Reporting in - How the console makers faired with their showings
The last time that the three console makers hosted a showcase each, within the same period was E3 2018. Back then Xbox had Forza Horizon 4 and Battletoads, PlayStation dropped Ghost of Tsushima and Death Stranding reveals and Nintendo took the covers off Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Super Mario Party. There is no denying there was always something special when the three console makers debut new games. Of course, each of those shows also included third party and indie titles, with there being plenty to enjoy from Fortnite hitting Switch, to Déraciné landing on PlayStation VR.
But that was six years ago and while Xbox has been pretty consistent in its June showcases, including the year of Covid, Nintendo was mostly there at the same time, though they only had a Partner Direct last year. So for the first time in a while, all three console makers hosted a showcase - within 4 weeks of each other, these are the dates, for prosperity.
PlayStation Showcase – May 25th – 6am
Xbox Games Showcase – June 12th – 3am
Nintendo Direct – June 22nd – 12am
Of course, in the olden days they were normally within a few days of each other, but still it was great to see them all showing once more. With each console maker showing their current hand, we thought it would be fun to rank them, to see how they compared to each other.
Before we jump in, if you missed any of the shows you can check out our wrap ups for them, click here for PlayStation, click here for Xbox and click here for Nintendo.
First Party Reveals
First up, let’s talk about the first party reveals, that means games that got their first showing in any form at the event and as PlayStation was the first cab off the rank, let us start with them.
PlayStation
Concord
Fairgame$
Marathon
Xbox
Clockwork Revolution
South of Midnight
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024
Nintendo
Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon Switch
Pikmin & Pikmin 2
Super Mario RPG Remake
Super Mario Bros. Wonder
Untitled Princess Peach game
WarioWare: Move It!
With Nintendo we could get technical and include Detective Pikachu Returns, but they announced the game back in 2019, we just hadn’t seen it until now.
The Winner
Nintendo - So across the three, Nintendo offered up the most first party titles debuts, with their 6, 7 if we count the Pikmin titles as two games.
First party content
Ok, so that counts the reveals of games, but what about first party content that we knew about, how much did each of them have? Because we shall get to DLC down the list, this is just full games and again, let us kick off with PlayStation.
PlayStation
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Xbox
Avowed
Fable
Forza Motorsport
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II
Starfield
Nintendo
Pikmin 4
Detective Pikachu Returns
The Winner
Xbox – Xbox just delivered on their games, showing off good looks at most titles and that is before we look at the Starfield Direct.
Remaining Reveals
So first party exclusives are great, but how many games from other companies were revealed during each event, for the sake of simplicity, we are again excluding DLC. Let us begin with PlayStation.
PlayStation
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater
Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol 1
Helldivers 2
Foamstars
Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted 2
Sword of the Sea
Cat Quest: Pirates of the Purribean
Neva
Revenant Hill
The Talos Principal 2
Ultros
Xbox
Star Wars Outlaws
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess
Dungeons of Hinterberg
33 Immortals
Metaphor: ReFantazio
Persona 3 Reload
Persona 5 Tactica
Towerborne
Jusant
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Still Wakes the Deep
Nintendo
Mythforce
Batman: Arkham Trilogy
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince
Penny's Big Breakaway
Star Ocean: The Second Story R
Silent Hope
Manic Mechanics
The Winner
Xbox – With the most games revealed, by 1, they take the crown.
Xbox delivered 11 new titles, PlayStation had 10 and Nintendo had 7. Sure you could argue that the leak of the two Persona titles before the Xbox Games Showcase meant they were not ‘revealed’ during it, but that counts for those who were living on ResetEra or other gaming forums and not the general gamer.
Downloadable Content
So that is all the new stuff, what about the rest? Each showcase had a number of DLC announcements, while some may have only been brief, they all had something to show. Here is the breakdown of DLC included.
PlayStation
Destiny 2: The Final Shape
Beat Saber: Queen Music Pack
Xbox
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
The Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom
Fallout 76: Atlantic City Expedition
Microsoft Flight Simulator: Dune Ornithopter
Overwatch 2: Invasion
Sea of Thieves: The Legend of Monkey Island
Nintendo
Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet: The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero expansion
Splatoon 3: Sweet Treats Splatfest
Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope - The Last Spark Hunter
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: Booster Course Pack – Wave 5
The Winner
Xbox – Just the number of DLC being shown provides them with the win in this category.
Interestingly, most of the DLC shown during Xbox is also free, not all of course, but a good portion of it.
By the numbers
Ok, so we have looked at first party reveals, third party reveals and DLC news, but what about everything. Which showcase had the most games in them?
PlayStation had 34 games included in the show, which includes smaller items like the announcement of the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 1.
Xbox had has 27 games included in their show, which also included the brief Starfield trailer, which gave people a reminder that the Starfield Direct was happening right after the show.
Nintendo had 29 games, or 30 if you count the news that Pikmin and Pikmin 2 were getting Switch versions separately.
That means PlayStation delivered more content for their show. But what about run times?
So PlayStation delivered 8 more minutes of show over Xbox and a staggering 30 minutes more than Nintendo. When you break down the numbers to time in show that means, on average, PlayStation delivered a new trailer/presentation every 2 minutes, Xbox every 2.5 minutes and Nintendo every 1.5 minutes.
Of course, with PlayStation delivering a ~14 minute Spider-Man 2 presentation or Nintendo with their ~6 minutes of Pikmin coverage, the numbers clearly don’t mean that we got a new game at that rate, but its a fun little statistic none the less.
The Winner
PlayStation – They had the longest show and delivered the most games and they managed to keep a pretty consistent pace.
Hardware updates
There was also hardware shown off during the shows, so how does that shake out?
PlayStation
PlayStation announced two items, one is likely going to release without issue and the other one is going to be a wait and see. The item that will release are the PlayStation Wireless Earbuds, which are exactly what you might think, PlayStation branded wireless earbuds. They will connect to your PlayStation 5 console, but also your mobile device via Bluetooth, so technically that means they will also connect to your computer or Switch.
The item that is a little harder to gauge a release on is Project Q, the PlayStation answer to remote play. PlayStation have allowed remote play via the dedicated phone app for years and even went so far as to brand a Backbone mobile controller to ensure full compatibility with the app. Given Project Q has some tough restrictions, ie only in your home over Wi-Fi, it may not be the hot ticket item of the year.
Xbox
Xbox had three hardware items to show off, though two of them did leak earlier in the year and were officially revealed during the Starfield Direct. The first and only one from their actual show, is that the Xbox Series S console is going dark and by that I mean its getting a black paint job and doubling its internal storage. There are no other changes, it is just a black model with more internal storage for a slightly higher price.
The other hardware items were the Starfield branded Xbox Series Wireless Controller and the Xbox Wireless Gaming Headset. Both of the items were made available right after their announcement and all reports are both are sporting that impressive Xbox build quality and fun designs that look great.
Nintendo
Nintendo is the odd showcase out, as they did not have any hardware announcements at all during their Direct. They did of course release The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom OLED console earlier in the year, but that was not announced during their latest Direct, so it clearly doesn’t count. What Nintendo did debut during the show were two new amiibo for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, specifically Zelda and Ganondorf. Perhaps not quite as exciting as a wireless game screen/controller hybrid or a black console, but hey, can’t win them all.
The Winner
Xbox - Not only are two of their three announcements already available, the third has a release date. PlayStation have one completed product and one project and neither have dates beyond 2023 release windows, which are the same state for Nintendo’s amiibo.
So there you have it, by the numbers the winner is Xbox. They took out 1st place in First Party titles shown, Third Party content revealed, DLC content shown and hardware announced. PlayStation took out 1st place in number of games being shown, while Nintendo took out 1st place in number of First Party Reveals.
Of course, all this is in good fun and depending on your gaming tastes, you might have found yourself enjoying one show over the others, regardless of what anyone says. Heck you might have preferred the other shows like Ubisoft Forward, Summer Game Fest or even the Future Game Show ‘Summer’ edition.
