E3 Cancelled. Dead?

[93LEAFS]

Sad to see it go but the writing has been on the wall for awhile. YouTube and Social Media giving you direct access to your consumers has changed the dynamics dramatically and it's finally caught up. I'll miss having one big showcase but it will never be the same. I'll never forget the anticipation of the GamePro e3 write up. Sony leaving was a bad sign, and Nintendo and Microsoft not showing up this the death knell. I do feel bad for smaller developers though who now have less opportunity to show their stuff off. But, we have already seen other platforms to show stuff off emerge.

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[Hammettf2b]

I miss going to E3 every year back in the day. It's a shame its gone but there's no incentive for companies to go anymore when they can just showcase their stuff themselves.

 

[Hammettf2b]

Still my favorite E3 moment

 

[Osprey]

One of the explanations is that "interested companies wouldn’t have playable demos ready." I wonder if they're nervous about showing off glitchy, unoptimized games. Many games feel unoptimized even at launch and get roasted for it, so imagine the state that they're in months to years before launch. No publisher wants a No Man's Sky situation.

 

[Hammettf2b]

One of the explanations is that "interested companies wouldn’t have playable demos ready." I wonder if they're nervous about showing off glitchy, unoptimized games. Many games feel unoptimized even at launch and get roasted for it, so imagine the state that they're in months to years before launch. No publisher wants a No Man's Sky situation.

I assume that's because companies don't feel pressured into the E3 deadline anymore because they can just showcase their games when they want.

 

[93LEAFS]

I assume that's because companies don't feel pressured into the E3 deadline anymore because they can just showcase their games when they want.

Also, like look at the difference of size of teams and development length for AAA games. It's not uncommon for games to finally be put together in a real playable state until like 4-6 months before launch at best. Back in e3's heyday we are talking simple like 15 man teams maybe working on a game for 2 years in a level based game. Getting a demo for something like that ready was way less of hinderence or distraction compared to getting a 200 person team to get a demo ready for an open-world title.

I think a major thing is, the stage time and booths were expensive. When Sony and Nintendo have the social media/youtube followings they have, why pay significantly for that. Just like magazines and physical game guides died with the internet, e3 is just a consequence of social media/youtube.

 

[Ceremony]

At least they went out on a high

 

[Oogie Boogie]

Summer Game Fest has already replaced E3.

 

[Knave]

Also, like look at the difference of size of teams and development length for AAA games. It's not uncommon for games to finally be put together in a real playable state until like 4-6 months before launch at best. Back in e3's heyday we are talking simple like 15 man teams maybe working on a game for 2 years in a level based game. Getting a demo for something like that ready was way less of hinderence or distraction compared to getting a 200 person team to get a demo ready for an open-world title.

I think a major thing is, the stage time and booths were expensive. When Sony and Nintendo have the social media/youtube followings they have, why pay significantly for that. Just like magazines and physical game guides died with the internet, e3 is just a consequence of social media/youtube.

I'll miss but yeah... it costs money to show up with a demo, you're not really gaining much of anything because you can build hype online and virtually because there are so many people who play games now that anything with promise will get hyped up.

And given there's this deep desire people have for the next new game... companies have found a way to monetize that with bigger pre-order windows, pre-order bonuses, pre-order early access periods, pre-order beta test windows.

And they don't struggle to find people willing to play their game for testing or play their game to hype it up. People will line up to play the game. They can handpick the testers they want.

There is no reason for a booth if you're a game company. The best case is you don't gain anything. The worst case is your demo is buggy and you get negative attention. It's not worth it.

 

[robertmac43]

It was always fun getting a week of hyped releases. Going to miss that part of it. Also fin to have everyone in one place.

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

I’ll miss the hype of it. And watching it on G4.

 

[93LEAFS]

Thinking about it, I hope we get some sort of recap from Dunkey still, it's believed almost all the major players are still gonna have showcases around then.

 

[Jussi]

Thinking about it, I hope we get some sort of recap from Dunkey still, it's believed almost all the major players are still gonna have showcases around then.

Starfield Direct is on Sunday with I would guess general Xbox Showcase on the following Monday.

 

[PeteWorrell]

It's dead for sure and video game developers won't be complaining. They had to split the teams so they could release a working demo and then after that take what worked and incorporate it into the main project. A big hassle overall.

 

[Gardner McKay]

Still my favorite E3 moment

That was epic.

This is mine and while I get why E3 is dead, it is still sad.

 

[JimmyApples]

Still my favorite E3 moment

It’s wild how much can change in 10 years. Xbox was coming off the very successful Xbox 360, and released a more expensive console that was pretty anti-consumer. Now Sony is doing the exact same

 

[93LEAFS]

It’s wild how much can change in 10 years. Xbox was coming off the very successful Xbox 360, and released a more expensive console that was pretty anti-consumer. Now Sony is doing the exact same

How is the PS5 anti-consumer? It's more expensive sure, but it's not bundled with crap people don't want like Kinect, nor is it attempting to do the always online stuff. Plus, PS5 and Series X are the same price in the most important market (USA).

 

[JimmyApples]

How is the PS5 anti-consumer? It's more expensive sure, but it's not bundled with crap people don't want like Kinect, nor is it attempting to do the always online stuff. Plus, PS5 and Series X are the same price in the most important market (USA).

Putting PS5 optimization behind paywalls on games like Spiderman and Ghost of Tsushima

Very little backwards compatibility unless you’re willing to spend $$$ on the top tier of PS Plus

An awful and confusing upgrade optimization

Disc version of games a different file than the same digital version of games

Gran Turismo 7… should I even explain?

There’s also plenty of examples of Sony’s untruthful marketing. Lots of users complaining that a game appears like it’s only coming for the PS5, only to later be told it is also coming for PS4.

I don’t think any of these companies are necessarily pro consumer, but Sony has taken this generations anti-consumer title this generation, no questions asked

 

[93LEAFS]

Putting PS5 optimization behind paywalls on games like Spiderman and Ghost of Tsushima

Very little backwards compatibility unless you’re willing to spend $$$ on the top tier of PS Plus

An awful and confusing upgrade optimization

Disc version of games a different file than the same digital version of games

Gran Turismo 7… should I even explain?

There’s also plenty of examples of Sony’s untruthful marketing. Lots of users complaining that a game appears like it’s only coming for the PS5, only to later be told it is also coming for PS4.

I don’t think any of these companies are necessarily pro consumer, but Sony has taken this generations anti-consumer title this generation, no questions asked

All PS4 games except a select few are backward compatible just by either downloading the game or putting the disc in, and it was never claimed anything prior to that would be possible (there are serious issues with the PS3's cell architechture for emulation).

You could get on Microsoft's case for similar things such as proprietary memory cards which are significantly more expensive than gen 4 M.2 drives at the moment. Like, I can get a 2tb M.2 with the read speeds required for $250 CAD, the same storage for Xbox is $480 CAD.

And what do you mean about disc being different sizes than the digital file. That is true for like all games now, Sony's disc's are generally at least playable without an upgrade which is more than you can say about a lot of companies.

 

[JimmyApples]

All PS4 games except a select few are backward compatible just by either downloading the game or putting the disc in, and it was never claimed anything prior to that would be possible (there are serious issues with the PS3's cell architechture for emulation).

You could get on Microsoft's case for similar things such as proprietary memory cards which are significantly more expensive than gen 4 M.2 drives at the moment. Like, I can get a 2tb M.2 with the read speeds required for $250 CAD, the same storage for Xbox is $480 CAD.

And what do you mean about disc being different sizes than the digital file. That is true for like all games now, Sony's disc's are generally at least playable without an upgrade which is more than you can say about a lot of companies.

Microsoft’s external storage is a valid point but should become cheaper in the future as they a new company has officially produced storage devices.

I said nothing about the disc file size, just the disc file. For example, if I own Biomutant through disc and download it, then the game comes to Game Pass, they’re all the same file. Sony’s is two different files. If I rent Miles Morales from a rental company, download it, then get PS plus to play it, I need to uninstall and re-download.

You forgot to touch on a few of my points

 

[93LEAFS]

Microsoft’s external storage is a valid point but should become cheaper in the future as they a new company has officially produced storage devices.

I said nothing about the disc file size, just the disc file. For example, if I own Biomutant through disc and download it, then the game comes to Game Pass, they’re all the same file. Sony’s is two different files. If I rent Miles Morales from a rental company, download it, then get PS plus to play it, I need to uninstall and re-download.

You forgot to touch on a few of my points

I didn't touch on them because the upgrade thing is correct, smart delivery is better than the $10 upgrade path. This also just happened with Outer Worlds which is an X-Box studio, but to the best of my knowledge this was done by Private Division (a publishing division of Take 2), not Microsoft. Not really anything to dispute. As for GT7, I've heard of the MTX issues, but I haven't played it myself, so I really have no comments on that.

As for the disc issue you are talking about, could be correct but I've never encountered it. Although save files will always carry over in my experience, I wouldn't say that is anti-consumer more than it is just inconvenient (they aren't downgrading the games or increasing prices, which would be anti-consumer).

I'm not gonna dispute MS is probably the most consumer-friendly at the moment, because they are in the most need of gaining market share (similar to AMD vs Nvidia in GPUs, but not really true in CPUs anymore as they gained on Intel). To be honest, being on all 3 platforms to an extent (I don't own an Xbox, but have PC Gamepass for like the next 28 months), I find Nintendo the most frustrating to deal with since while Sony's first party games are 90 CAD at launch and pretty much all Nintendo games except the upcoming Tears of the Kingdom are 80CAD, unless a game is an absolute must have for you, you will be able to find Sony stuff on sale within 6-12 months. Good luck ever finding first party Nintendo stuff on sale except maybe twice a year, and then games 5 years old will go back up to 80.

To be honest, if you really want to hammer Sony/Nintendo for being anti-consumer just look at their refund policies compared to Microsoft and Steam/Valve, although that is partially a cultural divide, but it was obviously quite evident on CyberPunk 2077 and which is why it got taken off the Sony store after CDPR promised refunds without clearing it with Sony ahead of time.

I just don't really see the PS5 itself as being anti-consumer. There are obviously some issues with SIE overall like there all with all 3 of the companies.

 

[S E P H]

Late to this, but what sort of killed it? I know it was always in trouble the last couple of years even before Covid, but sad because you had some awesome reactions at releases.

 

[93LEAFS]

Late to this, but what sort of killed it? I know it was always in trouble the last couple of years even before Covid, but sad because you had some awesome reactions at releases.

Once Sony stopped showing up (about 4 years ago), I think it showed to the other two big console holders they didn't have to either. Once all 3 left it was dead. Its just easy to reach your audience without paying the on stage fee of e3. Then add in the Sony and MS marketing deals.

 

[S E P H]

Once Sony stopped showing up (about 4 years ago), I think it showed to the other two big console holders they didn't have to either. Once all 3 left it was dead. Its just easy to reach your audience without paying the on stage fee of e3. Then add in the Sony and MS marketing deals.

If I was a game company, I don't need E3 to showcase my games so that makes sense but what was the reason why Sony stopped going? Decided to do their own E3?

 

[bambamcam4ever]

Microsoft’s external storage is a valid point but should become cheaper in the future as they a new company has officially produced storage devices.

I said nothing about the disc file size, just the disc file. For example, if I own Biomutant through disc and download it, then the game comes to Game Pass, they’re all the same file. Sony’s is two different files. If I rent Miles Morales from a rental company, download it, then get PS plus to play it, I need to uninstall and re-download.

You forgot to touch on a few of my points

I don't think the different disc/digital difference for PS is meant to be anti consumer, Playstation's terrible operating system is just 3-4 decades behind the times, so they probably couldn't figure out how to get it to work