E3 2014 Preview and Predictions: First Party Developers

Last year at E3, Microsoft and Sony came up to the 8th generation of consoles with the XBox One and PlayStation 4 respectively. Now, a year later, the consumer population has gotten its hand on these consoles, but only have played a few games on them. This year, Microsoft and Sony, as well as Nintendo, have to reninforce what their consoles will do with their software. Software companies, like EA, Konami and Ubisoft, also have to learn to adapt to these new consoles. Let's first look at the first party developers, who have to both sell their consoles and their games. Let's go in alphabetical order.

FIRST PARTY DEVELOPERS  
MICROSOFT

Last E3, Microsoft screwed up royally. They mostly dispalyed their hardware. They displayed their hardware as a console that turned any HDTV into a Smart TV. They aimed to make they hardware accessible to all, not addressing the needs and wants of the hardcore gamer. Instead, it seemed like they did everything the hardcore gamer hated. They did not allow backward compatibility. They required Kinect. They even allowed developers to add an additional charge for used games. They said to their audience, "Trust me, you'll like it." And the audience replied, "No, we don't," and they booed and hissed. Then Sony introduced the PlayStation 4 and Sony said, "We will never do anything that XBox will make you do." And the audience applauded and cheered. Gamers favored the PlayStation 4 over the XBox One so much that by the end of the E3 week, XBox had to say, "Just kidding. We're just like PlayStation." But it was too late. Now the XBox One was a mere copycat of the PlayStation 4, and it would take them the rest of the year to shake that image off.

Microsoft isn't fully forgiven for that yet, and they won't be able to shake it off this year, so forgot them winning the E3 Olympics. Yet they have the oppurtunity to rebuild. They will have to play it safe. In order to play it safe, they have to pull a Nintendo. They will have to stick to the old 1st party franchises that they and their fanboys have depened on for years. Unfortunately, due to the disappointment of Gears of War: Judgment, the Gears of War franchises has been driven into the ground. But look for Halo 5: Guardians, Fable Legends, Forza Horizon 2 and Killer Instinct: Season 2. As for hardware, look for XBox talking about the hardware update that is the 2 most requested updates by fans, including replacing gamertags with real names. They need to hook their fanboys back to XBox. Once they hook the fanboys, they can then work on getting the hardcore gamers back. After that, they can once again try to appeal to the casual gamer fanbase.

NINTENDO

Nintendo got the head start on the console race 2 years ago with the WiiU. Nintendo promised this WiiU would appeal to you (U), the hardcore gamer, by giving it better graphics, better online play and better third party support. Last year at E3, Nintendo showed its audience it had held true to its word. HD games displayed its 1080p capacities. Online sports games demonstrated that Nintendo players could play online like they could on the other systems. With the exception of EA, most of the third party developers kep true to their word, producing Nintendo game. Furthermore, these games took ahold of WiiU and used its touch screen and cameras to its full use. This added a gameplay feature, so much they both PlayStaton and XBox copied with smart phone apps. Nintendo demonstrated it could compete in the console war, especially with the hardcore fans.

Last year, the 2 big games were Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. Since Mario Kart 8 already came out, Nintendo will probably talk about its success. Then they will go into more anticipation of Super Smash Bros. They will focus on the game being true to fighting games and fighting gamers, such as the use of GameCube controllers and the new characters. I suspect they will introduce another casual Mario game, like a new Mario Party. Then they will introduce a new game from another old franchise. This will be Hyrule Warriors and whatever Legend of Zelda game they have planned. If they are smart, they will intoduce a game for the Metroid series, too. As for the 3DS, they will turn to Pokemon for Pokemon AlphaSapphire and Omega Ruby. These games are great because it brings back the nostolgia of the 3rd generation of Pokemon while updating it for the new hardware. Nintendo has the chance to take the lead in both the console war and the handheld war, and they need to grab that chance.

SONY

As said above, Sony took PlayStation to the E3 gold by simply saying that they weren't going to do the mistakes that XBox made. It's also given them the lead in the console war, in the sense they have sold the most consoles so far. As for the overall PlayStation 4, both hardware and software, they are losing. They need this E3 to present games that people will want to buy and games and will make those who don't own the console want to buy the console. Same goes for the PS Vita. As of right now, the Vita seems like an expensive 3DS. The Vita needs to make itself distinct. It can really do that with games that show off the hardware capabilities.

I expect Sony to take a different turn than Microsoft or Nintendo. Microsoft and Nintendo will stay focused on the familiar franchises. Sony, on the contrary, will focus on new games. The only new sequel I expect is Uncharted 4. All other games will be new. New, creative, original games might drag Nintendo and XBox fanbons away from their systems and to PlayStation. Prepare to hear a lot about the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita bundle. I believe this hints that PlayStation will have more games, if not all the games, will be using the the PS Vita as a PS4 controller, just like the WiiU has the WiiU Game Pad. This should be a good sign for Nintendo, for it will show Nintendo that other hardcore gaming systems still copy Nintendo.