Microsoft, Sony and EA: Who Won Gamescom and Why

"I’m usually not the kind of person who likes to advocate a company “winning” a conference like E3 or Gamescom. If anyone “wins” it’s the respective developer for their game. Has there ever been a “Best of Show” award for entire presentations? Maybe that could be used as a reasonable yardstick for measuring victories between companies like Sony, Microsoft and EA."

[DarkOcelet]

Honestly i think Sony showed better and more exclusives while ms kept concentrating on the games that they announced why is by no mean a bad thing but i wanted them to show more exclusives , at least a cgi trailer of gears , their only thing that added a shock value was Rise of the tomb Raider and that awesome gameplay of quantum break . And PT was the best thing they announced which later became silent hills , beautiful :)

[Ezz2013]

Pfffff, Microny won hand down

[nX]

Care to elaborate? Maybe in terms of controversy but certainly not in terms of generated excitement.

[Ezz2013]

@bloodborn

Microny won because they are the only one who have games like Quantum break,Fable,Halo 5,Forza,The Order 1886,Bloodborne,Uncharted 4,The last of us .etc

also they have the best version of multiplat games on consoles,Best online,best controller and best graphics ever

if you don't agree then find the darkest corner and sit there and stay silent

[salmon_slapped]

I see what you did there Ezz. Agree 100%.

@bloodborn
combining names so basically the consumer/gamers won Gamescom

[Docknoss]

Microsoft showed amazing long duration demos for they're exclusives. Halo, Quantum Break, and Sunset Over drive demo's were awesome. Think the Tomb Raider bomb shell hit the hardest. Winning Gamescom.

[paulogy]

You're crazy. Sonrosoft was the clear winner.

Their breakout games like Ori and the Blind Forest, Cuphead, The Tomorrow Children, and Rime won me over.

[Ezz2013]

@paulogy

you can keep telling your self that *Sonrosoft* won
but at the end of the day *Microny* won by a mile

[bouzebbal]

if you are a real gamer you can't downplay Sony's showing! it was so full of games from beginning to end.
they had so many games to show that they started with trailers before the conference even started.

[btk]

Tomb Raider hit the hardest?
lol
Compare the sales figures of Uncharted vs Tomb Raider. Uncharted sells way more than Tomb Raider. The publisher just tried to avoid launching on PS4 against Uncharted and get massacred in sales numbers.
You will see what I mean when Uncharted and Tomb Raider is released.

[redwin]

What I like about NS is that they are showing things that are playable and available in a very near future, they are not bating you with CG for mid and late 2015. Chances are that when they project something that far it usually gets pushed back further. I think the only game that was left lingering with question was the MOBA, SMITE, which I'm very excited about. But don't get me wrong, I will be getting that BloodBourne and the order when it comes out "next year" .

[AngelicIceDiamond]

@Ezz What is wrong with you? You been acting like a fanboy lately with your comments.

"Microny" if that's not childish I don't know what is.

I thought Both had a great showings. Sony upping the bar in Indie support still unrivaled when it comes to indies support. I had a hard time telling indie from AAA.

Hell Blade and Wild stood out to me the most. Farcry, Shadow Of Mordar Destiny all look great. Share Play looks very interesting. Bloodborne is gonna be a killer.

MS had a great showing. They made it clear they wanted to focus mainly on this holiday.

Those X1 bundles look great. Sunset Overdrive footage actually looks way better than the E3 footage(though much shorter footage).

Fable Legends is looking allot better than before. Quantum Break was a show stealer. Scream ride looks really fun.

The Rise Of The TombRaider an X1 exclusive was a surprise.

Imo there's no clear winner. People can fight, argue, troll act immature all they want but both companies did great.

I simply don't care to partake in these arguments both companies did what they needed to do.

So they both did great.

Nuff said.

[Ezz2013]

@AngelicIceDiamond

lol Dude, Microny A.K.A (Microsoft and Sony) won gamescom

you guys really can't get what i'm saying for real ?!

[Pogmathoin]

Nice to see sense of humour here lads, better than my mom has more to offer than your mom playground crap....

Angelicice.... Tell me you were sarcastic please.... :)

[vickysud]

It's Hideo Kojima who won gaming at Gamescom. A true one of a kind psychotic legend.Especially with mgs coming to PC he has nailed it and then Silent Hills and he wants to do mgs remake.

All Hail to Kojigod.

[nX]

Sony did the press conference right, at least they got people excited... started the show with trailers for known games and then announced something new every few minutes. And then announce even more games on the Playstation Blog (like Journey, The Unfinished Swan, Ether One, SNOW, QUBE², In Space We Brawl, 99 Bricks Wizard, PIX the Cat, etc. etc.) so the last few days had something for everyone. Microsoft on the other hand ended Gamescom with yet another PR disaster.

I

[Immorals]

Wouldn't call it a disaster, I'd call it clever marketing. You have the whole of gamescom, and what are people talking about most?

[AD705]

Who gives a shit if they got the most attention from that bullshit deal that alienated so many people? Getting hatred like that for a lame stunt shouldn't give MS the win. They made themselves look like assholes with that move. What's more pathetic is that thats the only thing people remember from their gamescom was a timed exclusive deal while sony showed off actual new shit like silent hill, hellblade, Wild, etc etc.....

[Spotie]

That's like saying it's good if everybody in the school is talking about how you fell flat on your face when going onstage to give a speech. It doesn't mean your speech was a good one.

And, contrary to popular belief, there IS such a thing as bad publicity.

[funkybudda]

@Immorals,

People talked about Silent Hills reboot after Gamescon.

[Biggest]

People saying that there is no such thing as bad press must have been asleep since the day before E3 '13.

[ArchangelMike]

Sony won it for me, simply because of P.T. I have never crapped my pants during any other Gamescom. If you've played it, you'll know what I mean.

[DarkOcelet]

I have watched its walkthrough but damn it scared the $h!t out of me , if thats a taste of what to come in silent hills then we are in for a treat :)

[come_bom]

Quantum Break was the best thing shown... for me. But I haven't seen everything.

As for best conference:
Sony fanboys will say Sony's show.
Microsoft fanboys will say Microsoft's show.

Everybody is happy :)

[DarkOcelet]

Hmm the best , kind of hard to agree , but its definitely was one of the best :)

[MysticStrummer]

Quantum Break gameplay reminded me of The Order. Pretty but otherwise very typical imo. Before that demo QB was one of the most intriguing games coming to XB1 (to me) but after the demo I felt it was nothing special.

[xx4xx]

This is N4G.
Nobody can be happy.

[DeadlyOreo]

To be fair, I'm a Sony fan with only a PS4, but the Quantum Break gameplay was a highlight for me, you'd be an idiot to say that didn't look pretty good. But the biggest treat was certainly the P.T demo from Hideo Kojima after the conference.

[imt558]

Very odd that Microsoft showed Forza 5. That game came out 10 months ago!!

Project Morpheus was mentioned on Sony's conference. And it was playable at Sony's booth :

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Well, to bad that PS Vita didn't had some showcase.

Well, the truth is that Sony showed more exclusives ( i mean exclusives, not timed ) and NEW IP's than Microsoft. P.T. teaser was awesome. Well, The Order, Driveclub and Bloodborne steal the show in graphics department. Quantum Break looks good though.

[FayZ_]

of course sony wins, it's n4g., where gamers pay $400 on a console for indie games.

[3-4-5]

Just bought an XB1, and loving it so far. I'm definitely going to get a PS4 at some point though for the exclusives, but not until a price drop, so maybe 1-3 years from now.

That way, I'll have a nice stack of exclusives to play once I get one.

[blackout]

At the very beginning of Microsoft's conference Phill stated the most of what you see today will be releasing within the next 6 months to a year. Sony always shows an abundance of games with no telling when the are released. But Sony sure does have a lot coming.

[nX]

The question is, what's better at these kind of conferences? I don't think anything weighs more than announcing new games.

[alb1899]

Is not just announce new games, is about the quality of them and how close they are of be in your hands.
SONY does it a lot......drive club and the order have been in every conference!
Another thing impress me is that nobody believe that the first time Quantum Break was shown was a gameplay......until now, amazing!
Sorry for my English!

[NeoGamer232]

That is a very good question.

For me. Game announcements aren't as important as what I will see in the next few months.

The reason is simple. Too many games get delayed or cancelled.

I learned last gen not to count on anything. Too Human, Alan Wake, Killzone 2, God of War III were just a few games that got delayed "year(s)". And then games like Last Guardian and Agent never showed up.

To me, no game is real until their is a firm release windows, and no game truly gets my attention until it has a release date.

By buying into game announcements without any release windows, all we are doing is buying the marketing BS that companies are feeding us.

[Yetter]

actually getting a feel for how the games will turn out is more exciting to me. I like to see gameplay session and devs explaining the new systems they've designed

[BlackTar187]

Blackout,

Sony showed a bunch of trailers and said all those will be releasing within 6 months.

[jetlian]

yea like DC was to be near launch! how about secret panchos, war thunder took time to get to the us. How about planetside 2 near launch?

wheres the witness? saw alot of that during e3 last year leading to ps4 launch! wheres deep down that sony fans were claiming was capcoms' gift to them in early 2014 since MS got dr3?

this happens every gen with sony. sony took a indie montage and turned it into an hour long show! the order and bloodborn werent even in it

[asmith2306]

MS had the shock value of the Tomb Raider announcement, but overall I thought Sony had more to show. So Sony for me.

[ScorpiusX]

MS because it was once again all about the GAMES. For me that pretty much made my decision easy.

[360ICE]

Wasn't Sony? Apart from PlayShare and YouTube Sharing (which is kind of about the games too), I thought they spent surprisingly little time on PS Now and PSTV, and no time at all on Morpheus.

[ScorpiusX]

Yeah they talked games but like always they couldn't leave out #s. Lol

[Mega24]

Everyone won, except SE, which had a shit storm, and EA, EA can just go fuck themselves, I feel sorry for all the devs under EA.

[VsAssassin]

Sony showed a lot more games, though they didn't have that shocker of an announcement like TR2 being exlusive (for a time) for the Xbone.

Having said that, Sony won the conference for me. Their victory further got sweetened when P.T. was unvelied as the next Silent Hills. Silent Hills was like a poison - its effect happened sometime after the conference!

[joeorc]

If Sony's an konami did show off Silent hill in the normal way the impact would not have been as shocking as the method they did use..key point it would ruin the surprise..lmao and as a fan of Silent hill, now that was a suprise!
:-)

[wodan]

SONY for me RIME-WILD and PT and the game made by pixel junk studio.the bloodborne trailer and the order did it to me.

[Ashlen]

Hmm... I feel like the take away from MS's conference was negative.

I mean the only thing people talked about after the show was how Microsoft paid a boatload of money to buy a timed exclusive deal on Tomb Raider. And it's pretty obvious that the vast majority of people reacted negatively towards Microsoft.

After all that there was very little talk of the other games and things they showed.

I'm not saying Sony won but I'm pretty sure Microsoft and SquareEnix lost.

[alb1899]

Is a bad feeling for people who don't own an x1. The people that are saying negative things about this doesn't understand that this is just business.
They must grow up!
It will happen every year so must get use to it, is the same as destiny beta first in SONY......WHY they didn't complain about that?
Is a war!
I thought will be resident evil, I knew something like this will happen.

[DuneBuggy]

You know how when you watch a award show and theres usually only one or two highlighted moments mentioned the next day, and talked about around the water cooler? If "who won" is based on that premise, it was MS. Exibit A is the bazilion Tomb Raider articles.

[SaveFerris]

True. Because Nancy Tellem did say that 'Xbox is about to become the next water cooler'.

[GW212]

I will agree that, often, any publicity is good publicity. However, many of the articles re: TR were negative and bashed the business dealings of both MS and SE.

So the question becomes: is this a case of any publicity being good publicity or does this situation exacerbate the mounting bad sentiment felt by a growing number of people towards the XB brand? While the XB1 is selling well, it is lagging far behind its competition. This move appears to reek of desperation in the eyes of the public/media and we know how much the media loves a good "blood in the water" story.

[DuneBuggy]

I dont think that question can be answered now. Is it new hate towards the company? Or people who have no intention of purchasing one and feel the need to justify their own decision with a competitor.

[GW212]

I think it's a little bit of both, to be honest. You have your usual haters and fanboys but you also have consumers who have either purchased an XB1 or are thinking about doing so. I do think that the constant back-tracking (Kinect being a more recent, obvious example) and half-assed deal making is wearing on the latter a bit.

I'll admit that I'm one of those consumers. I like my XB1 and what it has to offer for the most part. That said, I was one of the people that jumped on it at launch and got all excited for Kinect and the snap function, etc. It's clear now that Kinect is a waste for the most part. The voice functions and such are cool but a mic would do the same thing. It's a little annoying that I was sold on it, paid extra for it, and now have a much more limited use for it than I had hoped.

I guess I'm a little frustrated because I constantly hear that the XB1 is about games yet, outside of Halo, nothing really piques my interest. Again, that's my opinion and may not be the opinion of XB1 fans at large, but I'm guessing I'm not the only one feeling like that.

I want to have a reason to be on my XB1 more than I am but, until Halo MCC, I just don't see that being the case.

[DuneBuggy]

I have a x1 as well. Like the Kinect and all, but if my daughter didnt use it for Just Dance...It wouldnt get much use. MS should have had some good Kinect launch titles like Dance Central. Game wise im happy with the system, but neither the one or PS4 have released a omg I must have it now title.....yet lol

[Zichu]

I don't get these articles because we always get the same responses from all sides, regardless of the convention...

Nintendo fans will say Nintendo.
Sony fans will say Sony.
MS fans will say MS.

The rest will say gamers.

[dendenmooshi]

"I’m usually not the kind of person who likes to advocate a company “winning” a conference like E3 or Gamescom."

"Guess who stole the show twice this year?"

Even the featured quotes were Microsoft loving and sony bashing.

There were no acknowledgment to Sony's successes and all hails towards Microsoft. TBH (and I hate to say it), this sounds to me like shill journalism. That or blatant bias from the writer.

[n4rc]

You can't win a trade show..

[MasterCornholio]

Well you said that Microsoft won E3 in the past.

So what's your point?

On Topic: Well I'm a fan of new IPs so in my opinion Sony did the best job.

[n4rc]

Did I?

I the exact same thing I said here..

I could have said I thought ms had the best show, which is true.. But "winning" is definitive and not a matter of opinion.

[mrpsychoticstalker]

Microsoft, of course. This is a no brainer . Better presenters, better content, better exclusives, better show.

[ziggurcat]

no.

sony showed more exclusives, and more NEW IPs.

MS relied on old staples (halo, forza, and COD), games we knew about 2 years ago, and money hatting 3rd party franchises. they didn't really show anything new. the only interesting things they showed were during the ID@xbox segment, and the quantum break gameplay.

[rainslacker]

I can't remember who, but there used to be a guy on here who would do a blog each year for the E3 conferences where he would set up the criteria to objectively rate each show by adding or subtracting points based on what what shown, and what was said. New game announcements got points, realtime demos got points, overly long motion control demos got them subtracted, sales numbers talk points were taken away, etc, etc, etc.

In it he left out the actual quality of the title, and the speakers themselves for that matter. Format wasn't a consideration, and it was mostly about the games.

It seemed to be a pretty popular blog when he did it, and it's eventual results followup blog. Maybe because it's hard to argue when you provide the criteria for who "won", which is what I see a lot of people failing to do.

Even your own criteria is entirely subjective, and if I had to guess clouded by your console preference based on your comment history.

[SliceOfTruth888]

Well Microsoft showed me multiple AAA titles exclusive to their system...some I get to play in mere months and they showed me game play for quantum break and announced a tomb raider exclusive....sony showed me a bunch of indie games and even though the PT trailer was exclusive...silent hills will also be on Xbox so what exactly did Sony show?

[btk]

Compare Uncharted with Tomb Raider sales. Then you will see - Uncharted outsells Tomb Raider by far. So it is really no big deal that Tomb Raider will not be on PS4 for a while. It is the weaker title of the two.
About the only real value in the announcement was the shock value. It is not going to make a difference in the sales trends of PS4 vs XBone.

[Slevon]

Dude, dont mean to put a damper in your argument but Tomb raider did sell as much as uncharted. I get that it wouldnt be true if tomb raider was exclusive, but sales wise not one of the uncharted's has it beat.

[btk]

@Slevon
Please check your facts
Total of all Uncharted: 18.71M
Uncharted 1: 4.75M
Uncharted 2: 6.40M
Uncharted 3: 6.37M

Now - Tomb Raider
TR II on PS 5.24M
TR I on PS 4.63M
TR III on PS 3.54
TR on XB360 1.71M

Sorry bud - but clearly Tomb Raider is a franchise that is going down with time. It was popular in 1997. Later games sold weaker and weaker. It is not even in the same sales potential as Uncharted.
It would be outsold 3:1 if it launched on PS4 - which is most likely why the publisher took MS's money for a timed exclusive.

[jetlian]

tomb raider reboot sold 7 million they said it before MS announced it was holiday exclusive. tomb raider has sold over 40 million as a series.

[btk]

Well...
I think the biggest loser in this deal will be the publisher. Undoubtedly TR sales numbers on PS4 would outnumber the XBone edition. Which it most likely still will after it is released on PS4. But Uncharted is going to take a lot of potential sales away from it on PS4 with every day that it is not on the PS4.

MS desperation is showing. It most likely only a question of time before they try to get CoD as exclusive.

[redwin]

I agree, I like that MS shows most of the games that are coming out now, not a bait CG of up coming title for a year from now that if history proves true will be pushed back to the holiday of '15. I want to know what I'm gonna buy "this" holiday. I don't want to be stuck this Christmas plaing an indie. Don't get me wrong, I'm getting The Order and BloodBorn when it comes out next year. I had the order pre-ordered until lit got pushed back. So, I'm getting SSO now in stead. I have both consoles, I can't care less who is winning. Oh, by the way, I will be getting TR this holiday.

[modesign]

its a opinion piece, the winner is whoever you want it to be.

[Godmars290]

MS "won" because of the Tomb Raider announcement, but subsequently lost for the same reason. By contrast Sony was only upright and forward. Brought new, post E3, IPs which they can honestly say are theirs.

[turdburgler1080]

They only lost to the crazys who filled their diapers to the brim after the TR announcement. It was hilarious.

[Godmars290]

The thing is that they came away worse for the effort.

Nearly post 2013 E3 worse.

[Baszs]

It is a opinion piece, this whole generation will be just that..

I like the approach of Microsoft giving gamers games 'this' year.!
And i do like that sony takes it further with releasing a lot of titles,
but when you don't play indie titles then it's a bit quiet on sony's side.
And that's my whole problem with sony, yes they released their console early,
but gamers till date only have some third party titles to play or a few unfinished or bad exclusive titles.

And to be honest, throwing numbers like 10 million sold ps4 isn't going to help, if you ask yourself where the games are.

And i think exclusives are going to be a bitch and a delight this year..
a delight to have and a bitch to miss. so save some money for both platforms i guess.

[Cherchez La Ghost]

I can damn assure you who is the looser at Gamescom 2014. My wallet! To many damn games!! LoL! But the game really has my eye was The Tomorrow Children. This game I want to play in 3D.

[pecorre]

P.T. and Kojima won Gamescom.

[TripC50]

Yeah, I liked how that was done. And I only own an Xbox one and Wii U.

[andibandit]

hmm it's like 50/50 about who won on this site(the most MS hating site in the world) so I guess MS won it with 95% to 5% in the rest of the world

[JMyers]

Sony showed more variety and more new IPs. Plus way better Indies.

[qwerty676]

I feel like Sonys had more to show, However their conference was set up horribly, middle of the show got dragged down by indies.

they should have started out with a good AAA exclusvie trailer

then get the indie crap out of the way

then spent the rest of the conference showcasing their big hitters.

I mean I kept waiting for Sony to deliver a knock out punch but then the sony guy walked out and was like "welp thanks for watching"

I was sitting there like "that was it?"

[ground_beef]

Regardless of who "won" gamescom, there's something really wierd going on at gamingbolt.com. When the new gen of consoles first released, gamingbolt (along with a slew of other gaming sites) were very pro ps4. Most gamingbolt articles were biased towards ps4, the good thing about that was that most gamingbolt articles were based on facts, and they were never "click bait" articles. Also though gamingbolt were pro ps4 they never encouraged console wars.

Now it seems that gamingbolt has changed their strategy. First off for the past 2-3 weeks gamingbolt have been totally pro Xbox and Microsoft. Most of their articles now are very biased toward Xbox, there's nothing wrong with that if you do it in a right way, not by flaming or click bait. It seems gamingbolt are now pro Xbox just so they can produce flame and click bait articles. Totally gone are the facts and sensible/logically written articles that were found in their website.

Gamingbolt right now is looking like polygon 2, just read their old articles from 2-4 months back and compare them with this weeks articles. It's a shame really. I don't know what's going on with gamingbolt, but they are definetly going down the wrong path.

Again there's nothing wrong to prefer the Xbox over the ps4 or vice versa, they are both great consoles, but you have to do it in a right way, based on logicall factual arguments, not trolling.