Much has been made of Sony’s change in approach to its E3 press conferences over the past two years. With a shorter run time and less people on stage, the company lets the games do the talking. But has this resulted in more brand new experiences being announced for PlayStation platforms? We’ve taken a look through the history books to work out if Sony’s recent switch up is actually leading to more game announcements on its stage or not.
E3 2013
Sony's E3 2013 press conference had entire sections dedicated to the PS3 and PS Vita, which already makes it a weird one to look back on. But of course, nobody remembers this briefing because of those reminders that the platforms still existed. This was all about the PS4, with a reveal of the hardware's design, its launch games, and what we have to look forward past its first few months on the market.
The Order: 1886 was announced, Destiny had its first proper unveiling, and then Tetsuya Nomura delivered the one-two punch of Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts III. Sony then wrapped up the show with a £349/$399 price point and a stab to the heart of every Microsoft employee in Los Angeles, with the announcement that the PS4 would support used games without any sort of online check-in. A weird thing to look back on in 2018, but incredibly important at the time.
15 PS4/PS3/PS Vita games announced across 1 hour 47 minutes
E3 2014
Despite the PS4 generation being in full swing by this point, Sony still whispered the words "PlayStation Vita" on its stage in 2014. It was all hands on deck for PlayStation's newest machine however, with the announcements of LittleBigPlanet 3, Bloodborne, and No Man's Sky. Rockstar Games even put in a brief appearance with the unveiling of Grand Theft Auto V's PS4 port.
The presser concluded with the official announcement of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. A great conference when all's said and done, but it couldn't hold a candle to what came a year later.
18 PS4/PS Vita games announced across 1 hour 46 minutes
E3 2015
The Last Guardian. Final Fantasy VII Remake. Shenmue III. Sony's 2015 E3 conference was fan fiction turned reality, and it's these three pillars that people lean on when considering it to be the greatest E3 showcase of all time. But what people forget is, there was even more.
Horizon: Zero Dawn was revealed for the first time with gameplay straight from the off, Hitman was announced, Media Molecule's Dreams was shown off with even more footage straight from the source, Firewatch received a PS4 version, and Destiny: The Taken King showed the promise it managed to realise in a reveal trailer. And what better way to conclude proceedings with a first look at gameplay of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End?
The greatest E3 press conference of all time? It is most certainly up there with the very best.
13 PS4/PSVR games announced across 1 hour 30 minutes
E3 2016
In this scribe's opinion, PlayStation's 2016 E3 briefing was actually even better than the previous year's. Kicking things off with the brand new God of War, announcements continued to escalate with the unveiling of Sony Bend's Days Gone, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was announced along with a release date and a demo, the long-awaited Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy finally showed up, and Insomniac Games' Spider-Man surprised everyone with a PS4 exclusive web-slinging adventure.
PlayStation VR also made an appearance, with its pricing and release details shared with the public. And then there was Death Stranding. At the time, who would have thought we'd get to see what comes next from the mind of Hideo Kojima? An announcement for the ages that one.
8 PS4/PSVR games announced across 1 hour 14 minutes
E3 2017
Sony's E3 2017 conference isn't viewed anywhere near as fondly as the past couple of years' were. New games were announced, but with two thirds of them tied up in PlayStation VR exclusivity, the presser was incredibly lacklustre for the average gamer. Horizon: Zero Dawn received an expansion in the form of The Frozen Wilds, Monster Hunter: World made an impressive appearance, and Bluepoint's remake of Shadow of the Colossus wowed unsuspecting viewers.
In terms of traditional gaming, that was it when it came to new game announcements. PlayStation VR owners, however, were treated to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR, Star Child, and a double blow from Supermassive Games in the form of Bravo Team and The Inpatient – although we'd rather forget those two. Elsewhere, the delightful Moss cranked the cuteness up to 11, and Monster of the Deep: Final Fantasy XV left us all feeling a little weird.
9 PS4/PSVR games announced across 59 minutes
What does this mean for E3 2018?
Plans for this article were put in place a month ago, and we were hoping to offer some lovely Push Square analysis of our findings and then make a somewhat accurate prediction of what to expect out of PlayStation's E3 2018 briefing. And then Sony announced its unorthodox plans for this year's show.
In terms of first-party, PlayStation will be focusing its efforts on Death Stranding, Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-Man, and The Last of Us: Part II. With "deep dives" planned for all, they're clearly going to be the highlights of the show, but where are those surprise reveals going to come from now? Third-parties and indie studios will still be taking to the stage with new announcements, but with the platform holder focusing on four already announced games, this year's conference is shaping up to be even more muted than last year.
However, let's still take a look at our findings. Sony changed its approach for E3 2016, and as you can see, the number of new game reveals dropped fairly significantly. This also happens to line up with indies no longer taking to the PlayStation stage, which could explain the drop in numbers. PlayStation VR also plays a part in the mind share of the later conferences, hitting the 2017 edition hardest with two thirds of the announcements that time around only playable on a virtual reality headset.
The clear winner over the past five years has to be E3 2014, with 18 different experiences announced for the PS4, but there's a reason for this. It's the first full year of the console's life, with developers jumping on board to take advantage of the new technology, and thus Sony had a plethora of studios just begging the hardware manufacturer to let them debut their game on the big stage. Alongside that, 2014 pre-dates the PlayStation VR. Everyone is all in on creating core console experiences, with no peripherals to worry about. Every console is going to have this sort of boom early on in its life, and so it throws the years before and after it a little out of whack.
For E3 2018, the generation is clearly beginning to wind down, and so there's only so many big games left to be announced. Combine this with Sony's focus on already announced titles, and this year's show probably won't be too memorable. The amount of games announced actually has a chance to go up however, as indies are welcomed back on to the Sony stage. And as demonstrated in previous years, you could have up to five or so games revealed for the PS4 in the space of a few minutes. Third parties could also bring the big guns with one last hurrah for the current generation, but that's just speculation. All in all we're quietly confident of Sony having a relatively low-key E3 show.
Do you prefer Sony's newer approach to its E3 press conferences, or do you want to usher in the return of PlayStation's bigwigs to the stage? Predict a third-party surprise in the comments below.
Comments 25
I personally dont care as long as its solid and not retreading old ground as much as 2017 did.
I mean its at 2am. I at least expect a semi decent event. Nothing groundbreaking.
As for everyone else at E3, I expect mediocrity to solid shows as well. This isnt the year for big bangs.
Most of those got leaked anyway....
E3 isn’t an island on it’s own in the reveal ocean. All the Gamescons, and PS events, not to mention trailers and adverts that are put out there need footage and information that E3 used to have all to itself.
Plus I get the feeling the general consensus of gamers agree that the more information that is revealed for a game, the less amount of surprise and excitement we get once it’s in our hands. It’s great to know game X is coming and will have this gameplay and multiple whatever’s, but we don’t necessarily want to know all the secret characters and what all weapons are, and all the bosses and the what the maps look like.
@Knuckles-Fajita I think you should stay in bed if you don't want to see the four games they've said they're going to show. They've been clear about what it is.
Like you say, it's on at 2AM and the inevitable whining is more irritating at that hour than anything else. Just get some sleep, we'll have a round up here in the morning.
I'm currently rewatching the last few years of E3 pressers and I still think (in recent years) 2016 was a great show
Ok so the numbers certainly seem to be going down through the years, and there seems to be quite a lot of people expecting Sony to not announce any games during their showcase this year. @get2sammyb I believe?
Personally I still think we'll get at least a couple during their conference but new reveals will mostly be kept to the pre-show and and throughout the rest of the week.
Are we gonna be doing the prediction poll thing that we did for last year's E3?
@RedMan33 reading the recaps on here, my first thought was how 2016 stood out so much. I've been gaming all my life and following E3s for a while but I think that conference was the one that really reignited my interest in the games industry as a whole, and is probably one of the reasons I started using sites like this one so much.
@roe Liam explains in the article why the numbers have gone down: "The clear winner over the past five years has to be E3 2014, with 18 different experiences announced for the PS4, but there's a reason for this. It's the first full year of the console's life, with developers jumping on board to take advantage of the new technology, and thus Sony had a plethora of studios just begging the hardware manufacturer to let them debut their game on the big stage."
@roe it was just constantly great my God Of War hype didn't die down during the whole show so maybe that had an effect on it but while E3 2015 was great showing the 3 that are mentioned at the start of that recap none of them really do anything for me
Didn't they debut Days Gone in 2016 as well?
It was the best Sony E3 conference imo
@get2sammyb sorry my tagging you was to confirm that you don't think there will be any new game announcements during the PlayStation show this year?
@roe You might get Devil May Cry 5, but I honestly wouldn't go in expecting anything at all. They've said they're showing the four games, and I think that's what people should anticipate. Nothing more.
@get2sammyb That's not what I said.
I said I expect a decent show, nothing ground-breaking (You know, like gameplay reveals for already announced games as they have revealed is their plan). I'm okay with that.
I am interested in what they have to show, dont put words in my mouth. But further to that, it still is at 2am, and if the pace is off, if they drag on one too long or do it in ways counter to the format they are presenting the information in, then that's a problem.
Lord knows its easy to screw up a live stream by making it boring.
@get2sammyb perhaps 2014 had the most reveals but quantity over quality. Bloodborne as side Little Big Planet 3, a GTA5 port and No Man's Sky being the big new against RE7, Crash N Sane, Spiderman and God Of War pretty much a no contest
@Knuckles-Fajita It's not a problem if you just catch up the morning after.
@get2sammyb No, but you know me, got a website to run and that means...live reactions blehk.
Honestly the only one I'll skip is Devolver Digital because...4am for s***posting. Nah Im good
Remember, once you work around games, gaming stops
If Sony will make a surprise announcement of the PS One Mini, it would probably steal the show.
2AM, dang. I’m glad I’m in America right now. I shouldn’t, but in all honestly - I want one surprise announcement. An awesome game, even if it’s a smaller game that looks exciting - I want something.
@Knuckles-Fajita dont sleep .theres a ghost of tshushima.word up son
this whole debate of sleeping over the show or not is kinda pointless.
i mean you can just watch the show the next day because all e3 shows always gets uploaded to youtube. so if you are not happy with just reading about the news than just watch it the next day.
I hope there's a "One more thing" moment at the end. Just one.
The most memorable thing for me at E32015 was H:ZD - mainly because the 'holy trinity' of FF7, Shenmue and Last Guardian have absolutely no appeal.
2016 and 2017 saw a different approach - one that let the games do the talking. Yes they may not have been very long and not had many games comparatively to show BUT the time spent on game-play video's was a LOT higher - at least it seemed to be - with little chat or filler in between. Much preferred to seeing a 1-2min clip then 10mins of chat about it before a 5min chat about the next game followed by another very short clip and another 10mins of chat...
Its also better than releasing a 2/3min montage of 10+ games that are coming soon - no time to really see what they are, what they offer etc.
The only thing that disappointed me about 2017's Sony Briefing was the fact that it felt like they copy and pasted 2016's. Excluding VR/Indie games, their 'big' new announcement was Shadow of the Colossus remake - the 3rd time the game has been released - Not a game I enjoyed the first time.
What I want from E3 is 'new' announcements. Games that I can add to my 'wanted' list. As great as the 'games' maybe, if I added them a year or more before, then it kind of falls a bit flat for me and ends up a bit 'deja vu'.
A perfect E3 would be where 95%+ of the briefing would be new announcements and games we can expect to play in the next year. At the end' of a briefing, I would be OK with a 'one more thing' of a teaser/trailer for a game that's likely to arrive after the next E3 but within that next year. If they kept it to the 'year ahead' only, then every year would be predominantly new reveals and only 1 game, the one more thing from the year before, would be known. E3 2017 would not have fell 'flat' - not with the calibre of games Sony had to show but because they had revealed them the year before, the 'surprise' and excitement was missing.
If Sony are only going to show 8-10 games, then it makes even more sense to have these as big reveals and then announce all will be releasing in the next year before showing the 'one more thing' teaser...It would have much more impact that way!
Sony's E3 2016 conference was as close to perfect as it can get. Not expecting another one that good until the first 2 or 3 E3s involving PS5.
If Sony shows these four games, plus Dreams, PSVR and a multiplat surprise like Devil may Cry 5 or a new game made by Rocksteady, it will be a solid conference imho. It still has games like Days Gone, Medievil and Concrete Genie, not sure if will be there though.
E3 2016 was great and is what pushed me to get a PS4. I saw so many games I felt were must haves and then Xbox didn't show anything (for exclusives) coming that interested me for the next year.
I do wonder if Xbox will finally show games and games that are now gears, halo and Forza because it really has nothing going for it that console right now apart from its own in house exclusives. But I won't be watching this last year's was rather dull
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