With Sony On The Horizon, E3 2017 Has Been Lackluster So Far

This year's E3 hasn't been the greatest so far. Let's discuss.

With Sony On The Horizon, E3 2017 Has Been Lackluster So Far
It's no secret to anyone that this year's E3 has been less than spectacular so far, to say the least.

With a new console coming later this year, all eyes were on Microsoft going into this year's annual gaming extravaganza. Though indeed boasting powerful tech under its hood, the Xbox One X's reveal was marred by its price point of $499 – too costly, especially considering how its closest competitor beats that price by $100 – and lack of truly groundbreaking exclusive partnerships, a deficit the Xbox brand has been suffering from since its inception and something that its feeling now more than ever. After all, why buy a powerful console if there isn't something on it that makes a compelling argument to choose it over its lower priced competitor, a competitor that so happens to do this already and do it pretty well, too?

The games sure looked pretty, of course, but at the moment I'm perfectly fine buying said titles on my launch edition PlayStation 4. This isn't a problem that only Xbox One faces, mind you, but one that was made very apparent with yesterday's showing, as indie after indie did not justify me purchasing something at a premium price point, at least not at the moment.


EA's best came in the way of Battlefront 2 and Anthem, with the rest drowned out just as quickly as it appeared on stage. It makes me beg the question as to why the publisher continually has an E3 showing in the first place, seeing as how a lot of the information they relayed on stage could be done through gaming outlets and/or press releases.

And then there's Bethesda with perhaps the weakest showing of all. Though it's unfair that their big surprises were leaked early, the publisher's persistent push of Skyrim has gotten borderline annoying at this point. On top of that is another campaign for paid mods, an insult considering the backlash Bethesda faced from the community the first time around.

We'll find out shortly if this year's E3 is truly a bust, with Sony holding their conference tonight and Nintendo holding their broadcast tomorrow. Seeing as how both publishers could have surprises in store, there's potential the later half of this year's gaming holiday could make up for the beginning.

One can hope, at least.

The opinions expressed in this piece are not representative of KeenGamer and are solely those of the author.

4 Comments

  1. Avatar photo

    Mostly I have sat through the conferences so far pretty bored and nearly falling to sleep. Some moments have really caught my interest though. When the Life Is Strange trailer was shown, I shot up so fast from my dazy state that I banged my head on my light. That is probably the best game shown so far.

     

     

    I also really enjoyed the battlefront 2 trailer and gameplay but I am a massive Star Wars Prequel fan so that can be expected 😀

    Reply
    • Avatar photo

      Super big Life Is Strange and Star Wars fan here too, man. Battlefront 2 is continually impressing me, so I’m definitely pretty hyped for that.

       

       

      As for Life Is Strange, I couldn’t help but feel like if the developers didn’t announce that a sequel was coming beforehand, it’s trailer reveal during Microsoft’s E3 conference would have had more bang. Of course, it would have risked being drowned out by bigger games though.

      Reply
  2. Avatar photo

    Yes, overall pretty tame. But I wouldn’t say disappointing yet, unless you were expecting surprise hits every 10 minutes.

     

     

    In an industry known for leaks left and right, the big companies have every little wiggle room for keeping things under the hood. So e3 is becoming more and more about spectacle and showing us details about certain games. It also sometimes shows a glimpse of the future, but it does look like they are backing off from that due to criticism that’s been endured for long-in-development games.

     

     

    Also, before Switch, Nintendo was leading the pack in terms of how to do gaming properly. Now that its fallen behind in the past decade, its clear that the other companies are not sure what to do. So sequels, and monetization games (online multiplayer games) is what we are getting, for the most part.

     

     

    But like you said, the ones that usually have big surprises are Sony and Nintendo. Nintendo brought a lot of excitement to the last E3 with just one game. And Sony has a knack (ahem) for delivery impressive news at their E3. We will find out within the next 20 hours.

    Reply
    • Avatar photo

      In hindsight, it seems as though with Sony’s conference not being as impressive as in prior years, this seems to be a very “middling year” for this console’s life cycle. Many studios seem to be either still in the middle of development or just unable to show anything this year. This being said, I’d rather publishers show games that are close to down as opposed to games that are years upon years away.

      Reply

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