I have wondered why, this year again, Sony got a timeslot after Microsoft.

I mean that is a better position to be in than Microsoft. MS has to open the ball, and Sony can leverage from any mistake MS does, or on things that are not as crowd-pleasing on the MS conference. Obvioulsy only minor things can be changed, as every press conference agenda is almost set in stone.

But again, having a press conference after MS must be, from a competition view, a better position to be in, right?

How do the administration behind the E3, decide who can have which timeslot?

Because Microsoft is the opening act - the "welcome to the show" so to speak. They will most likely have the weakest showing, so saving them for last or even second is just silly.

It really is better to be after them - even if MS has "surprises", I doubt very seriously anything at all will outshine what Sony shows.

No matter what the position of the sony conference, they would win anyway with this:

Ka-pi96 said: Unless you're in Europe. Then Sony screwed you over big time with theirs while Microsoft's is perfectly watchable

This. Apparently Sony hates Europe while MS is a lot friendlier.

FromSoftware's masterpiece. Pack it up, people, we have a GOTY right there.

Ka-pi96 said: Unless you're in Europe. Then Sony screwed you over big time with theirs while Microsoft's is perfectly watchable

Exactly this.
Can't border to look at their show that late, so always look the next day. But then I don't want to see the whole thing anymore, so always skipping over most and only look at the best things for me.
So basically, I always only see parts of their show.
Considering Europe is their biggest marked, their time slot is a really odd choice in my opinion.

what's this? a Kart Racing game?!

Microsoft wanted to go first.

and this

It can either show confidence or weakness for XB. Depends how you look at it. By going first, they sure make it seem like they are confident, but by going after PS and having a poorer showing than them, XB would look weaker. If your going to go after PS right now, you better be sure that your going to blow the roof off the place.

Also, if XB went last, in an instance where PS comes out and says Pro is dropping to $299 or something like that, then XB comes out and says Scorpio is $399 afterwards, even though that's an amazing price for the upgrade, it would make the news less effective for XB. This way, by going first, if the Pro price drops any amount, XB can go around saying look how scared PS is of Scorpio, they obviously reacted to it and are dropping the price now since its not as good.

Going first puts the spotlight entirely on XB, at least until the PS show, and allows XB to act confident and to make it seem like PS is reacting to them. This only works though if XB has a good show and don't bomb like they did with XB1 in 2013.