aj2009

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Sony Blows (E3 2010) Load Prematurely

Forgive the crudeness of the above expression, but there simply isn't any better way to say it, is there?

The fact is Sony's E3 conference was good, not great, and everyone seems to agree more or less on that. Some people were less than charitable when it came to appraising Microsoft's Press conference and Nintendo's was almost unanimously lauded as the "best E3 presentation in years" [citation needed]. Everybody seems very interested in who's presentation "won" at E3, and the answer appears to be this: Nintendo. Coming in a somewhat distant second was Sony and later on was Microsoft. Anyways, it's unimportant whether or not you agree with this, because I want to talk about an alternate universe.

I feel like things could have wound up quite differently for Sony in particular if they could have held out just... a bit... longer. Why exactly did Sony announce many of their AAA titles before E3? Yes, Portal 2 and Twisted Metal were saved for the press conference itself, and they were far from small announcements, and yes, Little Big Planet 2 and Killzone 3 are far from surprise announcements, but that doesn't really justify spreading around the goodness so thinly. E3 gets more press than any other gaming event during the year, and the object of the game is to impress, so why is it that the extra bang and wow effect Sony could have gotten by revealing KZ3 in 3D, LBP2 and Infamous 2 at E3 was sacrificed so willingly just to get some buzz on the net early on?

I've had the thought that maybe Sony was concerned with the possibility of overloading the press with juicy news, perhaps worrying that announcements (for example) like LBP2 might overshadow the Portal 2 announcement (or vice versa, depending on who you're talking to). I think if one were to consider Sony's presentation "great" they would be hard pressed to account for all that greatness with one aspect of the conference, so perhaps this strategy was not so ill-conceived. What gave Sony presence was the laundry list of big titles, with Move being a feature rather than the feature... unlike the 3DS, for example, which was essentially THE story for Nintendo (add in a Zelda game and bam, "best in years").

If Sony was more concerned with the media's metabolism and they were correct to employ the strategy they did, then bravo for being clever, but otherwise, if they were wrong and saving everything for E3 would have both wowed the audiences and set the internet ablaze, then shame on them. I'm kind of divided between congratulating and condemning Sony's marketing think-tank.

Thoughts, people?

Trroy5777d ago (Edited 5777d ago )

E3 isn't all that special outside of the gaming industry. Sony did a good job by keeping their name in the mainstream for several weeks on end, rather than announcing a whole load of stuff at once that would have had trouble matching the 3DS anyway.

It's only strange that they didn't choose to follow up on Agent and Last Guardian, which it seems they should have been able to.. at least with LG.

Cajun Chicken5776d ago

Yeah, I agree. Totally. Sony could of won E3 if they didn't show everything everywhere else, but on the other hand, it made the spotlight on them and perhaps that's what they wanted.

Captain Tuttle5776d ago

I just wanted to let the writer know how much that picture cracked me up...I literally laughed out loud. Nice job.

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lodossrage6h ago

I don't agree with that. I WISH I could agree with that. But buying habits and customer opinions prove otherwise

We've seen developers in the AAA space try new things and ideas. More often than not, the customers aren't willing to give things a chance, or not enough people buy into the project for it to grow.

Creativity works better in the indie space because the budgets, pressures, and expectations aren't the same.