“What? It’s Friday and there’s no Let’s Talk?” I hear you cry. Well fear not, the Let’s Talk series is not gone but will be taking a week off from time to time. In its place is ‘Get off the Fence’, much like Let’s Talk, we get all our talented writers together to discuss a recent topic but with the twist that each of us must pick a side and tally up the results in the end. With the recent news that Sony will be skipping E3 for the second year running despite the upcoming launch of the PS5, we decided to debate who needs who more. Does Sony need E3 more or does E3 need Sony more? FIGHT!
No doubt for me, E3 are the biggest losers in this situation and definitely need Sony way more than Sony need them. They also need Microsoft and whoever else they can get at this point. There’s a whole other question to be asked here and that’s do we even need E3 anymore? Nintendo have done just fine for themselves since ditching the event and the Nintendo Direct streams are now a staple in video game culture with PlayStation’s State of Play not too far behind. Besides what benefit is it to either Sony or Microsoft to share the limelight with each other? Sure it’s great for us fans to watch the two juggernauts battle it out over the same week, but from a business stand point it doesn’t benefit anybody, especially when it’s so easy for these companies to run their own event or live streams. With the way things are going for E3, I give it just a few more years until it’s nothing more than a fun fan convention with the big announcements coming from elsewhere. And if you really believe that Sony will struggle without a stage like E3 then I’m afraid you need to take a look around and accommodate yourself with 2020.
Conclusion – E3 needs Sony
For me, it’s a no brain-er. E3 needs Sony. People have tuned into E3, visited E3 and reported from E3, hoping for the latest reveal of big news from game and console manufacturers, for years. Before recently, all the big reveals have come from E3. But since Sony went their own way last year, E3 has lost a big player in the business. And I applaud Sony for doing so. They don’t have to worry about trying to match anyone else’s presentations and can concentrate on presenting their own stuff, on their own terms. I have no doubt, like Mikey has said, we’ll see more of this from other names in the business. It wouldn’t surprise me to see E3 possibly become an Indie expo allowing the smaller studios to take the limelight, and I would support this too, 100%.
Conclusion – E3 needs Sony
I think Sony needs E3 personally. For me E3 is the time of year where I exclusively reserve all my hype-ometer for Video Games with very little left outside of this. I watched ONE of the State of Play’s and found it terribly boring so I never bothered watching them – instead just picking my news up from here and other sites and only jumping into things I already had an interest in.
E3 exists to get us hyped about other games that we may or may not know about and having it outside of the biggest event of the year ensures things get missed and people don’t care about them.
It’s all about time at the end of the day, I don’t have the time to watch E3 and then dip in and out of Sony’s mini conferences at 5pm or 2am or 9pm or whenever they feel like it.
Also I think Nintendo Direct is dumb and Mikey is dumb for thinking they’re cool (Sorry Mikey)
Conclusion – Sony needs E3
I’m with Luke on this one. I thinks Sony needs E3. I think the Nintendo direct argument is a reasonable one… But I think I’ve tuned into one direct in the history of all directs because like Luke I just don’t have the time, energy or will to watch 1 million surprise adverts a year, and when they are regular like that they become forgettable. The effort just isn’t the same. And they are often like little bitesized chunks that are just not hype enough for me. I like a big flamboyant reveal with lots of things for me to get excited about all at once.
I can’t tell you a single piece of interesting news I learnt from a direct and I’d probably never tune into a state of play. I like watching everything and getting excited. I just think that to grab my attention you need to impress me. Triple A games as of late have really disenchanted me, so just being drip fed information is going to make me even less interested about their arrivals. With new generations coming up I’d of liked to have seen the big ones battle it out.
Sony needs E3
Overall Result – Tie (Isn’t that ironic..?)
Become a Patron!