looks cheap and entirely built around a gimmick, also no multiplayer

EA C: The Battlefront footage was great, and that's about it. Mass Effect is one of my favorite IP's of last gen but the reveal of the new one did very little for me, I really don't like the direction they are taking.

PC D: They had some interesting things to show, but it was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to long. Had they focused the best footage and announcements into a show a third as long as this one it would have been pretty good. But they didn't, and it soon became incredibly boring

 

[March of the Crabs]

A B all around for the Big 3, really. Each conference had its high points (Horizon, Star Fox and a god damn Rare collection) but Sony at times seemed like "DLC the Conference" and half the games are lightyears away still, backwards compatibility for MS seems embarrassing at this point and they had CG trailers that don't really show anything and Nintendo had that terrible Animal Crossing board game thing.

 

[Finalizer]

Oculus: didn't see/10
Bethesda: rip n' tear/10
Microsoft: backwards compatible/10
EA: didn't care/10
Ubisoft: dank new memes/10
Sony: ron paul/10
Nintendo: pfffffffffahahaha/10
Square Enix: neat/10
PC: comfy/10

 

[fritolay]

Microsoft, by far.
Sony in second
Nintendo, wow yeah get the new console out or do something, anything. I would say it was a joke, but it made me sad.

They delivered on so many levels. Backwards compatibility, XBOX early access (hope this is good idea, but Hey Day Z for those fans), Fallout 4 with mods, awesome new controller (I will pass on price, but jumped to top 10 on Amazon so it seems a win for many), Rare pack of 30 games!!! awesome!, Castle Crashers remake (would prefer sequel with Behemoth stated they don't make sequels, but still hope), gave various Indie developers stage time.

Overall the variety that MS showed was just awesome.

Thank you everyone for not showing motion controls.

Morpheus, anything VR related, and Hololens - All the VR with the potential prices, just don't see it delivering.
Hololens if it actually works, then I need to not only see that but also that it is not a gimmick as I have been burned by MS too many times. The idea you can play a game on a virtual screen on a wall, well who gives a shit? I have Sony HMZ and that was one of worst purchases I made. It's like being in dark room with large screen in front of you, like in a theater, but not as good as your own large screen in front of you in your home. That feature to me is garbage.

If I could play a total war game, on a virtual platform looking out over it kind of like what they did with Minecraft, that would be cool. Would I want to do that for hours or go back to PC Probably then it would still be a gimmick to me, a cool one, but novelty would wear out soon.

Sony well they were smart to get COD DLC. MS shouldn't have let that one go. FF7 remake would have been cool 10 years ago, I have lost interest in the series. Personally they just didn't have as much to me to be excited about. Last Guardian and Shenmue have such large expectations to live up to and the audience maybe niche. Smaller audience, but very very passionate it seems like here on GAF which seems to slant much more towards Sony than other sites that have MS winning this E3.

I do give Sony many points for getting MS back turned around. When MS is getting beat, they are best, and they were this E3. Thanks Sony.

Nintendo, been down on them for years now. Oh my that Metroid game. If someone posted "hey I made a metroid game for my class" or something, and posted screens, they still would probably have ripped on it even being class project. This was game Nintendo is releasing, and showcased at E3. Dammmmmnnnnnnn what a happening to them? Sega had latest Sonic mobile game downloaded 100 million times or something like that, imagine what a Mario game would do.

I think it's telling the amount of Mobile games shown and revealed this year.

EA conference was biggest snooze fest I have seen for a while. However with a new Star Wars movie coming out this fall, and how awesome Battlefield Battlefront looked (Actual game play, actual release this year compared to many other nice looking games), this to me is going head to head with Fallout 4.

Halo 5. I feel Halo series, is going down path of Final Fantasy series. Ground breaking, passionate fans, not as exciting as it used to be. They also are changing things that made it great, like multiplayer COOP. That helped make Halo fans, who wanted to game together, embrace the series.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

Don't care about press conference warz very much, but of the bits and pieces I saw, Horizon was the most impressive thing by far. A beautiful environment and an interesting setting, a take on post-apocalyptic that isn't just Fallout again, weird robot ecosystems and what looks like a decent battle system. Oh, and a likely looking heroine. But really it was mostly the beautiful environment.

That last shot of her looking over that ancient city was breathtaking. I get to explore that? Holy shit.

Sony
The three things I wanted to see the most in videgames appeard. It was the only time ever watching E3 when I completely spazzed out and was cheering at my TV. Plus Horizon stole the show for me. Uncharted 4 was mind blowing. The stars aligned and the universe became one with that conference.

MS was good, I enjoyed it. Cuphead looked great, Halo looked nice, Gears was also looking fantastic. BC was a megaton and I saw DS 3 for the first time.

Didnt see Nintendo

PC was entertaining, nothing blew me away and it was a little long but I enjoyed it. Day9 is hilarious and it had lots of stuff shown.

Didn't see Squeenix, but I saw it live on Twitter, it was good even from there.

Bethesda had an amazing first conference. DOOM and Fallout 4 both got my hype juices flowing through my veins like heroin through an addicts.

Best E3 for me in years, Sonys was the greatest conference of all time.

 

[Anth0ny]

From what I've watched:

Microsoft: B- (a bunch of cool stuff, but also a bunch of boring stuff. Rare's announcement was also somewhat disappointing)

Nintendo: D- (absolute garbage. Wii U is dead. 3DS new game announcements all felt like weird spinoffs that no one asked for. Only reason why this isn't a F is because the Star Fox footage looked slick)

Sony: A+ (the greatest E3 press conference of all time. 'nuff said)

 

[Ploid 3.0]

Sony : I want to play so many of the games they showed. I was surprised as heck to see a lot of what they showed. I just can't see how it could have realistically been better (Nier, and Kingdom Hearts had to be held for SE's I'm sure. They needed something for their own conference). Next year is going to suck.

 

[Shmuppers]

Bethesda
I don't really care for the direction they've taken Fallout, so I wasn't really all that thrilled.

Microsoft
That VR demonstration looked tight, but the cynical part of feels like it's all smoke and mirrors. Recore was cool. Backwards compatibility is great.

EA/Ubi
No interest.

Sony
Not much needs to be said; legendary conference. Shenmue, Last Guardian and the FFVII remake are exactly what Sony needed to boost console sales, so good on them. They made a lot of people really happy last night, including me.

Nintendo
Starfox was inevitable and I'm glad they went for it. New Chibi Robo game looks awesome. New Pokemon Mystery Dungeon also looks good. Solid showing I thought.

Squeenix
World of Final Fantasy looks cute and fun. Legit shook at Vita support. I'm not a huge fan of KH, but the footage they showed was enough to get me excited. Another solid conference.

PC Gamer?
I think I missed this. Someone said that Killer Instinct is getting a PC port, so, cool.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Report Card Time!

 

[Metalstrike]

In order of preference:

Sony - A
Bethesda - A -
Microsoft - B
Nintendo - C
Square - C -
EA - D
Ubisoft - D -

 

[GravityMan]

Scores out of 10...

I didn't think any of the conferences that I saw were stellar.

Oculus - Didn't watch

Bethesda (7) - Fallout 4 was awesome and the reveal sold me on the game. Dishonored 2 was interesting but need to see gameplay. OTOH, Doom looked very, very uninspired and bland.

Microsoft (7) - Lots of stuff that was at least mildly interesting (Gears 4, Recore, etc.) but nothing really wow-worthy. 360 BC is nice. The Elite controller looked solid. MS should have briefly showed off the new Xbox One UI at the conference.

EA - Didn't watch

Ubisoft (6) - Aisha was good, but tried too hard at times. R6: Siege looked cool. For Honor looked like a ripoff of Chivalry. The Division was underwhelming, as was the new Ghost Recon. Ubi is just too homogenized across many of its games.

Sony (7) - They certainly dropped some great megatons and delivered on hype. But the conference wasn't meaty enough in actual substantive content. Conference seemed designed to make us focus less on the latter half of this year and more on the future. The Batman: Arkham Knight trailer felt out-of-place...the game's coming out next week; no need to take up precious valuable time at the conference with that trailer. The No Man's Sky demo was awkward. Best things out of the conference were Horizon and to a lesser extent Uncharted 4. I personally felt that the MGS 2 reveal from 15 years ago was more memorable, likewise with Nintendo's "Celda" reveal.

Nintendo (2) - Holy shit. Nintendo has had some bad conferences before, but this one's on a whole new level of horrible. The new Star Fox looked meh, and they spent way too much time on Super Mario Maker. I just don't see SMM selling very well. They should have not bothered with their digital event in the first place...just do the treehouse.

Square-Enix (7) - They need better public speakers. Nier 2 was a nice surprise for fans of the first game. Kingdom Hearts 3 looked cool, although I've never been into that series. The new Star Ocean looked outdated. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided had a lame trailer. Hitman looked alright, and Just Cause 3 looked awesome and lots of fun.

PC Gaming Show (7) - I was expecting this to be an absolute trainwreck. I was also ambivalent about a dedicated PC gaming conference at E3 in the first place, since E3 is historically meant for consoles and handhelds. Lastly, I didn't like that it was sponsored by AMD. The show did start off really bad...but got much better. Very good host. Show felt more honest and human than the other conferences (aside from that AMD part early on.) The pacing was good for the most part but the show still went on too long. Next year, either start the show an hour or two earlier, or have fewer guests. Some nice announcements.