Ekaterina Bespyatova

E3 2021: how the market reacted to the presentations of Microsoft and Square Enix

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Yesterday, June 13, Microsoft and Square Enix held their conferences as part of E3 2021. We understand how the stock market and the gaming community reacted to them.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of ChernobylXbox & Bethesda Games Showcase

Microsoft’s presentation became a joint Xbox and Bethesda show. During the 90 minutes of the exhibition, the companies showed 30 projects, of which 27 will later be included in the Xbox Game Pass subscription. Among the most high-profile games were Starfield, Battlefield 2042, Atomic Heart, Forza Horizon 5 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl.

The event did not impress investors much. Microsoft’s stock price was almost unchanged: on the morning after the conference, it rose by a slight 0.016% to $257.93.

But the audience reacted warmly to the last presentation. Journalist Geoff Keighley asked Twitter users to rate Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase on a scale from A to D, where A is excellent and D is disgusting. At the time of writing, 55.7 thousand people took part in the survey, and most of them (48.2%) called the show excellent. Another 30.4% said it was just good.

Analyst Mat Piscatella said that the joint Xbox and Bethesda show could become one of the best in the history of E3. He also joked that the phrase: “play on the day of release on Xbox Game Pass”, which was in almost all the trailers shown, became a new version of the phrase “available for pre-order”.

As another analyst Daniel Ahmad pointed out, the presentation once again showed the value of an Xbox Game Pass subscription for Microsoft. Although consoles remain an important part of the Xbox ecosystem, the company’s main goal is to increase the availability of games through multiplatform.

But Microsoft’s presentation also showed one more thing — the corporation did not buy Bethesda in order to release its games on PlayStation. According to indie activist Rami Ismail, at the show Microsoft proved that the new items acquired by the studios become Xbox exclusives or at least part of the Xbox Game Pass.

Journalists Jason Schreier and Nick Statt also partially agree with this.

Many were waiting for Microsoft to announce the purchase of new game studios at the presentation. This did not happen. According to Tom Warren, editor-in-chief of The Verge, the corporation’s show at E3 has always been about games, not about deals or strategy changes.

Square Enix

The Square Enix presentation followed the Xbox and Bethesda shows. At it, the Japanese publisher presented games, among which Life is Strange: True Colors, Guardians of the Galaxy, Babylon’s Fall and Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster were noted.

The day after the show, the value of one Square Enix stock fell from ¥5940 ($54) to ¥5660 ($51.4).

The lion’s share of viewers did not like the presentation of the company very much. According to a survey by Jeff Keeley, over 14 thousand people (41.8% of respondents) rated this show D — disgusting. Another 31.4% called it bad. Nevertheless, 26.9% said it was interesting.

Most of them were just bored: Square Enix showed almost nothing interesting, besides, almost a third of the presentation was devoted to the Guardians of the Galaxy game. As noted by Jason Wilson, managing editor of GamesBeat, a barrage of criticism almost always falls on the publisher’s show, but this time the Japanese did not understand their audience at all.

 

The gaming community was also perplexed by the fact that Square Enix decided not to publish a pixel collection of the first six parts of Final Fantasy on the Nintendo Switch.

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