https://youtube.com/watch?v=0l8nJ_liqrw

Twisting

The

Knife

Rishi Chadha, Twitter:

A look at the most Tweeted about topics during the annual event offers a fascinating glimpse at what got gaming fans most excited.

1. Nintendo (@Nintendo)
2. Xbox (@Xbox)
3. Super Smash Bros. (#SuperSmashBros)
4. Fallout (@Fallout)
5. Playstation (@PlayStation)
6. Kingdom Hearts (@KINGDOMHEARTS)
7. Ubisoft (@Ubisoft)
8. Elder Scrolls (@ElderScrolls)
9. Death Stranding (#DEATHSTRANDING)
10. Fortnite (@FortniteGame)

These were the most Tweeted about newly-announced games:

1. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
2. Kingdom Hearts 3
3. Fallout 76
4. The Last of Us 2
5. Death Stranding

These were the moments that generated the most conversation on Twitter:

1. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate release date is announced
2. Ridley announced as newest character added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
3. Elder Scrolls VI trailer is revealed at @Bethesda press conference

I felt Microsoft’s conference was the most compelling, but this is pretty neat.

I’m curious to see how Nintendo handles social for Smash Bros. Ultimate. Social is Nintendo’s Achilles heel. I’m not sure how great Twitter is as a global barometer, but I think this is good motivation for Nintendo to double-down on it as a focus.

Ben Thompson, Stratechery:

I’ve been pretty critical of the Xbox over the years, arguing that it failed at its strategic goal (winning the living room not just for gamers but for everyone) and didn’t make sense for Microsoft in the long run. Microsoft, though, has continued to insist that it was committed to gaming, and it backed that up at the ongoing E3 game conference.

First and foremost, if you’re not paying for Ben’s Daily Update, you’re missing out on the best business x tech analysis out there.

Ben’s latest regarding Xbox is a great snapshot of Microsoft’s motives for the future. Here are some choice quotes to summarize.

On Microsoft’s big acquisitions announcement of studios Ninja Theory (DmC: Devil May Cry, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice), Playground Games (Forza Horizon), Undead Labs (State of Decay), and Compulsion Games (We Happy Few):

The Xbox One originally lagged behind the PS4 this generation due to its misguided focus on the living room (including charging $100 more at launch because of the now-discontinued Kinect that was at the center of that effort), but the bigger problem has been a lack of exclusive titles relative to the PS4. One way to counter that is to simply produce them yourself, and these purchases augment Microsoft’s ability to do just that.

On Microsoft’s announcement of a game streaming service, “dedicated to perfecting your experience everywhere you want to play — your Xbox, your PC and your phone”:

Still, PlayStation Now requires a PS4: what EA and Microsoft are talking about is a service that works on any device, from a phone to a smart TV to a PC to a console, because all of the computation is done in the cloud, and that right there is where the Xbox suddenly starts to make a lot more strategic sense: Microsoft has a massive advantage in a future where games are predominantly cloud-based.

Ultimately, I think Ben summarized the Microsoft showcase perfectly. I do hope you read it. To end:

Indeed, I find this idea so compelling that I must formally withdraw my recommendation that Microsoft get out of gaming; I still believe that the Xbox was a failure in terms of its original goals, but sometimes failure leads to opportunity, and streaming seems to be a significant one, for both Xbox specifically and Azure generally.

I have to say, the Xbox event was my favorite of E3, with Nintendo in a close second. With that, I truly think Microsoft has turned a storytelling corner.

Luke Plunkett, Kotaku:

Fortnite players who had an Epic account on PS4 and have tried to play the new Nintendo Switch version of the game are reporting that they’ve run into a problem: they’re not allowed to use the same account.

That’s right, if you have played the game on PlayStation 4—even just once—that’s enough to have got your account locked to that system. It goes the other way too; if you link your Epic account on Switch, you’re locked out on the PlayStation 4.

This is maddening, but it comes as no surprise. To Sony’s credit, cross-network/crossplay is fairly new to the console world. That said, as I noted in my piece Sold on Cross-Network Play, “this is not a technical limitation. It is political.” The fact that Fortnight crossplay is supported across Switch, iOS, Android, Xbox One, macOS, and PC tells you as much.

In Cross-Network Play is “the Next Logical Step”, I noted the following:

Sony claims their reluctance of opening cross-network play is out of protection of their community. I think that is a fair stance, but is the Sony community any less toxic than others? I think the real fear is losing an amount of ability to lock in players to PlayStation 4. It’s the same case made for exclusive games and content; the latter I vehemently oppose.

Looking at Sony’s sell through numbers, it’s easy to see where their comfort of lock-in comes from. They likely have an overwhelming majority of the console base on their platform. Here’s a visual from my piece Some Numbers that Illustrate Nintendo’s Switch’s Massive Success:

Sony is going to run that lead dry of security loyalty to their platform.

But the majority of consoles aside, the masses are playing Fortnight. And if they aren’t on PS4, they are everywhere else. If that’s not enough for Sony to about-face, I don’t know what is.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9jRtpMKLsts

Finally.