A Title Card vs Six Teraflops: How Metroid Stole Microsoft’s Thunder

As I've said already, E3 shouldn't be about which company "won" and which didn't. Whether you're an Xbox gamer through and through, or bleed blue for everything PlayStation, chances are you've come away from this year's conference(s) feeling that there's some cool games coming your way.

But there's no doubt that one of the smallest announcements made in the official showcases, the presentations by the industry's biggest manufacturers and publishers, sent the most significant ripples through the social media accounts of the watching-at-home millions.

Going into E3, we all knew Microsoft would give us the lowdown on its Project Scorpio console, ultimately revealed as the Xbox One X, "the most powerful console ever"* as all of those shirts on the backs of whooping fanboys (and girls, presumably, but I pretty much only saw dudes on the stream). And it did. Six whole teraflops! What does that mean? Don't worry, we wrote an explainer over here.

(*At least until the next one comes along. Which it will. Probably sooner than we think. Because this is console gaming, now.)

Nutshell: the Xbox One X is going to make video games that you already know to look pretty great look a whole lot prettier. And people were excited about that. A lot of press reports kept to the skeptical side of things—500 bucks is a big ask for what is the third Xbox of its generation—but Twitter was full of upbeat, optimistic reactions, to both the specs and the price.

People were happy! Some made fun of Xbox's perhaps-too-serious-face unveiling of the console, full as Phil Spencer's tech-spec patter was of bamboozling facts and stats that kind of got in the way, a bit, just a little, of The Actual Games. But yeah, sure, the Xbox One X is a thing, and it could have been E3 2017's biggest thing. And maybe, to you, it was.

Sony didn't go for broke on VR this year, and a lot of their biggest hitters—in terms of budget-on-screen at least—are still some way off release, leaving their conference a little underwhelming. But that's probably more because we've been spoiled by their is-that-what-I-think-it-is-OH-SHIT-IT-IS-WHAT-I-THINK-IT-IS reveals of the past few years. Ubisoft, EA and Bethesda showed off their games, and their games were gratefully, graciously received—Ubisoft's show even starred This Year's Tears during its Mario + Rabbids spot. But, truthfully, The Biggest Deal of E3 was looking like that XbonX.

Then, ten minutes into Nintendo's brief, sub-25-minutes E3 Direct, this happened.

And then this happened.

That last one, oh boy, that last one is a doozy. (Just be aware that it's loud and contains swearing.) (And there were loads more to the effect of the above, apologies if I missed your own for-the-lols-but-actually-this-is-amazing overreaction.)

Now look. This isn't science. I am not in possession of the full breakdown regarding trend patterns for the hashtags #xboxonex and #metroidprime4. (I tried, but, here, see, the internet is a massive and terrifying place, and looking at these things is like looking into a trap in Ghostbusters.) But what I'm saying, what I'm seeing, is that A Title Card Alone caused a whole heap of people on the internet to categorically lose their shit. Just the name of a game, nothing else. No pictures, no CGI, not even a word uttered on the subject. The only information: "Now in development for Nintendo Switch."

It's enough. It's all that the people who've been waiting need. Which leads you to wonder: what if Sony had said anything more on the Last of Us sequel? What if they'd had the smallest shred of something on whatever FromSoftware is cooking? Would we be sat here today thinking: yeah, Sony was a bit flat this year, huh? Probably not.

That whole actions speak louder than words thing is all well and good; but sometimes, when words alone are the only action, they kick that adage into another dimension. The hype starts here, and no doubt Nintendo just sold a shit load more Switches while Microsoft still has some convincing to do regarding the merits of another upgrade.