I thought Microsoft's E3 presentation was rather alarming. The announcement of backwards compatability had me saying: "WOW, that is a big deal". I thought the release of the Rare collection, 30 games for 30 dollars, as well as the announcement of "Recore" and "Ion" was a step in the right direction.

Now I completely understand that the new XB1 controller was also a huge deal, but what was wrong with the original XB1 controller that caused the value to triple in price (Elite - $150, original XB1 controller - $50)?

I also understand that Halo 5: Guardians is a game that a ton of fans have been waiting for and I am confident that the game will sell very well, as all Halo games have done in the past. But I am here scratching my head why a game that was announced back in 2013, with a known release date in Holiday 2015, is so groundbreaking? Again I see the appeal of the fantastic weather conditions, graphics, and a solid 60 fps for Forza 6, but didn't we already know this before E3? I feel the same could be said about Gears 4; however I do have to say that I LOVED the environment in this game. Now if you throw in Tomb Raider in as well, then you have three top notch games releasing this year, which is absolutely fantastic. But when I watch an E3 presentation, especially one at the beginning of a consoles life cycle, I expect new IPs to complement established franchises.

But how exciting are the rest of Microsofts E3 presentations going to be if I can sit here right now and say that Forza Horizon 3 and Gears 4 are going to be shown for E3 2016? Or Halo 6 and Forza 7 for E3 2017? Etc etc...? I understand that these franchises are heavy hitters for Microsoft, just as how Mario is to Nintendo. The only difference is that Nintendo has Zelda, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Yoshi, Star Fox, etc to create space between each Mario game so Mario doesn't become a yearly released game. This is where Microsoft needed new IP's and less Hololens/Indie games so their established franchises (Halo, Forza, Gears) don't become like the COD series. I am also still scratching my head about where are the game announcements for Jan 2016-June 2016 for Microsoft.

The other concerning aspect for Microsoft seems to be the lack of focus on their peripherals. Microsoft has Kinect 2.0, Hololens, and their partnership with Oculus Rift. Which device is Microsoft going to support the most when we are talking about creating games? A game created on any one of these devices needs to be planned from the beginning since they need to be made from the ground up. This lack of focus only creates uncertainty for the consumer as to which peripheral they should buy.

Thankfully at the end of all of this, my head no longer itches...

'Winning' E3 all boils down to your own opinion, no matter how analytical you get so you won't get a black and white answer.

HUH?  They presented them amazingly.  They had a nice little buildup speech for each one and soaked up the applause afterwards.  They introduced the creators and had them take a bow (except FF7R but oh well) and they had more than just those (hello Horizon!).  If someone is looking objectively they have to give it to Sony.  I mean MS's biggest announcement was that you can play your 360 games on your new console too.  Also I can't stand people actually awarding points for any Forza announcement anymore.  You know what's gonna happen next year?  Another Forza will be there!  It's the Madden of MS now.  It's like if Sony made a big deal every year that MLB was releasing.  I just don't get how people can actually count that when it is such an annual thing at this point.

I don't understand. I've seen 1 critical opinion out of many many critical opinions say XBO won. And that guy sounded like a biased 12 yr old (see the "MS gave Sony a mini heart attack" article on n4g) Everyone else said Sony/ps4 won. And most user opinions I've seen by far go with Sony. 

As for sales, I've been looking at the hourly charts for the past week now. I haven't seen ps4 so far ahead of XBO like this for quite a while. So that speaks a lot on who's conference had the greatest impact. Just looked and ps4 was at #18 and #19 and XBO was at like #25 or so. Then other XBO and ps4 were each in the 60s or so.  And before this ps4 was often around #16 with XBO around #31 followed next by another ps4. 

Because MS had a better show? That's my thoughts anyway lol.

Oh my god ! You're telling me there will be a MLB 2016 ?! I'm sure it will be a totally different game , maybe the visuals will even be a bit better and they will add rain, revolution ! I cant wait for this announcement

Honestly, I haven't got a ton of interest in either company at the moment, but I'd say Microsoft had a stronger showing at E3 just because their line-up is looking strong now and into 2016.

Sony had some big announcements (which I have my reservations about anyway) but very little in the way of exclusive content for 2015, which I feel like they probably should have had.

I've only ever owned Nintendo consoles and an Xbox 360 (because I enjoy Halo). I will also most likely never own a Sony created console. That being said, if we had to declare a "winner", I thought it was pretty obvious that Sony had the best E3 conference.

I think Microsoft did great, even though I got more engaged by Sony's, and their arguably highest point- backwards compatibility- was due to the same quality that led to Sony's high notes; keeping an ear to the ground, figuring out what would make a big splash, and working on making it happen. After all, what we've heard about the lead-up to the Xbox One's BC suggests pretty clearly that they decided to tackle the challenge AFTER the Xbox One had already been released, (depending on how literal you take 'a year ago,' this might be part of a single counter-strategy that include the unbundling of Kinect and the removal of the Gold paywall on most of the Xbox platform's apps, albeit one that took longer to bear fruit.) They also gathered some of their biggest brands, and also threw in plenty of indies and smaller titles, which was good given the lack of diverse indie and small titles was an early weakness of theirs, due to their indie program's delayed start. In short, they addressed some of their weaknesses, threw in the fan favorites, and found something gamers had been vocally clamoring for, (something Sony wouldn't likely be able to match,) making it a great conference.

Sony similarly picked out a few things that its fans had been generally bemoaning for years, and either helped make it happen, (The Last Guardian,) or positioned themselves to be the bearer of good news, (Shenmue 3's initial Kickstarter, and of course the Final Fantasy Remake announcement, though in both cases I'm unsure how much of a hand they had in the INITIAL planning of it, i.e. if they brought up the idea, or if Yu and Sega had already agreed to try the Kickstarter to gauge interest,) because they knew that it would make serious waves. Not with everyone, of course, (though inevitably those with a significant connection/interest to Final Fantasy 7, Shenmue, TLG or all of the above would be swayed PRETTY hard by it, but with enough to throw up plenty of 'Sony Wins' statements from interested parties. Throw in some solid stuff from their own titles- Horizon and Uncharted 4 being the obvious frontrunners- and smaller things from other parties, like No Man's Sky, etc, and it similarly was a solid conference.

I don't think who won is clear cut either way, though. To some, Shenmue, TLG and Final Fantasy aren't a big deal, but OMG Rareware game bundle and new Rare pirate game, so Microsoft wins. To others, Halo and Gears of War similarly just draw no interest, (*holds up hand*) but HOLY CRAP HUNTING DINO ROBOTS and smartalec Nathan Drake tomfoolery, so the crown goes to Sony. Backwards compatibility has the potential to be a big deal, but again, it might not be a big deal to everyone. While it makes the Xbox One more appealing to me, certainly, if I still had to pick between a PS4 and Xbox One, I'd go where all the Japanese titles are going to be. xP

(On that note, I'd actually give my right arm for a proper, non-glitchy original Playstation and PS2 emulator, because there are a metric ton of old games I miss, or outright missed, from that era I'd like to get my hands on. Whenever I try PC emulation, performance is kinda crap, and it's glitchy to boot. =P )

at first I was like >:( but then i realized what you were doing and was like :)