The brilliance of Sony’s conference was the manner in which they allowed their software to speak for itself. From the outset, it was a showcase of game after game. There was no fluff, no interviews, nothing that gamers didn’t want to see. It was certainly refreshing not to have devs or community managers on stage speaking about their titles; the calibre of the games shown and the volume of hard hitting announcements just did not necessitate it.
Indeed, it really was pedal to the metal the entire way from The Last Guardian‘s release date to the reveal of Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding. Overall, it was a superb example of how to pace a press conference. Sony absolutely raised the bar well beyond what we had seen from Microsoft and the third party studios. Put simply; PlayStation’s conference was all meat and absolutely no fat.
In some ways, the outcome of this year’s E3 conference perhaps epitomizes the entirety of this generations “console war”; Microsoft are doing so very well with the Xbox One, but PlayStation is just too far ahead. Any other year and Microsoft’s E3 conference would have been tough to beat. It was well structure, polished, created a positive vibe among for their community and certainly described the Xbox One’s eco system as a healthy and supported one. Yet, Sony just continues to find ways to win over the hearts and minds of the community.
It is, as it always has been for PlayStation, about the games. Say what you will about the importance of exclusivity in today’s climate, but Sony just went some way to reminding us all that software will always capture the imagine of gamers. The Xbox One really does look like a solid platform, but the future just looks even brighter over at PlayStation.