Topic: E3 2018

I made an E3 predictions list/bingo card/sweepstakes list for anyone that wants to use one.

EA:
Battlefield V is shown and releasing in November
Battle Royale mode is mentioned
No mention of loot boxes at any point during the show
Andrew Wilson says “there listening to their players”
Anthem get new gameplay with March 2019 date
Fifa’s story is shown again
And announce they have the Champions League licence
At least one awkward “celeb” appearance is made
Mass Effect Trilogy Remaster is announced
Respawn’s Star Wars game teased
At least one indie produced game is shown
NBA, NHL and Madden shown, obviously

Microsoft:
Phil Spencer wears at least three different T-shirts
Shadow of the Tomb Raider gameplay shown
Cyberpunk 2077 revealed
Will be first person with a mute protagonist
Microsoft mention “World premiere” at least 5 times
Metro Exodus gets new gameplay
Remedy’s new game shown
New Gears of War, Halo and Fable announced
New content for Sea of Thieves
Crackdown 3 given late 2018 release date
Forza Horizon 4 shown and September release date
Game pass, BC, accessible controller and design lab all mentioned
From Software’s Shadows Die Twice is a new Tencu game
Microsoft mention “cross platform play” at least once in their annual thinly veiled dig at Sony

Bethesda:
Starfield revealed
Fallout 3 being remastered for PS4, XBO and Switch
Doom 2 announced, coming 2019
At least one mobile game is shown
Prey getting standalone expansion
New Doom movie in the works
New Rage 2 gameplay

Ubisoft:
“Live services” are mentioned at least three times
Watch Dogs 3 gameplay shown, gets a November release
Game is set in London
New Beyond Good and Evil 2 footage shown but not gameplay
Far Cry 5 gets upcoming expansion trailer
Starlink reshown, no longer needs toys to life
Another cringy song and dance number for Just Dance
A new Mario and Rabbids game in the works
Zombi U ported to Switch
Rainbow Six Esports is mentioned
New Splinter Cell closes the show
The Division 2 revealed
Setting is Washington DC

Nintendo:
New Metroid shown off, due next year
Smash Bros for Switch is a Remaster of the wii u game with more characters, stages and modes etc
Smash coming in September
Fortnite coming to Switch
Shovel Knight 2 announced
Shovel Knight himself appears in Smash
New Yoshi Switch game release date given
Xenoblade Chronicles X coming to Switch, arrives fall 2018
Pokemon Switch given in depth look, coming in October
StarFox racing announced
Nintendo executives make cringy attempt to be “hip”
New Labo products revealed

Square Enix:
Kingdom Hearts 3 shown and dated for November
More Shadow of the Tomb Raider shown
New game from RPG Factory revealed
Fear Effect Reinvented shown and dated
Yoko Taro makes an appearance
Promises new Nier game in the works
FF XV continues to be milked
New characters for Dissidia
Crystal Dynamics's Avengers game revealed
Dragon Quest Builders 2 dated
Just Cause 4 announced
At least one new Final Fantasy game announced
FF VII is mentioned but not shown

Sony:
“Best place to play” is mentioned at least once
John Kodera makes an appearance
Spiderman gameplay shown and the game’s main villain shown
Ghost of Tshushima gets gameplay reveal, focuses on stealth.
Vague 2019 release
Death Stranding gets new trailer showing Diane Kruger’s character
Gameplay shown for the first time
Game’s official title is announced, Metal Gear Solid 0: Death Stranding
No year or platforms are mentioned now
The Last of Us Part 2 gameplay shown, Ellie features heavily
Story is revealed to have two protagonists, Ellie and Ellie’s mother (set before she was born)
2019 release.
God of War expansion teased but no firm details.
Devil May Cry 5 announced, coming early 2019
New Crash Team Racing announced
New Spyro trailer shown
Destiny 2’s new expansion revealed
Annual Cod trailer
Modern Warfare 2 Remaster announced, coming in August
Dreams beta announced for July, releases in August
At least 5 new PSVR games revealed
No Man's Sky get VR update
Sony exclusive RaySpace is a VR game made by Studio Japan
Resident Evil 2 Remake revealed, due in 2019
Rocksteady's new game revealed... Superman

PC Gaming Show:
At least one person is actually watching it

@adf86 Why would Nintendo announce a Yoshi's Island game when the upcoming Yoshi game isn't even out yet?

@Octane Well Nintendo isn't my strongest suit and I know some will get annoyed if I left them out

@adf86 I doubt Death Stranding will have anything to do with MGS, Konami own the IP and Kojima won't have anything to do with em.

@JohnnyShoulder Well this is more to do with recent fan theory videos on Youtube that found interesting connections between both MGS and DS. I don't buy it personally cos the amount of people required to be in the know and keep it secret for this long seems doubtful but I thought it was a fun prediction anyway.

@adf86 i wouldn't bother with fan theory videos on Youtube, just go back and check some of the theory videos for Star Wars The Last Jedi and see how well they turned out

just a load of people making connections between things that don't exist

@FullbringIchigo I don't really, just find the speculation a bit of fun tbh.

Im still on the stance that this E3 will be fairly safe. Not bad but not amazing.

We already know what Sony and Nintendo are bringing almost entirely with their pre event statements.

MS is really left as a wildcard but there are only two responses to their show this year. Either "That was good" or "Thats a shame". This is the make or break event after Phil Spencer spent 4 years chatting up reveals yet to come.

@adf86 If we are doing crazy fan theories then Microsoft will buy EA and Apple will buy Nintendo. Microsoft finally have a decent amount of EXCLUSIVES which they mention 153 times, including all the sports titles cos EA don't care about the dollar any more.

Apple have the all of Nintendo's back catalogue on IOS which is why first party titles have been rare this year on Switch. All free to play and full of microtransactions. Nintendo fan boys feint around the world and the Internet bursts into flames.

Sony reveal PS5 with Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Shenmue 3 as launch titles. No disc drive and PS+ is required for ALL games and goes up to 100 quid a year but with 'free' PS Now, which now includes every PS1, PS2 and PS3 game. Apart from EA games.

Boom! You heard it here first guys.

@adf86 I doubt battlefield will be November because of rdr. Maybe the last week of November but that's too late. Same for watch dogs 3. Seems like everyone fears rdr2 like it's the biggest thing ever in gaming.

@JohnnyShoulder Don't hurt my feelings.

@JohnnyShoulder Sounds reasonable. I’d actually be fine with all that. Except the disc drive thing. I’d be bummed if PS5 launches without a disc drive. Oh yeah, and hopefully Push Square survives the internet inferno. I’d be bummed about that too. The rest of the internet can turn to ash though, as far as I’m concerned.

I know some are running scared of Red Dead Redemption 2 but I still think that realistically, unless the game is in the same genre, then it shouldn't be 'that' scared to launch. I know that publishers/developers though want to be able to say they had a number 1 selling game and it could be much tougher to get the number 1 spot if a 'big' game comes out and continues to sell incredibly well each week. This is more likely to be the reason that companies are trying to get their games out before RDR2.

Its quite big news - at least for those in the gaming industry - which games are at the top of the best selling charts. If Battlefield 5, for example, releases after RDR2 and only debuts at 2 but never reaches number 1, there will be people that use that as 'proof' that BF5 isn't as popular as BF1 was - even if BF5 goes on to sell 5m more. It can affect the marketing too as EA can't say its a 'number 1' game. This is more likely to be the issue than losing sales to RDR2. If you want both games, you will end up getting both - even if you can't buy both on Day 1 - so from a sales perspective, the game will still sell the same number of copies.

Timing can make the difference of being number 1 for several weeks or more and even not getting in the top 3. You can be number 1 for weeks without selling anywhere near the numbers that some games sell in a day. In can take months to sell 3m copies yet some games sell more than that within the first 24 hours.

Personally, I would be happier never to be a number 1 selling game but sell more copies over the same time than be number 1 for weeks but not sell as many. However, I think that publishers want to be number 1 and think they will still sell the same numbers so timing is key. Of course the exception to that rule is where 'similar' games are releasing - like we saw with CoD, BF and TF2 all releasing within weeks. I think EA expected that BF would take the sales from CoD for those looking for a more traditional FPS and TF2 would take the sales from CoD for those looking for the more Advanced Movement FPS. However, TF2 got lost inbetween and wasn't helped by the 'exclusivity' of the first game - the fact that PS4 owners may of gone for what they knew.

If we were getting open world Action games in a similar vein to RDR2 or even another 'western' game - even if it was more linear, I think those may well suffer from launching around the same time. The inevitable comparison would arise - which is the better open world experience, which is the better western game. You wouldn't want to bring out a new 'Gun' or 'Call of Juarez' but I do think games like Battlefield, CoD, Halo etc, games like Forza/GT/Dirt, Fifa/PES, Madden etc - in fact I think you could get away with releasing sci-fi, horror, fantasy etc games that may even be open world action games too because the setting and tone is different. Granted these may not make the number 1 which they may do if released a few months later (Q1 for example) but the actual overall sales of the games would probably be the same. You may as well never release a game in September because of Fifa or November because of CoD as these are the two biggest selling games every year and have massive opening week sales.

All dodging RDR2 is gonna do is get the games in question to cannibalise each other independent of RDR.

@JohnnyShoulder Lol well even if your half right this years E3 will be memorable.

@adf86 Well I did predict Shenmue 3 and The Last Guardian would be announced when they did so you never know... lol

@YummyHappyPills There are always casualties in Q4 due to the clusterf of games released. With RDR2 the last AAA titled released that has been announced on Oct 26th, that only leaves about 6 - 7 weeks to get a game out before the chrimbo period. However with only Battlefield 5 and Rage 2 that we know about so far, it doesn't look too packed. Of course this will probably all change after E3. What's the odds that Bethesda release Rage 2 in between CoD and RDR2?

I hope Bethesda has learned something with wolfenstein 2 and the evil within 2 launches so they move rage 2 to the beginning of the next year.

It remains to be seen where will ubisoft put their games.

@NecuVise The fact is that there is plenty of fertile ground in June, July, and August. The release calendar for that quarter of the year is quite abysmal. After Vampyr and Onrush on June 5th, it’s a wasteland until Kiwami 2 on August 28th. Then suddenly within a 3 week period in early September, we get 3-4 heavy hitting huge games (DQ, SofTR, SM, Spyro, and even VC4). E3 will be too late to announce a June release date but here’s hoping someone grabs July or August. Code Vein looks interesting for July, but otherwise, nothing. Maybe Soul Calibur VI will squeeze into that time period.
The next big open period is probably late November/early December. Not too much there yet. Maybe that’s where Dreams and Kingdom Hearts will drop in.
Come on E3! Hoping for some good updated release dates!

@Th3solution June July and August are perfectly open on Xbox One and PS4.

On Switch on the other hand....jesus christ. Talk about packed.

@YummyHappyPills I guess that works out perfect for gamers who play both consoles. I wonder what percentage of PS4 owners have a Switch. I’m sure the publishers know those stats because you’re right — we can not just assume that a PS4 game is competing for gamer’s dollars (or pounds, as it were) with other PS4 games. Rather it they have to consider that they are competing against Switch games also in those that own both consoles. Maybe that’s why no one is clamoring to release in the summer months. I didn’t realize Nintendo had a bunch of good ones coming then.