E3 Press Conference Schedule The Electronic Entertainment Expo is held in June each year in Los Angeles, CA. Each year the major publishers in the video game industry hold major press events where they fill auditoriums with the press (as well as investors) and show off the games they are releasing. If it helps, you can picture the press events given by Tim Cook over at Apple when they announce the new iPhones. Below is a list of the different press events that are being held. Sunday June 14th Bethesda Software 6pm PST Bethesda has never held an E3 press event in its history. It appears that the vast majority of their conference will be focused on Fallout 4 which isn’t exactly a family friendly title. But, Bethesda has a whole bunch of development studios so they could surprise us. It is also worth noting that their games are events, so anything that they release will have a HUGE impact on other video game releases. Think of it like movies. No one would release an action movie the same day as The Avengers 2 right? This is a similar type of phenomenon.
Monday June 15th
Microsoft
9am PST Microsoft came out of the gate in this console generation with a massive messaging problem. Their dedicated fans from the 360 era were jumping ship to the PlayStation brand quickly thanks to a more expensive Xbox One and the inclusion of the much-maligned Kinect. Those days appear to be behind us and Microsoft could very easily make up lost ground in 2015 thanks to an amazing lineup of exclusive games coming this holiday (HALO 5, Forza Motorsports 6, and Tomb Raider). This year’s E3 press event is reportedly going to be laser focused on exclusive, first party content (meaning that many of the games will be developed by companies Microsoft owns). It will be exciting. One thing for parents to keep in mind: Microsoft owns a little company called Mojang. They made a small arthouse game that you might have heard of once or twice called Minecraft.
Electronic Arts
12pm PST Electronic Arts is the company behind the Madden Football, FIFA Soccer, and a number of other sports series. We always hear about the tech dedicated to those games at the E3 briefing. But, EA will likely be bringing a lot more thunder this year thanks to their exclusive contract with Disney for Star Wars related games. We already know about Star Wars Battlefront that will be releasing later this year. We will probably even see some gameplay footage. But, I would be stunned if that was the only Star Wars game released this year considering the buildup to Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
Ubisoft
3pm PST Ubisoft is the company responsible for the Assassin’s Creed franchise so we can rest assured that we will hear a LOT about the much anticipated Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. But, they have also released several Rayman titles, Valiant Hearts, and Child of Light in recent years. We will never really know what is coming from them until the show is over.
Sony
6pm PST Sony is riding high on the success of the PlayStation 4. It is among the fastest selling consoles in history and is maintaining momentum nicely. Their issue, however, is that their slate of announced first party exclusives is very light over the rest of the year. Sony needs to come out at this E3 press conference and announce enough games to keep the fires burning. It is worth noting that Sony has announced the release of a virtual reality headset currently called Project Morpheus in the Spring of 2016. If this launch is going to happen on schedule we should expect to see some VR announcements during their press event.
Tuesday June 16th
Nintendo E3 Event
9am PST Nintendo has skipped out on holding a stage show at E3 for several years now instead favoring the release of a video that shows off their upcoming games. The last few videos have been very entertaining and have readily shown off Nintendo’s quirky and fun persona. The only question this year is “What will Nintendo show? We know that they have no intention of discussing next installment in The Legend of Zelda series. We also know that they will not be talking about the upcoming, and unannounced, Nintendo NX console. So… what will they say? The reality is that there is a lot of mystery surrounding their presentation outside the assumption that they will talk about games coming out later this year like Yoshi’s Wooly World, Mario Maker, and Star Fox.
Square Enix
10am PST This is a peculiar one. Square Enix has not held an E3 press event for years, but it appears that they have enough games coming down the pipeline to make it worth the expense. A good portion of the program will likely be dedicated to games in the Final Fantasy franchise. Final Fantasy 14’s expansion “Heavensward” will release soon and will need some stage time and Final Fantasy 15 should be releasing at some point soon too. Square Enix is also responsible the Tomb Raider franchise. A sequel the violent reboot will be coming out later this year to the Xbox One exclusively. On a personal note, I am hoping for some information regarding Kingdom Hearts 3 even if it is just a screenshot or maybe a short movie.
PC Showcase – Sponsored by PC Magazine
6pm PST PC Gamer, a gaming news magazine, is holding their own press event at E3 to help shine a spotlight on PC centric games. We don’t have a lot of details yet, but as the PC gaming space is very open we can expect to see a wide variety of games of different genres and sizes. It promises to be very interesting.
