Topic: E3 2018

@Octane

Nintendo
Presents
Metroid 3

Nintendo Presents
Metroid 4

@YummyHappyPills That's not fair, I thought you were talking about the title screen. Anyway, I didn't know that, and partly because I've never heard anyone call them Metroid 3 and 4

@Octane They are Metroid 3 and Metroid 4. That's just the reality of it

@adf86 that's another topic and I was not talking about that. Sony is guilty of that too. Santa Monica made the same game over and over again, polyphony same game, naughty dog for the last decade the same game except for tlou which is very similar, media molecule made 3 lbp games, gg made several killzone games etc.
It's just that Sony has more studios so their portfolio feels a lot different, especially with new IPs and reboots in recent time.

@NecuVise Media Molecule only made LBP1 and LBP2, they also made Tearaway and they're currently working on Dreams. I don't think you can accuse them of making the same thing over and over again!

@NecuVise TLOU is only similar to Uncharted in that both are 3rd person story heavy games. SSM were making a new IP until it got cancelled and even then Sony needed convincing a new GoW was the way to go. My point is that you think there might be a double standard in how people view too many Halos but not Uncharted, so I'm giving a reason why it's perceived like that. Heck one of the reasons that might be is that we've had ten separate Halo games on consoles compared to just five for Uncharted.

@Octane my mistake for media molecule, I stand corrected. Thanks for pointing that out.
@adf86 yes, we have had so many different halo games but out of these games we have had 5 main entries plus one prequel since 2001. The rest were games of different genres so you can't call them the same. Anyway, as I have already pointed out, Sony had a similar situation but with higher count of studios so they had more diverse lineup, plus they had better success with second party studios, especially Japanese.

So I'm thinking that maybe Sony will cut the price of PS4 Pro to $299 at this E3. Do you guys think it's possible or it's too early for that? Are there any rumors about this?

@NecuVise It's possible, but their sales forecast predicted a decline (16 million in 2018 vs 19 million last year), suggesting that a big price cut isn't coming this year.

@Octane @NecuVise I could see them making a smaller price cut this year, 350 for instance, but I don't think they would announce it at E3.

My expectation for E3:

Spider-Man
God of War DLC
New Rocksteady game
Ghosts
Devil May Cry 5
Bluepoint (Demon's Souls?) Remake
"Shadows Die Twice"
Last of Us 2 gameplay

@Kidfried I think no DLC for God of War. Cory said they hadn't anything planned, and the way he designed this and the upcoming game(s), I don't think there's much room for DLC. Additionally, he also talked about taking a two to three month vacation

I think for Sony's conference:
Spider-Man
The Last of Us (+gameplay)
Death Stranding (+gameplay)
Ghost of Tsushima (+gameplay)
Bluepoint's remake (Demon's Souls?)

And whatever third party games the managed to secure, including From's new game, which I do believe will be a multiplat game. Anything Japan Studio related has a higher chance of being shown at TGS, though I wouldn't mind a teaser for Ueda's new game.

Maybe we get a little surprise, like a new Ratchet & Clank for example.

@Octane I don't even dare to dream of a Ueda game.

I honestly don't expect Death Stranding. That game has managed to grab every headline whenever it released a trailer. Unless Sony is going to release this game before next E3, I think they're only hurting their headlines.

There is no way people are going to talk about Ghosts or Spider-Man if there is a new DS trailer.

Thanks for the heads up on God of War DLC. SAD!

@KratosMD In March James Stevenson of Insomniac that at the moment everyone was working on Spider-Man. Insomniac has worked on multiple projects at once in the past, but it probably depends on the scale.

@Kidfried They have two studios. @KratosMD

I believe both studios also worked on the Ratchet remake so make of that what you will

I wouldn't be surprised if Insomniac are in the early stages of their next game now. Certain aspects of their next game must be complete by now - such as the scripting, voice work, animations, environment crating etc which would leave those people 'free' to start work on their next project. They are still on hand to correct 'issues' that may crop up during the final phases of putting all the parts together, play testing and polishing but games are built like movies and cartoons - start with a script and then you have the voice and mo-capping before you can turn that into animation. You have teams working on the 'environment' before dropping in the characters etc. Its a staggered development as they need certain parts completed before they can start the 'next' part or at least be a certain distance along. Different sections have different deadlines...

Usually in the last 6months, the game is at least 90-95% complete with just polishing and getting all the pieces to work together and then refining those. Its why DLC can come quite soon after release because they can start on it before the game actually releases. H:ZD began development in 2011 after Killzone 3 finished but GG still made Killzone: Shadow Fall and released that in 2013. Even if it had a small team until after Killzone released, they were still on hand to help when needed on Killzone but you can't have people sat around 'idle' once their Part' is finished and waiting until they have some 'issue' crop up.

As Spider-Man is due to release in 4months - probably 3 months until it goes 'gold', there is no doubt a portion of the team working on polishing and play-testing but I would be very surprised if 'everyone' at Insomniac is working on that. In fairness though the game does have DLC scheduled so they could be working on that too but could also be in the 'early' stages of their next project too.

I know its different for 'small' teams where they are all needed to do everything but bigger studio's tend to have people specialising in certain areas - like animation or crafting the environment etc.

Of course I don't expect Insomniac or any other big studio to be 'revealing' their next projects before their current project is released. Even though Santa Monica released God of War last month and no doubt ramping up development on their next project whilst a skeleton crew continues to patch and update GoW, I doubt they will reveal what that next project is.

People think it maybe too early for GG too but as they have a LOT of assets already created for H:ZD - inc a lot of character models too, they could be ready to show something - look what they achieved with the Frozen Wilds - quite a sizeable new area with some new robots too. Its possible they could have enough of their next game done to tease at least a small section of the area its set in with some dialogue in place that sets up the story for the next game - its just a teaser after all and not a 5mins+ Game-play trailer that could come at next years E3 for a 2020 (ish) release...

Sony don't need to show off any 'new' projects. They could have games like Wild, Shenmue 3, FF7 remake, Last of Us 2, Ghost of Tsushima, Death Stranding etc and that will not necessarily feel like E3 2017 which was quite similar to E3 2016. None of those were at E3 last year. Couple that with some new VR and Indie titles as well as the obligatory multi-platform partnerships (CoD, Destiny - maybe RDR2 and any others that may be partnered - Rocksteady's new game?) and you have your hour. That's without showing Spider-Man and Days Gone. Obviously God of War and Detroit may not make an appearance - not unless there is some DLC or sales statements.

One strange thing for Sony's E3 sort-of-conference this year is that they will omit Days Gone allegedly because it has a month coverage in Game Informer but that doesn't stop them from having Spiderman for the third year while it was also featured in Game Informer this year. It's probably because Spiderman is so close to its release but honestly, I'm sick of seeing that game again. I just want to play it. I've seen and read everything I need to know.

I've noticed too that they didn't mention Dreams. My guess is that they are going to promote it heavily on Gamescom, PGS and PSX if it doesn't come out earlier. Seems like they saved E3 for their biggest hitters.

It's a hard thing to market. How do you sell someone on Dreams when its been so nebulous up to now?

@KratosMD They can still show the game in a 2-minute trailer. But what's the point of going in-depth on Dreams? We've seen plenty of footage at this point to get a good idea of what the game is about. Death Stranding, TLOU and Ghost of Tsushima all get their gameplay reveals in a big gameplay demo I suppose. And Spider-Man is their upcoming big hitter, so it makes sense to promote that one.