Year after year, the one thing I look forward to more than roaming the crowded halls of E3, are the press conferences. This is the time for various studios to unveil their completely brand new projects that we're only seeing the first time. Sure, a few leaks ruin those surprises ahead of time, and it seems like each year it's getting harder and harder to contain them, but despite that, I still tend to walk away in satisfaction.
Now, not all E3 press conferences are on equal footing. In 2009, Nintendo unveiled the still unreleased Vitality Sensor, Microsoft unveiled Project Natal which eventually became known as the Kinect and Sony unveiled the PlayStation Move. What a year. But things didn't really get better for a few years after. Microsoft's big push was the Kinect, focusing more on gesture based games than catering to the hardcore crowd, and Sony too wanted to push Move by incorporating it into a slew of games, as well as creating original games based on the hardware.
Future announcements, though not always necessarily E3 related, were also more focused on entertainment, talks about new TV and Movie services that frankly would have been much better suited for a press release rather than a full-blown segment during a press conference.
Enter year 2015.
This year, despite some leaks, the press conferences certainly took us for a wild ride of surprises. This year, each company really evaluated and looked at what fans wanted and wished for, and actually delivered on those promises. It was unreal.
Microsoft started the day off right with a pretty killer press conference, kicking it off with a monumental announcement that certainly took everyone by surprise; The Xbox One would be backward compatible by the end of the year. Granted, the library of compatible games is rather slim at the moment, but it's still nice to see Microsoft put in the effort to make something like this work.
We also got a trailer for an amazing 30-game collection of classic RARE games that range from old-school classics like Battletoads and Lunar Jetman to amazing games like Killer Instinct Gold, Jet Force Gemini and Banjo games, to even more obscure but fantastic titles like Blast Corps. But even better, RARE has an original IP, and this time, as per gamer's hopes and dreams, isn't a Kinect or gesture-based game, but instead, a badass looking pirate game with a killer multiplayer component.
While yet another look at Halo 5 was certainly entertaining, I was more blown away by ReCore, a game made by Keiji Inafune. Microsoft's HoloLens also made an appearance and showcased just how Minecraft will supposedly work on it.
Sony topped off the day with megatons of its own. Kicking the presentation off with a game that many fans have lost hope for, The Last Guardian. It's a game we first learned about during E3 2009's Sony's press conference and has since then either had no updates, or been completely absent from the show. It's certainly good to see that little kid and giant dog-bird again.
Midway through the conference, Adam Boyes, rather nonchalantly introduced a trailer that ended up being a requested game since 10 years ago. That's right, in 2005, Sony unveiled Final Fantasy 7 footage rendered on a PS3, and then went on to say it was simply a tech demo, nothing more. Year after year, fans have always speculated whether this game would ever get made, with Square even stating that it would simply take too much of their time. Well, looks like the time has come. While no release date was given, it's certainly nice that it is indeed real.
And lastly, Shenmue 3, a game sought after much longer than a Final Fantasy 7 remake. Since 2001 on the Sega Dreamcast, and 2002 for the original Xbox, fans have wanted to finish the story that ended in a cliffhanger in Shenmue 2, and it finally looks like that dream has become a reality. The game's creator took to the stage announcing a Kickstarter, and of course has already funded, less than 12 hours later.
What I'm trying to say is that both Sony and Microsoft finally realized what the most important thing is; their fans. Both E3 presentations catered to their fans completely and showed some true dedication to make them happy. And as we all know, a happy consumer is a spending consumer.
