“This year’s E3 is theirs to lose.”
That was pretty much the general consensus throughout the gaming industry going into yesterday’s show. With both Sony and Nintendo technically sitting this one out, Microsoft had the spotlight all to themselves, and all eyes were on them. How could they possibly fail?
Well, according to the internet, they did.
Yesterday’s show came and went, and all that resulted was a collected sigh of apathy. What went wrong? How could they possibly screw this one up? Well, I have a few theories.
For one, Microsoft emphasized odd things. They glossed over big things while spending way too much time on others. People wanted to know about XCloud. People wanted to know about Scarlet. What we got instead was a few minutes about each, and ten minutes spent on a Gears 5 spot that had zero gameplay. Seriously, they showed a long intro cinematic, then they went to Rod Fergusson, then the camera zoomed into a rather elaborate stage setup where some WWE stars were sitting, waiting to play the game. But instead of showing the game, they showed another long cinematic. Why not just show gameplay? It’s obviously there at the show. People will be playing it during E3. Why the pre-rendered cinematic? MS has to know that gamers really don’t like games being shown off without gameplay footage. Which brings me to the next reason MS didn’t show up…
There was practically no gameplay footage, from anything. With the exception of some indie sizzle reels, there was very little gameplay to be seen. This is a complaint that has existed since the beginning of E3. Us gamers have been burned time and time again *coughAnthemcough* when games don’t meet their “game demos.” This year we saw Jedi Fallen Order, The Elden Ring, Gears 5, Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 4 LEGO expansion, Crossfire X, Blair Witch, CyberPunk 2077, Bleeding Edge, and Psychonauts 2, and the only ones to show even a snippet of actual gameplay was Fallen Order and Psychonauts 2. Obviously I’m not counting indie titles, as there was an entire montage of games from ID@Xbox.
That being said, Microsoft still had a mountain to jump over, and I’m not sure they could have cleared it even if they corrected the things I just noted. Here’s why…
Our expectations were ridiculously high.
That’s not entirely our fault. Microsoft and Phil Spencer hyped the show up themselves, saying it was their biggest ever showing of first party games. And while that’s true, they include everything, down to the FuncoPOP Gears of War mobile game. That’s a box checked on their list, whether we like it or not. And while yes, it was a bigger showing of games, that’s not really saying much, considering they never had many in the past. But still…
We expected to see things we shouldn’t have expected to see.
Fable was completely absent. We expected to see a Fable reveal. Why did we expect a Fable reveal? It hasn’t even been officially announced yet. All we were going off of were rumors, but we’re disappointed that something that hasn’t been acknowledged as existing, wasn’t shown to exist. There was also a random tweet by someone that Shigeru Miyamoto was going to appear on Microsoft’s stage, because he was in town. What? Miyamoto is at E3? Why ever else would he be there? I didn’t believe that one for a second, but it didn’t stop people (that I talked to) from being disappointed. That’s on you, peeps.
Microsoft’s timeline is different from ours.
As much as we hate to admit it, Microsoft works on their own schedule, regardless of how badly we want to see stuff now. If it’s not ready to be shown, it’s not ready to be shown. We all understand this, and everyone always has the front-facing opinion of “hey, let them take their time on it and not rush it out the door.” But deep down we all get disappointed when we don’t see what we want to see, and we hold that against them (and admittedly, other developers as well.) Besides…
There’s still another E3 before the release of Scarlett.
This might have been Microsoft’s solo E3, but this isn’t the E3 we should have all been anticipating. No one expected a new console from either MS nor Sony before Fall 2020. So why did everyone expect to see the full low-down on Scarlett? Well, because MS teased it. They shouldn’t have done that without fully intending to show off the form factor and announce an official name. That was Microsoft’s mistake, but at the same time, what did we really expect? No amount of hype is going to carry for a year and a half. Why blow your load this far out? Next E3 is going to be one of mammoth proportions, and we’ll get to see MS and Sony duke it out, and it’s gonna be one hell of an exciting week. Microsoft is no doubt saving its big reveals for next year, when their studio acquisitions have had an extra 12 months get to vertical slices ready and they can put together a beast of a sizzle reel. Don’t expect Sony to sit out next summer, either. It’s gonna be huge. That said…
Microsoft likely accomplished exactly what it meant to, whether it was what we wanted or not.
This is the year of the Game Pass. MS announced its PC Game Pass, and even as the conference was happening, and I was chatting on a message board, their store was getting slammed. Several games were highlighted (and released) yesterday during the conference. I downloaded about six of them yesterday. Did it rock our worlds? Probably not. Did it make MS a shit-ton of money yesterday? Absolutely, and it didn’t hurt those developers either. I checked out a few games that I never would’ve paid attention to otherwise. Those devs get a cut, and I’m willing to bet they were reaping the benefits of Microsoft’s “failure” of a show.
You already have your mind made up about Xbox.
“I want a reason to buy an Xbox, but MS just isn’t convincing me.” I saw and heard that comment, in one form or another, many times yesterday. Here’s the deal, people. If you’re not convinced that you want an Xbox now, you won’t ever be. No matter what Microsoft shows, you will find something to not like about it, or some caveat, that will give you a reason to shrug your shoulders and brush it off. I’ve been seeing it for years. Looking for a reason to want something, means you don’t want it. And that’s fine.
Even if our expectations weren’t unrealistically high, there are some things that Microsoft could have done differently to (in my opinion) make for a better showing.
Save Keanu for last.
The Cyberpunk 2077 reveal that it was going to star Keanu Reeves was easily the highest point of the entire show. I’m not quite sure Microsoft expected him to get that much of a reaction. I mean, sure, Keanu’s gonna get attention no matter what, but the guy’s “cool” factor is at an all-time high right now. This is John Wick Keanu we’re talking about, not nappy rock musician Keanu. Plus, he’s a natural fit for Cyberpunk, given his classic portrayal of Johnny Mnemonic. What, you thought I was going to say Neo? Go watch Johnny Mnemonic, it’s fucking Cyberpunk. Then, the spot ended and Keanu was gone, and everyone was left thinking about how breathtaking we all are.
Spend more time on XCloud.
With as big and impressive as Google’s recent Stadia press conference was, I fully expected to hear more about XCloud. Especially since that’s apparently going to be the future of gaming. The tech is there at E3, Phil himself said they were going to be demo’ing it on the show floor, so why not go into a little bit more detail? Did we really have to spend that much time on Gears 5? They also glossed over one thing I think could be a huge advantage over Stadia, and that’s the fact that you can turn your Xbox One into your own streaming server. I want info on this. It was just kinda weird that such a big part of their future endeavors received so little screen time. Granted, getting into techno-jargon would’ve bored everyone to tears, but still, a tad more info would’ve been nice.
Ditch the Gears 5 segment.
I get that this is their next big release, but they didn’t show anything. If you’re going to devote so much time to it, fucking show it! That whole segment was pointless.
Don’t end on a Halo Infinite cinematic.
We all know Halo Infinite is coming. We all know it isn’t coming any time soon. All that cinematic did was remind us that we won’t actually be seeing that game until next E3.
This E3 was exactly what we should’ve expected the last E3 of a console generation to be; basically a “wait till next year” sign that spans for an hour and a half. That’s what it would’ve been, anyway. Microsoft doesn’t have anything to show yet. All their big guns are out. The same is true for Sony, which is why they aren’t showing this year. Sony sat this one out, and the big question was going to be whether that was a smart move or not. Microsoft went ahead with their plans, and for some reason, we all expected this to be a blow-out E3 for them. But why? Why did we expect that, knowing full well that they would save their massive news for an E3 that’s only mere months from their new console launch.
All that being said, next year is going to be one of the most exciting E3’s of recent memory. And that’s not blind hype; it’ll be mere months before the next generation of consoles from both Sony and Microsoft, so you can bet there’s going to be some shit shown next year. Sony will no doubt be pushing more VR, and I wouldn’t be surprised if MS doesn’t announce some sort of Oculus support, which we assumed was happening for XBO, and XBO X, but never really materialized. I’m willing to bet it will be part of the console reveal. It’ll be interesting, to say the very least.
