E3 2013 Retrospective – Who Won?

Sony

E3 this year was Sony’s to lose. Unlike Microsoft, the company was still in gamers’ good graces, and the world awaited with bated breath to see if they would deliver a fatal blow to Microsoft – or go down the same path.

Sony decided to get Vita and PS3 out of the way first – a quick reel and an announcement of The Walking Dead for Vita followed by trailers for upcoming PS3 games including Beyond: Two Souls and Gran Turismo 6, plus exclusive content for Batman: Arkham Origins and a Grand Theft Auto V bundle.

Then, the moment we all waited for. PS4 time – and there was the console. It’s very sleek, futuristic-looking, and angular, and yet shouldn’t look out of place in your typical entertainment center. Sony pulling away from Microsoft already in the design department. Following the big reveal, Sony covered in 5 minutes what Microsoft took an hour to do two weeks before: show off movie and music entertainment services “for gamers.”

From that point on, the conference became rapid-fire games. By the time we live-tweeted about one, another trailer was coming onscreen. The announcement of Ready at Dawn’s The Order: 1886 came with an interesting trailer showing its steampunk 19th century setting, and then we got rapid-fire trailers for the previously-announced PS4 games: Killzone: Shadow Fall, DriveClub, Infamous: Second Son, and Knack. This section of the conference wrapped up with a hilariously awkward preview of Quantic Dream’s The Dark Sorcerer tech demo.

Sony’s next shot at Microsoft came next, in the form of a huge onslaught of indie game support. Supergiant’s Transistor led the lineup, with on-stage simultaneous demos coming in a ferocious salvo: Don’t Starve, Octodad, Secret Ponchos, Ray’s the Dead, Outlast, Oddworld: New and Tasty, and Galak-Z. And they’re all seeing their exclusive console debut on PS4.

A quick announcement of exclusive PlayStation-related content for Diablo 3, and then those of us JRPG geeks watching fangasmed when Tetsuya Nomura came on screen to show off Final Fantasy Versus XIII – except it’s Final Fantasy XV now. Then came yet another megaton: Kingdom Hearts III is finally on its way, with a quick trailer confirming that it’s “in development” – we don’t expect to see that game for a few years at least.

Things took an awkward turn when the Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag demo froze halfway through, but these things happen when dealing with new hardware. The Watch Dogs demo that followed more than made up for it, showing some hacking gameplay as well as co-op aspects. Oh, and The Elder Scrolls Online is coming to PS4, with an exclusive beta. And a Mad Max game.

Then Sony took off the gloves and fired the shot heard round the world. Taking potshots at Microsoft the likes of which we hadn’t seen since E3s of old, a beaming Jack Tretton ticked straight down the list. PS4 supports used games, rentals, private sales, and lending. No internet connection required to play. No internet connection required at all, in fact. The crowd was so wound up that they didn’t even notice that PS+ is now required for multiplayer – granted, PS+ was more than worth the charge in the first place.

Sony wouldn’t let us come off our euphoric high, going straight into the first gameplay demo of Destiny. And wow, is it gorgeous. The environments are huge and vividly detailed, and it looks heavily inspired by Borderlands – except nicer-looking and without a lot of the issues that series has. We still can’t get over how odd it is to see Bungie at a Sony conference, but Destiny looks to have incredible potential.

Cloud service coming to PS4, PS3, and Vita next year – yeah, that’s really nice, and then Sony went in for the kill. $399 USD – a whole $100 less than Microsoft. Andrew House and Jack Tretton wrapped up the conference on that bombshell, and everyone expected them to drop the mic as they walked off.

Sony’s E3 conference was not only the best conference yet this year, it was the best conference any company has had in years. While it may have been short on exclusives, and while Vita still didn’t get enough attention, they had a much better and well-rounded lineup of games than Microsoft, and their announcements rocked the gaming world. Not only that, it was fantastic to be reminded of the E3 of old, when companies went for each other’s throats rather than just spouting off dull sales numbers and rote announcements.

Score: A