I thought I'd compile a list of press links to conference impressions. If you have one to add, link me up, but I'm only looking for people who actually attended the press conferences. I'll be adding more as I find them.
Microsoft E3 Press Conference
AV Club/Gameological Society
Gamasutra
Giant Bomb
IGN
Game Informer
EDGE Magazine
Eurogamer (Sony/MS report)
USA Today
Destructoid
Forbes
Sony E3 Press Conference
1up
AV Club/Gameological Society
CVG
Gamasutra
Giant Bomb
IGN
Game Informer
EDGE Magazine
Eurogamer (Sony/MS report)
USA Today
Destructoid
Forbes
Nintendo E3 Press Conference
IGN
1up
CVG
Gamasutra
GiantBomb
EDGE
Game Informer
Destructoid
Forbes
Eurogamer
Microsoft E3 Press Conference
AV Club/Gameological Society
It’s not so much that Microsoft has failed in its ambitions. Trying and failing would still be admirable. The distressing thing is that the Microsoft we saw at E3 2012 has altogether abandoned its ambition to rejuvenate the games its customers play. The art form and the larger cultural conversation benefit—even those plucky indies benefit—when the bigger players make an effort to move the needle. Microsoft is no longer trying to move anything; it just wants more of what it has. My hope and belief is that Microsoft can’t will an art form to stand still.
Gamasutra
It's clear that some of these ideas are early and their implementation will not really be felt till next year's show (see "concept" tags all over the Xbox SmartGlass presentations.)
But this is where the company sees itself headed, and the tonal disconnect between the traditional game content like South Park, which Parker clearly felt keenly, and its strategizing is real and significant.
Giant Bomb
And therein lay the ultimate issue with this year's conference: outside of Halo 4, there wasn't much that really seemed to blow anyone away. A handful of interesting smaller titles, and some big third-party, multiplatform games are always good to have, but in the absence of some other noteworthy surprises, the overall offering felt a bit paltry.
IGN
Overall, this was a good, solid late-console-cycle set of announcements and updates from Microsoft, a confident green-hued pronouncement of ambitious technological experimentation and bombastic big-budget franchises that we love. Missing was anything that might be confused for genuinely blockbuster new IP or, of course, even a sniff of Xbox 720.
Microsoft began the show by boasting that it has sold more current-gen consoles than any other player. You can’t blame those guys for wishing to squeeze another year out of a machine that continues to deliver the kinds of worlds that, seven years ago, were only promises.
Game Informer
This conference was a bit like last year's: heavy on solid entertainment partnerships and some well-known franchises, but lacking any real surprise game or something to capture the imagination of the hardcore crowd. That's not to say Halo 4 won't be amazing, but at this point we expect it. Ditto for Forza. Gears of War: Judgment was probably the biggest welcome surprise, but again it's in a series that has been a stalwart of Microsoft for the past few years.
New Kinect and Xbox Live functionality is great, as is improved Bing search and the addition of Internet Explorer to Microsoft's console online strategy. There's nothing wrong with more content like NHL and NBA season packages, either. However, in the hype-driven world of E3, those aren't the kind of announcements that get the faithful excited.
Microsoft is still presenting quality product to the public, but you get the sense they are playing it safe -- especially in its failure to try to create new, original IPs. Hopefully, that will come in the next-generation -- and possibly next year's E3.
EDGE Magazine
If Xbox is indeed the biggest console gaming brand on the planet, then console gaming is in trouble.
Eurogamer (Sony/MS report)
Meanwhile, having courted the core gamer at enormous expense for so long, Microsoft now treats us like a trophy wife, there to be shown off during earnings calls or whenever it's corporately expedient. Occasionally it buys us a new trinket to keep us amused, like exclusive downloadable content for Tomb Raider or Call of Duty, but for the most part if we are entertained by what Microsoft chooses to do for its own gain then that is simply a happy coincidence. Halo 4 and Forza Horizon may be core games to us, but they are mainstream propositions to Microsoft, and our interest in them is probably considered quaint.
USA Today
The good: The first look at Halo 4 proved rather powerful. Fans have to feel good about studio 343 Industries running the show. SmartGlass also presents some fascinating potential in merging the Xbox 360 with smartphones and tablets.
The bad: Surprising not to see more from Epic Games and Gears of War: Judgment outside a brief teaser. Same goes for the Kinect-powered Fable: The Journey. Overall, there weren't any huge announcements. It felt like a safe play with the focus on sequels and Kinect.
Destructoid
Microsoft was, in a word ... shit. There's no way around that and no point beating about the bush. The company seems to have truly given up as this generation draws to a close, relying on a bunch of television shows and sports, sports, SPORTS in order to drag itself through a tortuous hour of nonsense.
Forbes
Outside of Halo however, Microsoft then proceeded to remind us that the state of their exclusive line-up is…relatively weak. Fable was once a promising series for the brand, but has now been relegated to Kinect nonsense. There were hints a few other exclusives with little else said about them (“Lococycle?”and the new Gears of War was given a few seconds for what could barely be called a teaser trailer.
Sony E3 Press Conference
1up
Like with Microsoft, it's disappointing we didn't get some kind of surprise at the end -- The Last Guardian, even though we've seen it before, would have a delight to see in that spot. Also missing from the show were the supposed cloud game announcement (so much for that providing a new reason to subscribe to PlayStation Plus) and Planetside 2 (or anything at all from Sony Online Entertainment). It is, however, hard to complain about seeing The Last of Us featured in the spot that it was; this is not typically the point in the console cycle that we see a new IP introduced, and Sony is to be praised for supporting not one, but two such games at a time where many other companies are banking almost exclusively on sequels.
AV Club/Gameological Society
The company harped on a move into the mobile phone space, touted ways that the PlayStation 3 and portable Vita play nice, and bragged about all the multimedia tricks that their box of electronics can perform. That stuff likely fills some nitpicker’s score card. But forces for the development of games as a creative medium had their own checklist—at least, I did. And it didn’t go unnoticed that PlayStation CEO Jack Tretton name-dropped some obscure, independent minded games when slogging his way down the teleprompter. When a long-gestating game like Retro City Rampage gets a mention next to big-budget blockbusters, it became clear that Sony wasn’t just giving lip service to making games of all kinds. Sure, they too have a spot reserved for the Call Of Duty cash cow (on the Vita), but there’s room at Sony’s big-kids table for the weird, odd, and obscure. At E3, even a nod of recognition that there’s life and entertainment outside the first-person shooter can reassure the aesthetes in the crowd.
CVG
So, the wait for PS4 goes on, but Sony's master deception was pretending it wasn't even on the horizon - presenting a console at the height of its powers, with a diversity of games and services that other platform holders should envy.
Slightly more experienced eyes, however, will discern that we've reached a graphical ceiling, with the AAA games market increasingly obsessed with violence, yet terrified of risky gameplay concepts. In that respect, Sony must be applauded for the imagination of Wonder Book, and in The Last of Us, a potentially generation-defining title that at least attempts to restore menace and consequence to its brutal flash points.
Overall, a solid, but far from vintage conference, as Sony attempts to put its house in order for a company-defining next-generation push in late 2013.
Gamasutra
A noisy, enthusiastic crowd seemed refreshed by Sony's E3 focus, which saw the last presser of the day focused on showing the audience it knows what people have been longing to see here today: Actually-new games.
Giant Bomb
All in all, a relatively strong showing from Sony. They didn't show a lot of games, but the ones they did were almost all bangers. You can harp on the Wonderbooks stuff all you like--or, do as I'm doing and dismiss it altogether--but the games at least ranged from fantastic-looking to intriguing. And while some might be disappointed that Sony said nothing of its eventual next-gen console (supposedly codenamed "Orbis"), it's hard to be too mad when there are real life games that I want to be playing on the console I already have.
IGN
Sony showed flashes of brilliance as always, and its two stars could well figure in many folks' lists of top five games of the show.
The old company is weighed down by its own troubles, under-performers like Move and Vita and a crappy stock-price. This 2012 showing demonstrated its positives and negatives. Sony, ultimately, is all about shifting hardware. Note the crucial difference between its laudable plan to connect its own Vita with PS3 and Microsoft’s plan to connect any tablet or smartphone with Xbox 360.
We may soon forget this event as, next year, a new generation of hardware unfolds. But we’ll always have two games that promise much, standing out against the year’s host of meat-headed shooters.
Game Informer
I appreciate the fact that Sony appears to recognize that E3 is a great platform for getting people excited about your games. Beyond, The Last of Us, God of War, and Assassin's Creed III in particular looked great. However, that's the only area I feel like Sony has a leg up on Microsoft this year. Both companies spent a lot of time talking about things that most hardcore gamers don't care about (Kinect, Wonderbook), trying to convince us that these are bigger deals than they seem to be. While the games scheduled for 2012 and early 2013 are impressive, the impending next generation of hardware seems like an elephant in the room that no one is talking about. I certainly didn't expect companies to build their press conferences around new tech yet, but pretending it doesn't exist seems like a bad move when faced with an audience that desperately wants to hear something new.
EDGE Magazine
Inappropriate applause, overlong gameplay demos, and next to nothing for Vita owners.
Eurogamer (Sony/MS report)
As a result, PlayStation 3 has a strong pipeline of interesting content, much of which should be commercially and critically successful, and the tie-up with JK Rowling's Pottermore for Wonderbook could very well be the company's next EyeToy or SingStar moment with the right nurturing. PlayStation Vita still resembles a financial black hole, and much now hangs on the success of games like Call of Duty and FIFA later this year - exactly the same situation the PlayStation Portable found itself in when it launched, suggesting lessons have not been learned - but it's not so much of a crisis that Kaz Hirai can't stand up at the start of his first E3 conference as Sony president and smile and enjoy himself.
USA Today
The good: The Last of Us was the best E3 demo of the day. It was gritty, tense and powerful. Naughty Dog showed a level of brutality not seen in their previous work on Uncharted. Fists thud loudly against an enemy's face. Attacks look and sound powerful, not to mention the game overall boasts amazing detail. The next project from studio Quantic Dream, Beyond, looked equally intriguing.
The bad: Barely a peep about the PlayStation Vita. Outside a brief Call of Duty announcement and cross-play with brawler PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, the briefing seemed painfully light on the Vita lineup.
Destructoid
After the mindless pap that was Microsoft, Sony had a fairly easy act to follow, and it helped that the company opened its show with a montage of videogames. Actual videogames, fancy that! The opening montage showcased the PlayStation's properties superbly and really shows the strength of the company's titles. Say what you will about Sony, it has a wonderful range of brands.
Forbes
Despite all this, if I was forced to pick a “winner” based on these press conferences alone, it would like be Sony, simply because of a pair of amazing exclusive titles we got to see. Beyond: Two Souls, from the makers of Heavy Rain, was quite simply the future of not only gaming, but possibly acting, as the title stars Ellen Page and the people look about as real as we’ve ever seen from a game. Then there was the almost too-good-to-be-true gameplay footage of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, which made a post-apocalyptic battle look impossibly cinematic, and it was the most powerful close of the show by far.
Nintendo E3 Press Conference
IGN
Dear Lord, we really wanted Nintendo to blow our socks clean off, to leave us panting and sated with the knowledge that all is well with Wii U, that gaming's newest console will be a winner.
That sure didn't happen today.
1up
At the beginning of Nintendo's E3 press briefing, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said we would be seeing 23 games on-stage today, a number far greater than what either Sony or Microsoft had at their respective showcases. With the company needing to sell gamers on Wii U, the more games it had to show, the better. As it turned out, a number of these games were multiplatform titles, some of which will have already been out for quite some time when Wii U is finally released this holiday. That was a common gripe for many gamers, but with a single new game console coming out this year, it's not unprecedented; what concerned me was the overall lack of interesting usage of the Wii U GamePad -- the system's big selling point -- in many of these games.
CVG
It's not surprising that Kotick and associates appear to be waiting on the Wii U before pouring investment in. After the trailblazing success of the first Wii, Nintendo no longer seems to understand why it was such a success.
Where there was once simplicity, there is now exasperating confusion. Here's the more accurate sales pitch for Wii U, though you may need to take a deep breath: The Wii U is a TV-tethered home iPad that supports Unreal Engine 3 games whilst also providing an enclosed social network and internet browser in addition to "asymmetric gameplay" between television displays of which one is a touch screen. Even Nintendo, with its peerless experience in the games arena, can't sell that kind of monstrosity.
Gamasutra
Nintendo sought to introduce Wii U's new concepts of interactivity and bringing families together, but its E3 presentation for the console showed very little of the innovation fans have come to expect from the company.
GiantBomb
It's distinctly possible that after getting my hands on more of these NintendoLand minigames and third-party endeavors that my mind may change altogether. Maybe the conference just didn't highlight the strengths of the system properly, and maybe my disappointment here will ultimately be for naught. If that's the case, I'll be the first one to yell it out to anyone who will listen. I want to like the Wii U. There are games I want to play on it. But few of them grabbed me strongly enough to shake me into an excited state. Little of what I saw today thrilled me, or even really put much of a smile on my face. I know my cold, callous heart is still capable of being warmed, because in the early goings, during that first Pikmin demo, I was all smiles. I want those smiles again. Hopefully after I hit the show floor, I'll get them.
EDGE
Meanwhile, more practically, Wii U’s precise hardware specs are still a mystery. Presumably they’ll become apparent over the next few days, but the biggest question that lies over Wii U is just how well it will stand against the coming next generation. On the evidence of what we saw today, the answer is not awfully well. No game shown looked technically out of the bounds of 360; Arkham City arguably looked worse. One has to question, too, the wisdom of taking so much time looking at Batman's GamePad inventory when Platinum's P-100, and a new Wario Ware game, were kept off the stage, relegated instead to Nintendo's website.
Game Informer
Like everything else from E3, reactions were mixed once the lights turned on. I got a text from a friend dubbing it "a disaster," but I have to strongly disagree with that statement. I went into the presentation lukewarm about the Wii U, and about halfway through it I fired off an e-mail to my wife warning her than I was going to be adding yet another console to our home. I liked a lot of what they showed, such as Pikmin 3, New Super Mario Bros. U, and the Lego game. They're system exclusives, too, which means I'll have to get on board with the Wii U if I want to check them out. And I'm completely fine with that.
Destructoid
Nintendo had a fun time this year, and some very heavy hitters. Opening with Pikmin 3 gave it an immense lead as Nintendo went out of its way to please the crowd as much as possible. While we did not get a slew of megaton announcements, there seemed to be few stinkers. Even dark horses like LEGO City Underground looks promising, and NintendoLand, while silly, could be a laugh.
Forbes
It’s hard to be truly impressed with the WiiU or its game line-up from what was announced at the show. It seemed like we got little more information than we did last year, and still the entire focus was only on the controller, with the box and its specs not mentioned once.
Why? Outside of a very pretty tech demo we saw last year, once we get into what games actually look like on the WiiU, it’s not exactly going to make anyone’s jaw drop. From the footage shown, the graphics look like they’re on par with this generation, although sometimes, noticeably worse. Not the best idea for a next-gen console, but I suppose if it worked for the Wii, it can work here.
Eurogamer
With Microsoft and Sony in a state of détente a year out from their respective next-generation reveals, Nintendo had a great opportunity this week to convince you, me and the rest of its fans that Wii U will be worth buying this Christmas. But despite the encouraging way it trailed its E3 conference over the weekend, it completely blew it.
