twintail said:
People said similar things last year and it didn't change Microsoft's conference much imho |
They definitely had more 3rd parties on their stage last year thanks to Sony skipping E3, I think they had 10+ AA and AAA 3rd parties at their conference, including Elden Ring, Cyberpunk, Borderlands 3, and Dying Light 2. As for 1st and 2nd parties, last year there wasn't a ton they could do to take advantage of Sony's absence, many of their new 1st party studios were only recently acquired with the games they're developing not far enough along to announce at that time, and there wasn't alot of point in them making a ton of 2nd party deals for XB1 when this generation was already a lost cause for them. Their next-gen hardware wasn't far enough along in development for a full reveal yet. They did the best they could considering it was the last current gen focused E3.
This year though alot of that that is not a big problem for them. They can show off more of their hardware, including the rumored Series S, if they chose to. They can acquire more studios and announce them. They can announce most of their Holiday 2020-Holiday 2021 1st/2nd party lineup, and maybe even tease some 2022 games since their next-gen console is unveiled now. Many of their new studios like Playground's RPG studio and The Initiative have games that are far enough along to announce now, at the very least in teaser form, quite possibly even with in-engine trailers or gameplay demos. As for 3rd parties, I'm sure there are plenty who have been waiting on PS5/XSX announces to announce their next-gen games, and if they want to announce those games at E3 in order to take advantage of the large streaming viewership numbers at E3, the MS conference is pretty much the only conference for the publishers who don't do their own conferences to announce those games. EA, Ubi, Bethesda, and possibly Square will announce their games at their own conferences again, but that leaves Take-Two/2K, Activision, Warner Bros, Capcom, Namco Bandai, Tecmo Koei, Sega and more as possibilities who might be looking at Microsoft's E3 conference to announce any next-gen games that are far enough along to be announced now. There is alot that they can do to take advantage of Sony's absence, if they chose to.
Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 13 January 2020