The presentation is done and our writeup is available here.
GBAtemp's coverage of the stage and big shows of E3 2013 (Our e3 schedule thread) continues now with E.A.'s. Microsoft has just gone and unlike some other years EA was not a major presence in it so they presumably have more to come.
Generally the non hardware conferences, a relatively recent addition to E3, are worth watching as they usually take the time to showcase their games in detail but as we saw a relatively complete battlefield playthrough in Microsoft's presentation what will happen here is somewhat up in the air.
As before we are taking bets on how badly attempts at humour will go over, how much unintentional humour will happen (sadly for GIF fans Microsoft did not provide) and the buzzword bingo game will be running as always.
Feel free to join us on IRC to discuss things as they happen.
EA
Like or dislike them it is a fact that EA are a major player in the games world and they do a lot of note. Recently they were observed to being stopping their disliked "online passes" program for future games and are slowing rescinding it for older ones as well, this was done when the Xbone always online/game licenses stuff was at best a rumour so this might be seen in a different light now. Most are not really expecting much more than sports games, need for speed, Medal of Honor and Battlefield but as several of their big name franchises (mass effect, crysis, army of two, burnout and dead space to name but a few) have finished a given run, have already been released this year or have not been seen in a while things could happen. Likewise they have an intellectual property catalogue that rivals anything (not to mention they now have the Star Wars license) and they are in a need of a bit of cash injection so we could see something along the lines of "well, if it works for Nintendo" happen*.
*add ours to the collective will for "not another Syndicate like experience".
EA are slowly winning back the hearts of some game players though they have not had the most profitable of years, can they keep it up?
GBAtemp's coverage of the stage and big shows of E3 2013 (Our e3 schedule thread) continues now with E.A.'s. Microsoft has just gone and unlike some other years EA was not a major presence in it so they presumably have more to come.
Generally the non hardware conferences, a relatively recent addition to E3, are worth watching as they usually take the time to showcase their games in detail but as we saw a relatively complete battlefield playthrough in Microsoft's presentation what will happen here is somewhat up in the air.
As before we are taking bets on how badly attempts at humour will go over, how much unintentional humour will happen (sadly for GIF fans Microsoft did not provide) and the buzzword bingo game will be running as always.
Feel free to join us on IRC to discuss things as they happen.
EA
By the time you read this the pre shows for those two sites will have started
Like or dislike them it is a fact that EA are a major player in the games world and they do a lot of note. Recently they were observed to being stopping their disliked "online passes" program for future games and are slowing rescinding it for older ones as well, this was done when the Xbone always online/game licenses stuff was at best a rumour so this might be seen in a different light now. Most are not really expecting much more than sports games, need for speed, Medal of Honor and Battlefield but as several of their big name franchises (mass effect, crysis, army of two, burnout and dead space to name but a few) have finished a given run, have already been released this year or have not been seen in a while things could happen. Likewise they have an intellectual property catalogue that rivals anything (not to mention they now have the Star Wars license) and they are in a need of a bit of cash injection so we could see something along the lines of "well, if it works for Nintendo" happen*.
*add ours to the collective will for "not another Syndicate like experience".
EA are slowly winning back the hearts of some game players though they have not had the most profitable of years, can they keep it up?
Ubisoft
One of the few companies that do not make hardware that can punch at EA's level. Whether EA or Ubisoft are the present villain of the week reminds us of the old quantum thought experiment "Schrödinger's cat" but like their rival they do a lot of things in the games world. For those that need a rundown they work with Tom Clancy (Splinter Cell, Rainbow 6, H.A.W.X and Ghost recon), have Assassin's Creed, largely could be said to have won the "most interesting game of E3" last year with Watch Dogs and they have Rayman so they are definitely worth paying attention to. Anything about Watch Dogs will be studied in minute detail but with Assassin's creed having a reception less favourable than the previous entries and Splinter Cell showing some fairly radical changes there are some things to watch.
Sony
The PS4 conference was a thing that happened back in February and not a great deal has happened since.
We now see it to have fairly similar architectures to the Xbone (which is to say somewhat tweaked PC architecture) which is interesting as the Sony online offerings are slowly catching up to Microsoft's, indeed in some ways with their paid offerings it eclipses what Microsoft have done, and this last go around with the consoles led to the PS360 being a thing; there were still a handful of exclusives but take off things that got sequels (spiritual or otherwise), equivalent franchises or eventual ports/remakes and the respective libraries were very similar, extremely so compared to previous consoles. To this end many reckon Sony could "win" by default if they just turn up, say "we have some games", show they are not Microsoft and go home. The shape of the PS4 console is set to be unveiled but if the colour or shape of the console is something you get excited about, assuming it functions as it needs to and does not have wired controller ports at the back or something, then you might be setting about this game playing thing wrongly.
The PS Vita is floundering a bit as well but an injection of a few games, something which the last few months do show as quite likely to happen, would probably see that do well.
Nintendo
Nintendo are not having a big presentation like years past and instead have "Nintendo directs" timed to match up with this and the fairly interesting move of games being playable in various shops during E3. This is seen as a somewhat interesting move by many as the Wii U and 3ds are not doing as well as their predecessors (both Ubisoft and EA have potentially done some disservices in recent months though Ubisoft have said they are committed). In the case of the Wii U not many first and second party games, what many see as the reason to get such a console and the business types observe as the reason Nintendo are still around, have been released or announced and many are anticipating good things here.
Sony
The PS4 conference was a thing that happened back in February and not a great deal has happened since.
We now see it to have fairly similar architectures to the Xbone (which is to say somewhat tweaked PC architecture) which is interesting as the Sony online offerings are slowly catching up to Microsoft's, indeed in some ways with their paid offerings it eclipses what Microsoft have done, and this last go around with the consoles led to the PS360 being a thing; there were still a handful of exclusives but take off things that got sequels (spiritual or otherwise), equivalent franchises or eventual ports/remakes and the respective libraries were very similar, extremely so compared to previous consoles. To this end many reckon Sony could "win" by default if they just turn up, say "we have some games", show they are not Microsoft and go home. The shape of the PS4 console is set to be unveiled but if the colour or shape of the console is something you get excited about, assuming it functions as it needs to and does not have wired controller ports at the back or something, then you might be setting about this game playing thing wrongly.
The PS Vita is floundering a bit as well but an injection of a few games, something which the last few months do show as quite likely to happen, would probably see that do well.
Nintendo