Xbox must learn the lessons of this year’s awful video game showcases

The one thing I can say in favour of Summer Game Fest is that at least it wasn’t as awful as the PlayStation Showcase last month. The Sony event was so bad I can only assume that it was organised by a secret Microsoft double agent, who ensured that on no account must they show anything people wanted to see and instead make it seem like all Sony is going to make from now on is online multiplayer games.

I don’t know if Sony was holding back because of Activision Blizzard or not, but whatever the reasoning was it was stupid, because it’s probably not going to work and now Xbox has an open goal for their event at the weekend. An open goal that they’ll probably miss by a mile because these games companies seem determined to outdo each other in terms of dumb mistakes any random gamer would’ve instantly advised against.

Summer Game Fest wasn’t awful in the same way as the PlayStation Showcase but it was incredibly boring. Oh look, Mortal Kombat 1, it looks exactly how I would assume it did. Oh look, Alan Wake 2, it looks exactly like Alan Wake 1. Oh look, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, it looks exactly like the last game but with open world bits. I’m not even saying these are bad games, just that we learned almost nothing about them from what was shown.

The other problem with Summer Game Fest is there was nothing that was really a surprise. I saw a few indie games I hadn’t heard of before, that looked quite good, but I’m not even sure what the most hyped thing from the show was supposed to be. Mortal Kombat or Final Fantasy I suppose, but neither of those were new game announcements or their first trailers.

I’m not necessarily blame the organisers here; they can only show what publishers are willing to share with them, but everything about the games industry at the moment seems so lethargic and minimum effort. The games are turning out great – I’ve been loving Zelda and Street Fighter 6 – but every single preview event for the last three years has been an absolute waste of everyone’s time.

But that does mean Xbox now has its big chance. Everyone has been criticising Sony for their poor showing so all Microsoft needs to do is pull out all stops, show off a whole bunch of new games that are relatively close to being finished and suddenly they’re back in the game.

I realise it’s not as easy as that though, it’s a big ask. They’ve got to make Starfield look like it’s not just a janky clone of Fallout in space, they’ve got to make people believe Fable is actually a classic franchise that deserves to come back, and they’ve got to not make Forza Motorsport seem like the boring version of Forza Horizon.

And that’d just the obvious ones. If Avowed or Perfect Dark are there they’ve got to show why we should be excited about them, something which most showcases have failed to do about their various games. Pre-rendered trailers are not going to push the needle for anyone – we all know they’re not real – we need to see something that is, something new and interesting.

Will Xbox get it right? I honestly don’t know. They’ve got an hour and a half to fill with stuff other than Starfield, which implies they’ve got a lot going on, but I swear if they start going on about Activision Blizzard and 150 million new Call Of Duty players I’m going to stop watching. Just shut up about your stupid acquisition and show us some games.

If they do well this week then suddenly it’s Sony on the backfoot. If their event is as bad as the PlayStation, well… they better start making plans for the next gen because they’re never going to win this one.

By reader Lowblo

The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.