The maturity of the console market and strong sales clearly rubbed off on the Microsoft and Sony this year. Each had their missteps, but they stayed on message and were the most interesting pressers by each company in several years.
Yet Sony and Microsoft took different approaches. Microsoft knows it’s well behind Sony and wanted to present a wide net for potential buyers. They succeeded; onstage content was bright, fun, and diverse.
Sony had the swagger of being in the lead. While Microsoft went wide, Sony went uncharacteristically narrow and minimalist. PlayStation VR got a mention, but the focus was otherwise all on games, many of them first party exclusives.
Microsoft delivered their strongest E3 showing in years. This went beyond expected first party exclusives. Almost every element – pacing, lineup, presenters – came together to underscore the Xbox One’s strengths. Yet Microsoft wasn’t aiming new features and games at the general public. Nor those necessarily torn between the PS4 and Xbox One. It’s aimed at the 60 million Xbox 360 owners who haven’t jumped to this generation yet.
To cater to the Xbox core, Microsoft leans on sequels that call back to Xbox 360’s boom years. There’s Gears, Forza, Halo and Fable, all out in 2015. Xbox One backwards compatibility is another big feature, the most consumer-friendly announcement of E3. The initial slate of compatible Xbox 360 titles is small, about 100 by year’s end. But that’s will grow over time, and the message is less practical than psychological. You want to play your old 360 games on the Xbox One? Go for it, and do so for free. During the main presser, Xbox head Phil Spencer underlined this message: “If you’ve been waiting to move from your Xbox 360, now is the time.”
I expect stability and predictability from the big three (Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony) E3 pressers this year. First, we’re a year and half into this generation. It’s past the bumpy launch window, but not far enough for new hardware iterations. PS4 and Xbox One sales are already strong, which reinforces a conservative playbook. And many games for the show have been formally revealed early or leaked. Yet there are unknowns that the pressers next week could help answer.
The “day zero” E3 press conferences by the big two console manufacturers feel like a relic of the pre-digital era: largely predictable, bloated, expensive, and with a lot more emphasis on style and spectacle over details. Yet they’re still important to set the tone and general focus of the Xbox One and PS4 platforms over the next year. In that regard, both Microsoft and Sony had solid, if unspectacular, B grade efforts. Microsoft played it safe but remained extremely polished and focused in the process. Sony had some more interesting, diverse announcements but were marred by some poor pacing and presentation.
Microsoft
Judged strictly by presentation alone, Microsoft handily trumped Sony this year. To answer criticism from last year, they stayed laser focused on games. Though their briefing lasted over 90 minutes, it rarely dragged, with well-crafted transitions and trailers between the larger titles. Xbox head Phil Spencer was clearly on a mission to woo core gamers back to Xbox, and it did so by playing to traditional Xbox boilerplate: racing games, first person shooters, and fantasy medieval combat.
Yet even with a solid effort, Xbox’s exclusives felt underwhelming and almost completely unsurprising. Forza Horizon 2, Crackdown, Fable Legends and The Master Chief Collection are sequels or reboots on existing IP. They’ll likely be fun, but it felt like safe genre territory Microsoft has heavily covered in the past. Also, as more third party publishers go multi-platform, we’ll see Microsoft’s genre reboots overlapping with other publishers (e.g. Ubisoft’s The Crew in the same space as Forza Horizon 2, Bungee’s Destiny competing with Halo 5). Die hard Xbox 360 fans now have stronger reasons to make the jump to the Xbox One now versus last year. But without a clear exclusives victory on sheer numbers or originality, I don’t expect Microsoft to sway those on the fence between the Xbox One and PS4.
Sony
In contrast to Microsoft’s showing, Sony, at least on paper, presented a more interesting set of games. Their exclusives were fewer but packed serious punch: Grim Fandango is a classic, cult adventure game from famed designer Tim Schafer and was potentially the biggest surprise of the day. No Man’s Sky is a very unique, indie sci-fi darling and potentially more ambitious than any game shown at E3. Then there’s Bloodborne, a gory RPG from the creators of Demon’s Souls. Round that out with a few anticipated indie exclusives for 2014, most notably Hotline Miami 2, and Sony showed off an exclusive (albeit occasionally timed or console only) roster that was more diverse and daring than Microsoft. And Sony was able to go toe to toe with Microsoft on their own set of exclusive betas and DLC for a few big name AAA games—likely a reflection of Sony’s stronger momentum and sales heading into E3.
Almost all those news was revealed in the first hour. Then came a lackluster middle section that dragged with a scattershot focus and left viewers with more questions than answers. They hawked a graphic-novel TV series with only concept art to show; its ten minutes on stage killed the presser’s momentum. A firm date was set for an “open beta” for the Playstation Now streaming service but few details on games and pricing were offered. The Project Morpheus VR platform was glanced over while Sony’s Andrew House punched down at the Xbox’s Kinect. The PS Vita was mostly ignored; no bundle with the PS4, no price drop, and few standout games.
Moving forward
Overall, Sony’s presentation felt like a slightly larger missed opportunity compared to Microsoft, but neither side was particularly earth-shattering. One factor this E3 has made clear is that many hyped games have been pushed back well into 2015, so it’s unlikely Sony or Microsoft will have a big system seller on its hands this year. There are two notable exceptions: Destiny (a strong performance could overshadow the Halo series and thus help Sony) and The Master Chief Collection (which, if Halo fanatics show up in droves for, could help Microsoft close the gap.) Either way, it’s going to be fascinating to see how each company positions their consoles this holiday season. It’s smaller, intangible factors that could now make a deciding difference among those that haven’t jumped in this console generation.
Where’s the Microsoft that hailed the Xbox One as the digital, “all in one” future of our living rooms? Now that the gaming console is available without Kinect, it’s a future that feels increasingly out of reach.
Granted, decoupling Kinect is a shrewd decision to spike sales and reach price parity with the PS4. And with fickle voice commands and a virtually non-existent Kinect gaming lineup, Microsoft hasn’t justified Kinect’s required bundling. Yet I’m worried this is a short term business call that could hobble the Xbox One in the long run.
With Kinect originally bundled with every Xbox One sold, Microsoft had a multimedia and convergence angle over the PS4. The accessory adds voice control, motion gaming, an IR blaster to control your cable box, Skype, interactive fitness classes and much more. While much of its ambition wasn’t realized on day one, the long term potential is enormous; it’s Microsoft’s trojan horse of a gaming console to win over a larger general public. If traditional core console gaming falls out of favor long term, Microsoft would be far better equipped to pivot with a Kinect attached to every Xbox.
Now without Kinect, the PS4 pulls ahead of the Xbox One in several tangible ways. First, raw performance, as evidenced by better frame rates and higher resolutions across several multi-platform titles. It’s a tiny, even negligible factor for every day consumers, but a potential selling factor among core gamers. Also the PS4 trumps Xbox on indie releases as well; Microsoft has been playing catch up with their ID@Xbox division, but their releases are less notable and diverse than Sony’s.
Finally, there’s the user interface, an underrated factor among a mainstream audience. While the PS4 “horizontal ribbon” style UI is a bit simplistic and lacks customization, it works effectively for launching games and tracking online activity. The XBox One’s comparatively complex UI was designed around voice for primary navigation; using just a controller is often awkward. Microsoft is claiming any controller navigation shortcomings will be addressed in future system updates but for now this puts a Kinect-less Xbox at a disadvantage.
In short, power, indies, UI and sales momentum all favor the PS4. What’s left are games. Microsoft will likely focus heavily, if not entirely, on gaming for their E3 keynote this year. They’re betting on their financial strength to shore up more first and third party exclusives than Sony.
Granted, exclusives have spiked consoles sales historically, most notably in the form of Wii Sports several years ago. This being 2014, I wonder if we’re in a changed gaming landscape. Like other forms of media, modern gaming user bases are now heavily fragmented across multiples tastes and platforms. I suspect big budget exclusives – the Halos and Mario Karts of the world – are losing their impact. Titanfall is a prime example; its twist on the multiplayer shooter genre was critically lauded upon release, but the game’s online community is far smaller and less active than the Battlefield and Call of Duty releases from previous years. The incentive for AAA publishers to go multi-platform has never been stronger: as budgets escalate, spreading a release among as many platforms as possible makes strong financial sense. Both the PS4 and Xbox One have similar, PC-like architecture which makes porting easier than previous console generations.
Even if exclusives are still the system sellers they once were, what if Sony comes out of this E3 swinging with a strong showing of their own? What moves does Microsoft have left?
It didn’t have to be this way. Perceptions of momentum aside, the Xbox One has time to catch up without gutting the Kinect this early; Xbox One sales, while significantly less than the PS4, are still strong with at least five million units shipped as of a month ago. The XBox One is even beating the original Xbox 360 sales by 76 percent when comparing each console’s first six months at retail. There are a lot of smaller, yet substantial actions to chase the PS4 on price; they could have packed in a few free games, a year of Xbox Live Gold, or just slashed the console’s price by $50.
Overall, the Xbox One could have been a device with a unique, even visionary ambition if Microsoft had stuck to their initial ambitions. However, sans Kinect, it’s a console without a strong voice and differentiator from its competition.
Tested’s Will Smith gave the Xbox One a second chance as a universal remote after a negative run last month:
As far as I can tell, Microsoft hasn’t changed anything with the way the TV functionality works since the Xbox One’s launch, but my behavior has changed. I use the TiVo remote to navigate to whatever I want to watch, but if I need to pause, play, or even fast forward whlie I’m watching something I use the basic voice commands. “Xbox Pause” and “Xbox Play” are reliable and work well, even though using the voice commands for more complex tasks remains maddening.
But it looks like there’s some serious power concerns that may keep him from using the setup over the long run.
Microsoft promotes the Xbox One as an all-in-one solution for your living room needs: gaming, film, cable TV, even home exercise. But the Xbox One leans on convergence to a fault. It’s a console whose overstuffed feature set, for now, has left it vulnerable on both price and its user interface. While core gamers kept sales strong over the holidays I’m concerned that the console will have a rough future with a mainstream audience.
Its convergence problems start with its $500 price tag. Devices that already carry the same feature set of core streaming services (e.g. Netflix, Hulu Plus) as the Xbox One are $100 or less. Granted, the Xbox One adds on high end gaming, voice and gesture UI integration along with limited cable TV control, but those additions for $400 are a hard sell for everyday consumers. And I doubt we’ll see a price drop anytime soon; the console requires high-end expensive gaming hardware to compete with Sony’s PS4 over next gen gaming. The Kinect, one of the Xbox’s purported main innovations, drives the price higher. Microsoft tacks on additional fees as well: a $60/year Xbox Live subscription is required for most functionality, a policy unheard of on competing tech devices like the PS4 or Roku.
Convergence across diverse activities also adds complexity to the Xbox One’s UI, an extra hurdle for mainstream adoption. Just compare the console’s preferred interaction method – voice – against interaction on competing media and tech devices. From my own testing, Xbox One voice commands largely work. But it still feels like a feature trying to find its footing; about 20% of the time I have to repeat myself or a command takes me in an unwanted direction.
80% reliability is a good start, but that’s 15% short of what it should be given the competition’s astounding performance. Consider the 1 to 1 touch interaction on a modern iOS or stock Android smartphone or tablet. Or the tried and true keyboard and mouse inputs on a desktop or laptop. Even buttons on a remote control for the cable box. These aforementioned devices “just work.” Granted, Microsoft’s voice technology is new and will improve, and there’s a game controller for backup navigation. But historically users outside a tech or gaming enthusiast base show little patience for new input technologies that work unreliably.
Then there’s added Xbox One functionality that’s puzzling. Things like:
“Snapping” an application like a web page or Skype alongside the right side of the screen seems like it would be used in a rare scenario.
Minority Report style Kinect gestures to move around the UI that are slow and awkward.
A Windows 8-like interface that’s visually striking, but occasionally confusing with a menu of very similarly sized and colored boxes doing different things.
Microsoft would argue that ambition takes time and that the Xbox One’s rough patches will be smoothed over soon. And I want the Xbox One to succeed; strong competition from Microsoft’s console leads to better technology from Sony, Nintendo, Apple and Google. However, other living room tech isn’t standing still. Rumors suggest the next Apple TV iteration will be ambitious. Sony’s PS4 runs select multi-platform games at higher resolutions with a more straightforward, gaming focused UI, which could appeal to the core gaming market. Drive can only take a console so far; with Microsoft’s missteps on price and UI, it’s unclear if the company can deliver on its promise.
And make no mistake, a device like Kinect — the device Microsoft is hellbent on shoehorning into our living space — must be seamless if the Xbox One is to capture the mainstream audience Microsoft is lusting after. In short: I have very little confidence in Kinect’s ability to respond quickly, efficiently or consistently and that’s an issue.
But the major issue is this: if you want to purchase an Xbox One, Kinect is being forced upon you. You are paying extra for a device that, two months from launch, feels like a rough, unfinished product. You don’t have a choice and that’s problematic.
I don’t want Kinect to be dropped; it’s got incredible potential. But from all accounts it seems like Kinect is half baked, tech not taken seriously by most gaming developers. What launch XBox One games are even using a fraction of the Kinect’s potential? Without that extra level of polish it feels rushed, rough and something I don’t want to pay extra for. Another reason my preorder is still for the PS4.
A big step in the right direction for catering to indie developers. Microsoft still isn’t out of the weeds: their decision to not make the Kinect required is baffling, and there’s many other moves that suggest a platform without a strong vision. But adding an indie friendly publishing platform is a uniformly great decision.
David Auerbach writing for Slate on Microsoft’s obsession with making Windows an essential part of the internet:
There was no room for a Stringer Bell–style dove to strike out and make a deal with an ambitious youngster like Marlo Stanfield (Google) or a wily long-standing rival like Proposition Joe (Apple) for a share of profits and a shot of innovation. (“It’s not even a thought, man,” Avon chided Stringer.) Why should they cut deals with the riff-raff? They had crushed Lotus, Novell, and Netscape. Office and Windows were stable, profitable behemoths. Sure, Linus Tovalds—aka Omar Little—was a perennial annoyance, robbing Microsoft of server profits by giving away Linux for free, but he didn’t threaten the main business.
Admittedly almost any piece that mixes in The Wire has my attention, but my mind’s a bit blown with this one.