Chapter 74 - #74: Sony’s Views

Chapter 74: Chapter #74: Sony’s Views

Tickets for the E3 expo had technically been available for pre-order months in advance.

But the absolute second Ivan publicly announced that Nova would be attending the exhibition, every single remaining ticket vanished.

The speed of the sellout was genuinely astounding.

At E3, developers historically used their presentation blocks to premiere world-exclusive trailers, announce massive developer acquisitions, and reveal industry-shaking hardware news.

There were high-budget cinematic trailers, and occasionally, developers would even showcase actual, live gameplay demos to the massive audience.

It was one of the very few opportunities for the global gaming industry to converge in a single location and show the world what they were building.

The vision of the organizers was to reunite the industry by recreating the magic of traditional E3 week—to bring back that specific spark of anticipation and restore E3’s role as the definitive global showcase for both game creators and consumers.

In recent years, however, developers mostly used E3 to talk vaguely about what they planned to make in the future.

They would show one or two blurry screenshots, or a generic, pre-rendered character model, effectively just drawing a massive, empty pie in the sky to string players along.

It had gotten so bad that the community had actually started a viral poll every June:

[Who is going to be the biggest pie-baker at E3 this year?]

Eventually, players stopped voting altogether. To call those presentations "pies" implied there was something genuinely worth looking forward to.

Could you really call the half-baked, perfunctory garbage publishers were showing off a pie?

Several days before the expo officially began, Ethan and Marcus boarded a direct flight to Los Angeles.

Marcus followed close behind Ethan through the airport, visibly sweating with nerves.

This year, the global attention focused on E3 was unprecedented. Countless streamers had booted up their broadcasts early just to co-stream the event.

Some fans preferred watching the clean, official E3 feed, while others chose to hang out in their favorite streamer’s channel, watching the broadcast while listening to live commentary and spamming the chat with fellow fans.

Today, nearly every single content creator in the gaming category was locked onto the E3 broadcast.

The expo was scheduled to last for three days, but the absolute titans of the industry—Sony, Xbox, and Nintendo—always dominated the prime slots on the very first day.

"Wait, Zoe is actually at the venue? No way!" Silver read a comment in his chat and immediately scoffed, refusing to believe Zoe had secured a physical ticket.

Despite his vehement denial, his hand obediently moved his mouse over to Zoe’s channel and clicked her stream open.

While almost every other streamer was sitting in their bedroom reacting to the official digital feed, Zoe’s broadcast was an IRL stream from the actual convention floor.

???

She actually got a ticket?!

Silver stared blankly at her broadcast. Because his viewers had immediately started spamming her chat, Zoe noticed his arrival.

"Oh, I heard someone couldn’t get a ticket in time. Tragic. How could someone be so miserable?" Zoe chuckled, leaning into the camera with an incredibly smug, punchable smile.

"Ah, well. Unlike some people, I just bought mine."

Silver’s face darkened. "Dammit, she’s so annoying. Handing her an E3 ticket is like feeding truffles to a pig."

Unlike the official, highly produced E3 broadcast showing the main stage, Zoe’s IRL stream captured the sheer scale and energy of the audience.

The massive convention hall was packed wall-to-wall with international media and lucky fans.

Camera flashes popped incessantly, illuminating the various developer booths.

The major game developers were seated in a separate, VIP section near the front, so she couldn’t spot where Ethan was sitting.

As the presentation was about to officially begin, the massive house lights in the venue began to slowly dim. Seeking a better viewing experience without Zoe’s gloating, Silver closed her tab and returned to the official E3 broadcast.

The stage lights flared to life. The colossal multimedia screen backing the stage was a marvel of technological set design, featuring glowing, futuristic glass pipes pulsating with visible, speeding digital currents.

This was the video game industry.

It wasn’t meant to be a solemn, quiet exhibition. The stage was built to physically project the fantasy worlds it represented.

The host stepped out onto the stage. He was dressed casually, wearing dark jeans, a plain T-shirt, and a tailored jacket.

But the first publisher taking the stage wasn’t Xbox. It was Sony.

Xbox was still scheduled behind them.

Although Ivan had managed to aggressively narrow the market gap over the last six months, overtaking the undisputed market leader wasn’t something that could be accomplished overnight.

"Wait, huh?" Silver blinked, slightly confused for a second.

Seeing the massive blue Sony logo finally snapped him back to reality. He had genuinely forgotten this was a global expo featuring all game companies.

He had almost subconsciously assumed this was just a solo showcase for the sadist.

"Sony... man, long time no see," Silver muttered, feeling a strange twinge of guilt.

He used to religiously track every single PlayStation exclusive and studio acquisition.

But over the last year, his schedule and his mental bandwidth had been entirely consumed by Sprout Studio. He simply hadn’t had the time to care about anything else.

His chat echoed his exact sentiments.

[

TRice: Wow, it really has been a long time since I cared about a Sony drop...

LoreMaster: Don’t even mention it. I actually bought a few of their AAA games this year, and they just felt... hollow. Like they were missing something.

Revan4Ever: Yeah, I played them too. The graphics were photorealistic as always, but the gameplay was just boring.

NicoGab: Nova really proved that pixel art doesn’t mean pixel quality. Gameplay is king.

kindred: Bro, it’s actually scary. Sony just completely faded from my radar. The sadist’s grip on us is terrifying.

]

The Sony representative strode to the center of the stage, a polished, professional smile plastered on his face. He was here to aggressively market their upcoming next-generation console.

The console war between PlayStation and Xbox had raged for decades. Historically, they even deliberately timed the release of their next-generation hardware to launch on the exact same day.

Recently, Sony had noticed that Xbox seemed to be heavily courting a small, indie developer.

Initially, Xbox’s slow, creeping sales growth hadn’t triggered any alarm bells at Sony headquarters.

It wasn’t until the absolute bombshell drop of the Bloodborne trailer that Xbox hardware sales violently skyrocketed.

That was the day Sony finally realized that Xbox, backed by this previously underestimated Sprout Studio, was stepping up to the main stage as a genuine threat.

On that exact day, a senior Sony executive had coldly joked in a board meeting: One studio can only do so much. If they’re fully dependent on that studio, once something happens to that studio, it’ll all crumble into dust.

But publicly, Sony remained completely unbothered.

How hard could it be to make a video game?

Sprout Studio had only produced a handful of pixel-art indie games.

Even if they managed to put out one large-scale AAA project, it would never be enough to truly shake Sony’s iron grip on the gaming industry.

Pixel-art games could be comfortably played on literally any cheap PC. They didn’t move console units.

Every once in a while, a tiny indie studio would catch lightning in a bottle and go viral. But those games only stayed relevant for a few months before fading into obscurity.

What a console ecosystem needed to survive was an endless, churning pipeline of massive AAA masterpieces to constantly feed the players’ appetites. They needed to make the consumer feel that dropping five hundred dollars on a machine was a necessary investment.

Furthermore, Sony’s massive library of established, first-party exclusives was their ultimate trump card. That was where their confidence lay.

"I am thrilled to be here today to share some exclusive, inside details regarding the next generation of PlayStation hardware. We have achieved a revolutionary breakthrough in graphical fidelity and processing power. And to celebrate, we’ve brought some incredible gifts to show you all."

The representative stood tall, his posture practically radiating corporate pride. Out of the corner of his eye, he briefly glanced down at the VIP seating area where Ivan was sitting.

The camera flashes from the press pit exploded into a blinding strobe light.

"Thank you to the millions of fans who have always supported us," the representative smiled warmly. "Because of you, we are the undisputed leaders of today."

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