PS4 VS. XBOX One! Battlefield: E3
As everyone in the gaming world knows, it’s that time of year again. It’s time for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3, to come to town. Hosted in Los Angeles, E3 is sure to showcase new and exciting games and consoles that will change the industry as we know it. The biggest attraction probably being the displays of Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One; ending the seven year dry spell the two companies have had in coming out with new consoles.
With the recent rise in popularity of mobile, tablet and social games, console makers such as Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have their work cut out for them. According to an article in USA Today, free and mobile gamers are up 2% from 2012, which make up the largest percentage of the video game playing audience at 29%. But don’t worry console gamers, all 3 companies are prepared to fight back with the release of new consoles.
If you haven’t heard about the new Xbox One or the PlaySation 4, you must have been hiding under a rock, playing Pong on Atari for the past few months. There has been a lot of hype and speculation floating around about what these consoles will be like and what new and exciting features they will have. Along with other surprises E3 has in store, plan to find out what the PS4 will look like, what the new systems will cost, and what games will be released for each system. Even though the focus will be heavily put on games for the new systems, the entertainment content will be highlighted as well in order to catch people’s attention. All the new systems will include entertainment apps and are hoping to broaden their feature sets beyond gaming.
Hoping to rise from the shadows of the PS4 and Xbox One, Nintendo and their new console that was released in November of last year, the Wii U, will be trying to make a comeback at E3. Struggling to spark gamer’s interest, Nintendo needs to showcase a strong lineup of games at E3 to help bounce back from the slower sales pace of the Wii U and compete with the new systems from Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo has definitely been less forthcoming about what they intend to show at E3, but they are sure to have a few tricks up their sleeves.
With the influx of new gaming systems, many video game developers have been hard at work coming out with the next generation of games, with better graphics and enhanced gameplay. Amidst these new and exciting games are Bungie’s Destiny, Call of Duty: Ghosts, EA Games Battlefield 4, Ubisoft’s Assassins Creed 4 and many, many more. Not only will these games have better lighting and environments, but they will also have impressive human characters as well as better stories, due to the increased processing power these new machines provide.
The most important question is what this will mean for the video game industry as a whole. With the release of these 2 new consoles at the end of this year, many studios will be very busy gearing up to create new games using new or updated game engines. This equates to more jobs, and possibly a shift from increased activity from mobile developers to increased activity from big name console developers.
If you are one of the lucky ones headed to E3 this year, be prepared to be wowed. Although that can most likely be said of E3 every year, this year should be even more epic with all the hoopla surrounding the new consoles. It is something that the dedicated console gamers, as well as the developers who make games for them, have been yearning for.