Keri and I had the chance to hit up the PlayStation E3 2015 Experience last night and watch the PlayStation E3 Press Conference with a bunch of other gamers and it was amazing. I’m not talking about Sony showing off a bunch of games I’m talking about that thing that happens when you get a bunch of like minded people together and show them something awesome. You can hear the crowd around you go from whispers to full on cheering during a segment and it’s electric. At home sitting there watching the crowd reactions on the stream are still awesome in their own way but there’s nothing quite like being in the crowd. If they charged $10 for you to go sit in a theater all week during E3 and watch the press conferences live on the big screen with other gamers I would be there.
Being a Sony sponsored PlayStation focused event of course there were a ton of PlayStation fans in attendance. Normally this leads to weird fanboyisms but where we were I only heard this from a group of what I presume to be friends in the parking lot saying “fuck Xbox” to each other. However even one of them had second thoughts saying he would “switch sides for Gears” which I found amusing. I get it, if you spend $400 on a console and then hundreds on games throughout the lifetime of the system you want to make sure you bought the best. I don’t think that will over stop I’m just glad it was minimal throughout the night. Before the big event there were some playful jabs to a gamer who showed up wearing an Xbox One shirt but very quickly it turned to talking all about what’s coming. “What game are you waiting for?“, “What surprises do you think they’ll have?“, “Did you see the Microsoft Conference, I can’t believe they waited this long to announce backwards compatibility.“, “What controller do you like the best?” and so on and so on.
That’s probably the second best part of a gathering like this, talking to other people and getting their take on what they like. You want to debate the reason you would be dumb to not use a knife in Resident Evil 4, go ahead, think you have a good argument for why the new Xbox One controller is the best controller yet, step up. I’m glad to say no one got mad it was all just a good time with back and forth conversations going on all over the place centered around video games. Another thing, I think I was the only person with a PS Vita, there was another gamer with a PS Vita shirt but the Nintendo 3DS was in full force as usual when you see a group of gamers. That’s another reason why I would love to see the Nintendo Direct in this kind of setting. There’s no denying the 3DS as the gaming handheld of choice and hearing a crowd pop for each announcement Nintendo is sure to bring us would be a great. So if you have the chance to go to one of these theater experiences no matter who is putting it on go, even if you don’t have the console in question, if you’re a gamer it’s a fun time to hang out with a bunch of like minded people.
