Let me say at the outset that I am not a big fan of the term “won” which is bandied about after a conference as people are so quick to name a winner. I have always found it silly as how can anyone say a company won anything when the real proof is in the final product and sales figures whcih are months away, and that the hype generated at a show can quickly fade and in some cases be forgotten when a product comes to launch.
A game trailer or demo in a controlled enviornment is hardly a good way to judge the final product as old school gamers will remember the wave of hype Daikatana had and what an epic failure it was upon release.
With this in mind, let us look at Sony at E3 2016 and wht so many fans are quick to say they “won” the event and analyze what this means for the long term.
Sony hit the ground running with a full orchestra and an inpressive reveal for God of War. The series has legions of fans and the first new entry for the PS 4 is going to be a huge plus. Subsequent trailers for Detroit, Days Gone, Farpoint, and Horizon Zero Dawn looked amazing and showed that there are plenty of great games coming for the system which has sold in excess of 40 million units to date.
Sony made sure to feature gameplay from Call of Duty: Infinte Warfare to tout that DLC for the pending game woudl appear first on the PS4 systems. What really turned the numbers to 11 for Sony in my opinion was VR. They announced that Playstation VR would arrive a couple of weeks earlier than expected, then showed off that EA Star Wars Battlefront and Batman Arkham VR were on the way. This was follwed by an exclusive new Spider-man game which may or may not feature VR functions. The revealtion that Resident Evil 7: Biohazard woudl feature support for the Playstation VR was also a huge reveal for fans of the series.
There were plenty of other games as well but the point was made, Sony has an impressive list of exclusives and VR titles which are coming out and look great. The company did not talk about the long rumored Neo that would bring 4K gameplay to gamers, but what really impressed me was that there was a huge and diverse range of exclusives that cannot be played on a PC and are taking advantage of the emerging VR technology which combined with previosuly announced yet unreleased games, PS4 owners have alot to be excited about as Sony once again had a very impressive showcase which generated tons of buzz for several titles.
