Catchy title eh? Ok i'll change it to look more official later but I went and rewatched the both gc press conferences and noted all the games that were highlighted in both conferences.
Lets be honest, both were good conferences. However looking at the stats, one was clearly better.
What makes a good press conference?
In my opinion:
1. Spend as little time as possible on already announced games
2. Announce cool new ip's
3. Announce exclusive partnerships & exclusive games
First section - The exclusives
Both conferences had an indie reel. Since most are already announced or have been on PC or will be, I have decided to exclude them from certain categories. Most of the time, indies come to consoles as timed exclusives, so end up on other consoles down the road, and its very rare to see sequels as they are mostly all new ip's. I have to give a shoutout though to MS for their excellent indie showreel, but I have to exclude it to focus on the games the conferences focused on.
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Total games at briefing (excluding indies in indie reels): |
Microsoft certainly impressed with a large number of indies. In terms of exclusive games shown, which is platform family exclusive (so could be both xb1 & 360) it's pretty even. I included every game which was highlighted center stage, so therefore included forza 5 which was given some time for its dlc. The above doesn't tell us too much though about which conference was better, and at the beginning I did say there was a clear winner, so the second list will shock you more.
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Excluding indie's showcased |
Just a note, if I wasnt 100% sure about whether a game is a exclusive or timed or not or exclusive dlc blah blah, I didn't include it. So what does this tell us?
The first one, new games presented for the first time for the specific console & their platform family(ps4/xb1). Microsoft announced only one new title at Gamescom for xbox one (again, I do not include indies from within the indie reels for the above reason) and that was screamride. Add to that that it is a xbox 360 game too, it does not look good for them.
Sony banged the doors down announcing 12 new games for their console. Titles such as WiLD, Hellblade and The Tomorrows Children were just the start. Alienation & The vanishing of ethan carter and alot more. Impressive, to say the least. Dissapointing from microsoft.
In terms of new IP's presented (unreleased games) both companies did good, but again sony won by a landslide. Most of the titles were new ip's and definitely fall under the AAA category. Xbox's new ip's such as Quantum break wowed, while Below & sunset overdrive gained a positive reception.
However, Microsoft only had 1 new IP which was revealed for the first time for their console vs 9 for sony. That was the only unannounced game they announced, which was screamride.
Microsoft also spent a lot of time on existing franchises. The standouts were Fifa, which didn't show us anything new at all, and didnt even deserve to have 3 minutes of stage time just to announce 10 more FUT characters. The exclusivity deal isnt new, so was a pointless waste. Call of duty was shown and a impressive single player level, but I was still disappointed since we've already seen single player gameplay and there wasnt anything significant shown.
A lot of time was given to Halo, which is microsofts biggest ip so is understandable. However they seemed to spend more time talking about a Halo channel than the actual two halo games, MCC & 5. Nothing new was really announced for the pair of games, except a beta release date & some annoying esports commentary for halo multiplayer (and evolve too :/)
Sony had their fair share of time wasters. far cry 4 overstayed their welcome and the destiny presenters talked for too long. Luckily they did share new info on the multiplayer & exclusive dlc.
Sony did however move trailers for four of there big games to a 'pre show' which I am still including as part of the show. The trailers were short and sweet so wasn't a nuance at all, and they spent a long time on driveclub too.
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Conclusion:
