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Sony goes into this year's E3 on the crest of the same wave it's been riding ever since Jack Tretton's killer blows a couple of years back, when the company didn't so much grasp victory as sneakily pocket it while the Xbox One floundered in the turbulent twilight of Don Mattrick's reign. Microsoft has since made up for its early missteps and then some, cutting the Xbox One's price and unleashing wave after wave of big-hitting exclusive games as the console has been dynamically realigned, but the momentum has remained firmly with Sony all the same. The 22 million consoles shifted in the first 18 months of the PlayStation 4's life has already laid down a significant marker.Sony has confidence, then, and it's perfectly entitled to it. Confidence enough that its biggest hitter, Uncharted 4, has been pushed back to early next year, allowing Nathan Drake's foremother Lara Croft the limelight to herself in the Xbox One's (timed) exclusive. Confidence enough that it doesn't even feel the need to smash out big triple-A games of its own in time for them to be wrapped and placed under the Christmas tree. Microsoft goes into Q4 2015 with Halo 5, Forza 6 and, through its deal struck up with Square Enix, Tomb Raider. Heading into E3, Sony has naught to show for itself but a repackaged, remastered and slightly dusty Uncharted trilogy. Looking at the tale of the tape, when it comes to those big exclusives that used to be oh so important in console dust-ups, Microsoft must be wondering what it's doing wrong, and how it's still getting a bloody nose.
This wouldn't be the first time Sony's gone into the tail-end of the year with slim pickings from its first-party studios, and perhaps it's learnt that the game's changed. At this point in time, maybe it just doesn't need them. A large part of PlayStation 4's appeal - and the simple key to its success - is that it's the best place to play the biggest games, and that's looking no less true this year. When you've got what looks like a partnership with Star Wars: Battlefront, this year's biggest ticket - and a shooter that looks on course to put Call of Duty firmly in the shade - why not just sit back and let the players roll in? When you've got the boosted presence of Destiny's first major expansion, The Taken King - perhaps one of the few games that'll be able to hold a candle to Battlefront's inevitable success - why bother going up against it?
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