With E3 just around the corner, it needs to be discussed how much Xbox will influence—if not already—and hang over Sony’s E3 2017 press conference this year like a sombre dark cloud. When Microsoft announced their Project Scorpio at E3 last year, Sony was clearly surprised by the reveal, as they said as much during subsequent interviews. Beyond that, their PS4 Pro was announced at an event that resembled a funeral later that year.
But this year, the influence that Xbox is having on Sony is even greater. Sony has locked up basically every 3rd party marketing deal they could get their hands on, including Red Dead Redemption (which was delayed, no coincidences here), Call of Duty and Destiny 2. Beyond that, they’ve toned down their rhetoric around power and performance. Sony has already revealed much of what they will show, beyond the third party games they’ve locked up as marketing deals, and then there’s the same bundle of games they showed last year, including Last of Us 2 and the Uncharted DLC (oh sorry ‘Exclusive Stand-Alone DLC that counts as a full game’. Like that’s a thing).
If that is all Sony will show this year, they’re in trouble bigly. With Microsoft so confident that they haven’t even tried much of anything to lock up third party games, going as far as to say that the best experience will be on Xbox regardless, it goes to show that Sony has mistakenly taken aim at PC as their main competitor rather than Xbox. At E3 this year, and beyond, every game will perform and look visually better on Microsoft’s platform, and Sony trying to squeeze themselves into each trailer is not only desperate, but it shows them panicking over the concept of consumers opting for an Xbox this holiday over the now defunct PlayStation Pro.
Now obviously Sony will continue to sell gangbusters during this holiday in territories outside the US and Europe, mainly due to Microsoft’s inability to launch a console like Nintendo can, but for the biggest markets in the world including China the option will be quite simple, Xbox will be the best platform to play all the games you’ll see at E3, except for the few games Sony will show whenever they decide to launch. But for that, you probably already own a PlayStation 4, which means Microsoft will be able to cash in while Sony’s sales will slowly taper off.
Beyond that, Sony is being targeted by Nintendo as well, with their highly popular console grabbing so much market share away from PlayStation it’s basically a massacre. In Sony’s biggest strongholds, Nintendo will continue to chip away at Sony’s dominance, until Xbox can come in and chip away some more.
Sony already stated that the PlayStation 5 is currently being discussed—strangely they take a very long time to discuss new platform upgrades since this have been going on since 2015—and the likelihood of them showing a new console upgrade is slim to none. Sony might however try and stem the tide by pre-emptively announcing the PlayStation 5 with lofty claims and promises, then not give a release date much like they usually do with their games. Their fans also have been counting on a PlayStation 5 announcement, since they enjoyed going down on Xbox because of a 0.4 Tflop difference in performance since 2013, and a 2 Tflop difference between them and Xbox Scorpio will be too much to bear on their already overburdened shoulders.
With the one-two punch from both Nintendo and Microsoft, it seems Sony is scrambling to remain relevant, with the obvious notion that they’re second fiddle to the ‘exclusives’ and ‘power’ narrative. Nintendo clearly has the upper hand with releasing blockbuster games every single time, given that every game they launch sell like gangbusters. Microsoft has the power narrative on lockdown, with the most powerful console launching soon. So for the average consumer, Sony have become an afterthought if you’re looking for either great games or the best console gaming experience.
Beyond that, my predictions for this E3 remain the same much to the effect of the Project Scorpio console being around $400—my money is on less—and that Microsoft will delay Sea of Thieves to early next year. But for the rest of the conference, I do expect to see a few surprises, and I am hoping that we do see Age of Empires in some form—not mobile—this year.
Microsoft is on the front foot, with Nintendo firmly burrowed in on the lower end of the spectrum. Sony is potentially in a very bad position, let’s sit back and see how they dig themselves out of this one after relying so much on the power narrative for the last 4 years, possibly enforcing their army of zombified media outlets to do their bidding, descending on Xbox like a pack of rabid dogs. It will be very entertaining.
This E3 will not be about the games, it will be about how gamers perceive each platform. Xbox clearly has the upper hand.
Dreyer was a regular ICXM contributor between 2016–2017, publishing 139 articles across opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news. Their work focused on hands-on reviews, platform commentary, and breaking-news reporting during the Xbox One X launch year and Microsoft’s wider Play Anywhere / UWP gaming initiative. They post on X as @dreyer_smit.