E3 press conferences: who what where when why whom
All streams, all the time
E3, the event "as close as this industry gets to Eurovision", officially begins on Tuesday. Thousands of developers, members of the press, and gawkers will descend upon Los Angeles for the four-day trade show, full of demos, presentations, and questions like "How many guns does this have?" E3 unofficially begins before then, mind, with publishers and platform holders livestreaming presentations from Saturday. Most of the announcements come from these and, as Graham said, they are pretty Eurovision. What to watch and when? Here's our roundup of E3 livestreams.
Electronic Arts
Saturday, June 10
12pm Pacific / 3pm Eastern / 8pm UK time / 9pm CEST
Watch on Twitch
Expect to see Battlefield 1's In the Name of the Tsar DLC, Star Wars Battlefront II, Need for Speed: Payback, FIFA 18 (did you know Ronaldo's in it?), and possibly the mysterious Star Wars game being made by Dead Space devs Visceral. Also Madden and all that and whatever.
Microsoft
Sunday, June 11
2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern / 10pm UK time / 11pm CEST
Watch on Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, and Microsoft's own Mixer doodad (the rebranded Beam)
Blah blah Xbox Project Scorpio blah blah console VR. All Microsoft's Xbox One games these days seem to also be Windows 10 games so there should be plenty for us. I'd expect to hear about Forzas, Halos, and hopefully Crackdown. It'd seem a good time to announce a release date for pirate 'em up Sea of Thieves too.
Bethesda
Sunday, June 11
9pm Pacific / midnight Eastern / 5am Monday UK time / 6am Monday CEST
Watch on Twitch and YouTube
I'm hoping for an hour-long video of B.J. Blazkowicz's sad eyes blinking and averting their gaze.
Devolver Digital
Sunday, June 11
10pm Pacific / 1 am Monday Eastern / 6am Monday UK time / 7am Monday CEST
Watch on Twitch's Twitch as part of their First Ever Second Pre Pre Show
Devolver Digital swear blind they won't reveal any new games but they will have Grasshopper Manufacture's Suda51. That seems a fair trade.
PC Gaming Show
Monday, June 12
10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern / 6pm UK time / 6pm CEST
Watch on Twitch, Mixer, and Facebook
The folks at cheery RPS fanzine PC Gamer are hosting their PC Gaming Show this year. We already know something XCOM 2-y will be announced. Intel, Nexon, Bohemia Interactive, Xbox, Tripwire, and Cygames are official partners so I assume they'll show stuff, but personally I'm hoping the rest of the 17 hours will be people showing off weird mods.
Ubisoft
Monday, June 12
1pm Pacific / 4pm Eastern / 9pm UK time / 10pm CEST
Watch on Twitch and YouTube
Ubi's known games include Far Cry 5, The Crew 2, and South Park, and oh god will they please announce Assassin's Creed: Origins already this is exhausting.
Sony
Monday, June 12
5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 1am Tuesday UK time / 2am Tuesday CEST
Watch on Twitch and Sony's own doodad
Given that most games are multiplatform these days, Sony will surely show off plenty of third-party games that are also coming to PC. Microsoft and Sony do scrap over publishers to drop hot scloosies in their shows.
Nintendo
Tuesday, June 13
9am Pacific / noon Eastern / 5pm UK time / 6pm CEST
Watch on Twitch and YouTube
No, none of Nintendo's games will come to PC. So? Nintendo's streams are always full of wonderful things that lift the spirits. I'm always exhausted by this point of E3 (when technically it hasn't even started) and find this a delight. I haven't even owned a Nintendo system since the DSi.
That's the bigguns! Obviously a million sites will have their own streaming odds and ends with developers all over. If you're very lucky, you'll be able to tune into a livestream of me barely awake at 5am watching streams and talking to the bottle I've sworn off.
So, gang, what are your bets on this year's overused buzzwords? 'Visceral' is always a safe bet and our Adam thinks 'authentic' will do well this year.
Oh, and a hot tip: given how many people will be throwing around business terms next week as if they're Gordon flipping Gekko, you might want to use this Chrome extension which replaces the term 'IP' with 'immense penis'. I'll settle for pelting pennies at the foreheads of anyone talking about 'IPs', 'titles', and 'winning E3'.